20 Essential Coming Of Age Movies That Changed Your Life

12. Napoleon Dynamite

Few low budget comedies have achieved such wide acclaim as Jared Hess's debut feature film Napoleon Dynamite. An ode to the nerds and the geeks, it's an off-beat masterpiece with countless memorable scenes and is undoubtedly destined for the annals of comedy history. John Heder stars as the eponymous student with a penchant for making extravagant claims about his life when he isn't fending off bullies and creating weird and wonderful imaginary creatures. He befriends two other outcasts at the school; shy girl with an unusual approach to hairdressing Deb, and transfer student Pedro - who decides to run for class president. Napoleon Dynamite is a film full of quirky and eccentric characters - Hess often veers towards the absurd but it is in this approach that the film's charm lies, embodied in the character of Napoleon Dynamite himself, a fantastic oddball creation if ever there was one.