Teenagers & Adolescence

As someone who lives with obsessive-compulsive disorder, novelist John Green sometimes feels like his mind is spiraling uncontrollably.

Danielle Allen's memoir centers on her cousin Michael, who was sentenced to a long prison term for carjacking when he was 15. Three years after his release, he was found shot to death in a parked car.

Mike Mills' latest film, 20th Century Women, is inspired by the yearning to understand his mother who raised him. Set in Santa Barbara in 1979, it stars Annette Bening as Dorothea, a 55-year-old woman who grew up during the Depression and is struggling to raise her teenage son, Jamie, on her own.

Andrea Arnold's new movie about a teenage girl who takes up with an unusual group of salespeople won a the Jury Prize at Cannes this year. Critic David Edelstein calls it a "wonderful" film.

Arnold's latest film, which won the Jury Prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of a group of abandoned teenagers who travel together selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door.

The multi-talented Mike Mills has long worked on cool, edgy projects that mix art and commerce, from the Beastie Boys to the Gap.

Ryan Speedo Green grew up in a trailer park and did time in juvenile detention before discovering he had a unique singing voice. He now performs at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

The National Book Award winner's new novel is based in part on her memories of growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. Woodson describes the teen years as an "amazing and urgent moment" in life.

As their parents engage in a bitter real-estate dispute, the friendship between two adolescent boys deepens in Ira Sach's new film. Critic David Edelstein calls Little Men "quietly devastating.

Social media and dating apps are putting unprecedented pressures on America's teen girls, author Nancy Jo Sales says. Her new book, American Girls, opens with a story about one 13-year-old who received an Instagram request for "noodz" [nude photos] from a boy she didn't know very well.

Indian director Satyajit Ray first came to prominence in the '50s with the three films known as The Apu Trilogy. John Powers says that even half a century later, the films "still expand our horizons."

New research shows that teenagers' brains aren't fully insulated, so the signals travel slowly when they need to make decisions. Neuroscientists Frances Jensen, who wrote The Teenage Brain, explains.

If the story fell apart after 12 years of filming, it would have been a "real drag," says Patricia Arqette, and a "colossal waste of time," says Ethan Hawke. Instead, it won three Golden Globes.

Two doctors wrote a book that probes the environmental, biological and socioeconomic factors contributing to early puberty. These girls face risks like anxiety and depression, one author says.

John Darnielle's novel, Wolf in White Van, is about a man who survives trauma. The songwriter tells Fresh Air and finding shelter in music and the Incredible Hulk.

In the Teacher Wars, Dan Goldstein chronicles the history of the profession and current topics like tenure. She says the idea that teachers can help fight poverty has existed since the 19th century.

Boyhood is about a boy in Texas whose parents have separated. Filmed over 12 years, audiences watch him grow up — and his worldview evolve. The cumulative power of the movie is tremendous.

After college, director Destin Daniel Cretton took a job at a short-term care facility for at-risk teenagers. His time there became the basis for Short Term 12, a film that took two awards at this year's South by Southwest Festival. (Recommended)

From the writers of 500 Days of Summer, The Spectacular Now examines the not-so-spectacular markers of teenhood: the awkwardness and anxiety that everyone must endure. Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller are the two lovers at the forefront of this story based on a novel by Tim Tharp.