20 Essential Coming Of Age Movies That Changed Your Life
18. If....
If Y Tu Mamá También played out against a backdrop of political turmoil, Lindsay Anderson's epic tale of public school boys railing against the system, If...., can be seen as a direct commentary on the youthful spirit of rebellion in the context of the student protests in Paris,1968 (the year the movie was made) and the counterculture movement at large. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, If.... stars a young Malcolm McDowell as the head of a group of non-conformist public school boys who instigate a "revolt" against the school masters. Heavily inspired by Jean Vigo's coming-of-age masterpiece Zero de Conduite, it's a trenchant dissection of the hypocrisy of education institutions, subversive and amusing in equal measure. McDowell's performance caught the eye of none other than Stanley Kubrick while he was working on A Clockwork Orange - the rest, as they say, is history.
