Film

Twentysomething

Name: Twentysomething
Genre: Drama
Released: 2016
Cast: Ben Fankhauser, Juliette Monaco, Kevin Kolack, Bridget Gabbe, Tommy Schutz

Coming-of-age

A 29-minute film about a college dropout on her 22nd birthday, waiting for a rare comet while everyone around her demands answers about her future. It's intimate and quietly funny, capturing that particular exhaustion of being young and unmoored, of wanting to feel part of something larger when your own life feels small and uncertain. For anyone who's felt stuck between versions of themselves.

If you liked this

Obvious Child2014

Gillian Rooney's film about a comedian dealing with an abortion is tender and wickedly funny. Like Twentysomething, it trusts that messy life choices and offbeat humor can exist in the same room without canceling each other out.

But It has a specific plot point that dominates the third act. If you're looking for plotless drift, you'll find structure here instead.

The Farewell2019

Lulu Wang's film about family expectations and generational disconnect. Both films understand that the real conflict isn't dramatic—it's the low hum of disappointing people you love while you figure out who you are.

But It's a fuller, more formally composed film. Twentysomething's rougher edges and smaller scale might feel more like what you want.

Frances Ha2013

Black-and-white, 86 minutes, following a dancer adrift in New York. Noah Baumbach captures that same feeling: fumbling through your twenties while everyone else seems to have a plan. It's funny because it's true.

But Frances is more overtly comedic. Twentysomething has sadness underneath everything, where Frances lets you laugh freely.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Twentysomething

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Last Temptation of Christ1988

Both are about a person at a crossroads, pressured to become something larger than themselves, while secretly afraid they're nothing special—and both suggest that doubt itself might be sacred.

Martin Scorsese's controversial, three-hour film about Christ doubting himself. Like Twentysomething, it's interested in spiritual uncertainty and the weight of expectations others place on you. Both are about people paralyzed by the meaning they're supposed to carry.

But It's densely philosophical, religiously provocative, and extremely long. The tonal register is monumental where Twentysomething is intimate. This requires patience and comfort with ambiguity about faith.

The Florida Project2017

Sean Baker's film about people on the margins of prosperity, told with surprising warmth. Both films look at people living in the spaces between, and both find humanity in small moments instead of big revelations.

But It's a much larger film—longer, more cinematic, with a broader social scope. The focus is wider than one person's interior world.

Shoplifters2018

Hirokazu Kore-eda's quiet masterpiece about a found family making it work. Like Twentysomething, it's interested in how people actually live and talk, not in solving their problems with plot.

But It's in Japanese and requires subtitles. The pacing is extremely slow. Some will find it transcendent; others will find it testing.

Eighth Grade2018

Bo Burnham's film about a girl navigating the last week of middle school. It's not the same age as Twentysomething, but it has the same anthropological attention to what it actually feels like to be stuck in a moment you're trying to escape.

But It's about a younger person dealing with social media and peer anxiety. The register is different—more generational comedy, less existential uncertainty.

A Ghost Story2017

David Lowery's strange, haunting film about time and loss and what we leave behind. It's formally experimental in a way Twentysomething isn't, but both films are obsessed with small lives and large questions about meaning.

But It's genuinely weird and deliberately frustrating. If you want recognizable narrative and character arcs, this will feel more like an art installation than a story.

Boyhood2014

Twentysomething is 29 minutes about one day; Boyhood is 166 minutes about twelve years. Both reject drama as the measure of meaning. Both say: watching someone figure out how to live is enough.

Linklater filmed the same boy every two years for twelve years. It's novelistic, patient, and deeply ordinary—school, family dinners, fights that don't resolve neatly. It captures time passing in a way no regular screenplay could.

But It's three hours long and almost nothing happens. If you need incident, you'll find it glacially paced. Some find it profound; others find it tedious.

Stalker1979

Sam wants to see the comet; the characters in Stalker want to reach the room. Both films understand that what we're really chasing is permission to feel significant. Both films suggest the wanting matters more than the having.

Andrei Tarkovsky's Soviet sci-fi masterpiece: a man guides two others through a mysterious zone toward a room that grants wishes. It sounds like plot, but it's really about longing, doubt, and whether you actually want what you think you want.

But It's slow in ways that test faith—long takes, minimal dialogue, philosophical monologues. It's 163 minutes of cinema as meditation. Many people find it transcendent; many find it interminable.