Film

Short Term 12

Name: Short Term 12
Genre: Drama
Released: 2013
Cast: Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Rami Malek, LaKeith Stanfield

A quietly devastating character study set inside a residential facility for at-risk teens, told largely through the eyes of the young staff who are barely older than their charges. Brie Larson anchors it with aching, unguarded restraint. It's intimate, low-budget, and unsentimental — closer to a shift diary than a message movie — for anyone who wants empathy without tidy resolution.

TMDb rating

7.7

If you liked this

Moonlight2016

Barry Jenkins tracks one boy's fractured coming-of-age across three chapters with the same tenderness and refusal to sentimentalize pain that makes Short Term 12 work — beauty found inside hardship, never used to erase it.

But Its impressionistic structure and hushed pacing ask for real patience; if you want plot momentum, this will feel slow.

The Florida Project2017

Sean Baker turns a budget motel outside Disney World into its own foster-adjacent universe, seen through a six-year-old's eyes — the same instinct to find joy and danger tangled together in kids failed by adults.

But The loose, sun-bleached style has almost no conventional plot, and the ending is abrupt by design — some find it frustrating rather than devastating.

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire2009

A rawer, angrier cousin to Short Term 12 — a teenager surviving abuse finds a lifeline through one adult who actually sees her, with a performance from Gabourey Sidibe that refuses easy pity.

But It's considerably harsher and more explicit about abuse; the tonal warmth of Short Term 12 is largely absent here.

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The 400 Blows1959

Both films watch a child failed by adults with clear eyes and no melodrama, trusting small, specific behaviour over big speeches — Truffaut did it first, and Short Term 12 inherits his patience directly.

Truffaut's breakthrough follows a neglected boy sliding toward a juvenile detention center with unsentimental, clear-eyed compassion — the same refusal to look away from institutional failure, six decades earlier.

But Black-and-white, subtitled, and shot in the loose grammar of the French New Wave — a real adjustment if you've never watched pre-1970s foreign cinema.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower2012

A gentler, more mainstream take on teenage trauma and the friendships that make it survivable — the emotional throughline of Short Term 12 without quite as much weight on your chest.

But It leans more toward YA sweetness than institutional realism; the stakes and grit are noticeably softened.

It's Kind of a Funny Story2010no page yet

Set inside a psychiatric ward instead of a group home, it finds real comedy and real tenderness in a similarly overwhelmed, underfunded institution — a lighter companion piece with a surprising amount of heart.

But It's noticeably softer and more crowd-pleasing; if you wanted the unflinching realism of Short Term 12, this pulls its punches.

Manchester by the Sea2016

Casey Affleck's performance is a study in the same kind of buried grief Brie Larson plays so quietly here — someone who's built a whole functioning life on top of something unresolved.

But It's slower and colder in tone, with less warmth or hope threaded through the sadness.

Beautiful Boy2018

A different institution — addiction rather than foster care — but the same exhausted, loving vigilance of adults trying to hold a broken system together for one more day, one more kid.

But It's a fairly conventional prestige drama and occasionally tips into the kind of sentimentality Short Term 12 mostly avoids.

American Honey2016

A sprawling, wilder version of the same idea — young people failed by every institution forming their own makeshift family on the road, shot with a restless, documentary-like eye.

But At nearly three hours with a loose, meandering structure, it demands real patience and offers little narrative resolution.

Boyhood2014

Filmed over twelve years, it captures the slow, unglamorous accumulation of a difficult childhood with the same patient realism Short Term 12 brings to a single facility — proof ordinary life is drama enough.

But Nothing dramatic really happens moment to moment; it's a long, quiet experiment rather than a tightly built story.

The Bear2022

Both are about people barely holding themselves together who are nonetheless the only stable thing in someone else's day — the caretaking-under-collapse structure is identical, just moved from social work to a sandwich shop.

A kitchen instead of a group home, but the same exhausted young adults holding a chaotic, underfunded operation together through sheer stubborn love, with grief bleeding into every shift.

But It's faster, funnier, and more stylised — kitchen-set chaos and needle-drops replace the hushed realism, which might feel like tonal whiplash.

Aging Out2004no page yet

Short Term 12's writer-director drew on his own years working in a group home; this documentary shows the unfiltered version of exactly what he was dramatizing — same subject, no actors, no ending arranged for you.

A quietly devastating documentary following real teenagers as they leave the foster system at eighteen — the exact real-world hinge Short Term 12 fictionalizes, without a script to soften any of it.

But It's low-budget, dated in style, and hard to find outside library or archive access — this isn't a polished streaming watch.