Film

Kids

Larry Clark's most notorious provocation follows a pack of New York teenagers through one long, sun-bleached day of skating, sex, drugs and casual cruelty, shot with a documentary flatness that refuses to judge or rescue anyone. It's less a story than a temperature reading — queasy, amoral, and deliberately hard to sit with. Watch it for the era it captured, not for comfort.

TMDb rating6.9

If you liked this

mid90s2018

Jonah Hill's directing debut has the same skate-crew-as-family energy and the same tender/terrifying blur between older kids' influence and outright danger, but with a warmer heart underneath.

But It pulls back from the abyss where Kids dives in — some will find it too gentle by comparison.

mid90s poster

Skate Kitchen2018no page yet

Same NYC skate-scene verite feel, cast largely of real skaters, but told from the girls' side and with actual affection for its subjects rather than clinical distance.

But Low on plot and conflict if you came for Kids' sense of dread — this one's mellower throughout.

River's Edge1986no page yet

A dead body, a group of apathetic teens, and a moral vacuum nobody seems bothered to fill — this is Kids' spiritual older cousin, and just as bleak about the emptiness underneath.

But Slower and stagier than Kids' fly-on-the-wall style; the artificiality shows more.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The 400 Blows1959

Both films trust the camera to simply watch unsupervised kids making bad choices, without a script forcing consequence or redemption.

Truffaut's French New Wave landmark watches a neglected boy drift toward petty crime with the same refusal to explain, excuse, or rescue him — the blueprint for Kids' whole observational stance.

But Black-and-white, subtitled, and gentle by comparison — its rebellion is quiet where Kids' is loud.

The 400 Blows poster
More like this (8)

Trainspotting1996

Same reckless, consequence-be-damned momentum and refusal to sanitize its characters, just funnier, faster, and dressed up with style Kids deliberately denies itself.

But The visual flair and dark comedy make it a much easier, more entertaining watch — less punishing by design.

Trainspotting poster

Thirteen2003

Catherine Hardwicke's queasy portrait of a girl's rapid unraveling shares Kids' unflinching camera and its refusal to give parents any real power to stop what's coming.

But More melodramatic and score-driven than Kids' deadpan realism — it wants you to feel something specific.

Thirteen poster

Dazed and Confused1993

Another loose, single-day teen ensemble with real specificity about how kids talk and posture, minus the menace — a good palate-cleanser if Kids left you rattled.

But Nostalgic and good-natured where Kids is cold; almost the opposite mood entirely.

Dazed and Confused poster

Spring Breakers2013

Harmony Korine, who wrote Kids, returns to youth-gone-feral territory here but blown up into neon-lit, hallucinatory excess — same nihilism, wildly different texture.

But Stylized to the point of satire; if you wanted Kids' rawness, this can feel like a music video instead.

Spring Breakers poster

Gummo1997no page yet

Korine's directorial debut, shot the same year as Kids, pushes the vérité-poverty aesthetic even further into surreal, unsettling Americana.

But Barely has a plot and leans hard into shock imagery — even harder to recommend to casual viewers than Kids.

Paranoid Park2007no page yet

Gus Van Sant's skate-kid guilt drama has the same drifting, sensory teenage haze, filtered through a much more meditative, almost dreamlike lens.

But Fragmented and slow-burning; it trades Kids' rawness for ambiguity and mood.

Streetwise1984

Kids borrows a documentary's unblinking method for fiction; Streetwise is the real thing that method was imitating.

A documentary following homeless teenagers in Seattle, filmed with the same nonjudgmental closeness — these aren't actors playing lost kids, they are lost kids.

But Genuinely upsetting in a way fiction can soften; there's no script to hide behind, and no safety net for the people on screen.

Streetwise poster

Nobody Knows2004

Same premise — kids left to raise themselves with adults absent or useless — but played for grief and empathy rather than shock.

Kore-eda's Japanese drama about children abandoned by their mother and left to fend for themselves shares Kids' theme of unsupervised youth, but answers it with aching tenderness instead of nihilism.

But It's slow, quiet, and devastating in a completely different key — anyone wanting Kids' abrasive energy will find this too soft-spoken.

Nobody Knows poster

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Recommended by

Trainspotting, Slacker, Dawson's Creek, American Honey, Euphoria, Christiane F., Spring Breakers, My Own Private Idaho, Streetwise, Dogtown and Z-Boys, Pixote, Thirteen, mid90s