12 Movies You Need To Watch To Survive Your 20s

The movies have spent a great deal of time evaluating and reevaluating the adolescent experience. Yet, while teen angst — not to mention the trials and tribulations of high school — offers plenty of fodder for drama, in many ways our 20s can be even more fraught. By the time we hit our third decade, we're not considered kids anymore, but we may not feel like we're adults either. After all, unlike reading and math, no one teaches us how to be a grown-up. As a result, everything from working our first adult job to finding a long-term romantic partner is a learning experience. More importantly, our experiences in our 20s are often a wake-up call that life isn't going to unfold exactly the way we expected when we were younger.

Given the splash of cold water that this time in life can be, the films that have taken it as their subject can offer a lifeline for 20-somethings who feel flustered and alone in their confusion. Whether it's the challenge of making mature adult decisions, the confusion of evolving relationships, or the pain of realistically reexamining our dreams, the movies shine a light on the struggles we encounter in our 20s but often don't talk about above a whisper. That's especially true of the following 12 films. While they don't all revolve around 20-something characters, they will nonetheless resonate with anyone who's trying to figure adult life out.

"Clerks" is the film that introduced director Kevin Smith to the world, but part of the reason it made such a cultural impact is that it captures a certain ennui, specific to many people in their 20s. The movie depicts a day in the life of Dante (Brian O'Halloran), a disaffected clerk at a Quick Stop convenience store who's called into work even though it was supposed to be his day off. As the movie unfolds, Dante complains about his lot in life, hangs out with his best friend Randal (Jeff Anderson) — the clerk at the video store next door — and moons over his ex-girlfriend from high school Caitlin Bree (Lisa Spoonauer), while overlooking all the thoughtful things his current girlfriend Veronica (Marilyn Ghighiotti) does for him.

Dante is unhappy in his dead-end job, but also refuses to go back to school so he can do something else with his life. Instead, he coasts along in a sea of indecision where nothing's too great, but nothing's bad enough to make him change either. It's a state of complacency that many adults can relate to, presented in Smith's uniquely funny, talky way. For 20-somethings though, the meaning goes deeper, as the story speaks to the overwhelming realization that each decision we make takes us in one direction while cutting off others, slowly narrowing down what's possible for us. It's a reality that could keep anyone working at the Quick Stop for years.

George Clooney was in his late 40s when he starred in "Up In the Air" as Ryan Bingham — a man whose job laying people off keeps him on the road the majority of the year. However, the film also featured Anna Kendrick in her breakout role as Natalie Keener, a young Cornell grad who was recently hired at Ryan's company. Natalie's youthful perspective and go-getter attitude have led her to propose a new, more efficient way to fire people via video conferencing. It's a process that would permanently ground Ryan, so to expose Natalie to the nuances of what he does and why it should happen in person, Ryan takes Natalie to several cities throughout America to demonstrate the techniques of his trade.

Throughout the film, the pair regularly clash over Ryan's attachment-free lifestyle — even as Natalie maintains romantic notions about how her life should unfold, especially regarding the person she wants to marry. When Natalie's boyfriend dumps her via text midway through the film, it sets up one of the most insightful and instructive scenes. Natalie shares the huge things she was expecting from her life by 23, while Ryan and his love interest Alex (Vera Farmiga) explain that as you get older you learn timelines aren't that useful. As Alex observes, "Life can underwhelm you." It's a succinct lesson for any 20-something whose life isn't what they anticipated, as well as an incisive glimpse at how our perspectives change as we get older.

When we're young, many of us are told we should aspire to a white-collar career at a company where we can climb the corporate ladder. But the realities of corporate life are rarely explained — especially the horrors of working in a tiny cubicle doing meaningless work. "Office Space" skewers the annoyances and indignities of this environment with ruthless precision through the story of Peter (Ron Livingston) — a young adult who hates his job at the company Initech. When the film starts, Peter is stuck in a rut that consists of an awful daily commute, a job that he finds utterly unmotivating, and a boss (Gary Cole) he can't stand.

However, when Peter tries hypnotherapy and the doctor (Michael McShane) dies just as he's putting Peter under, Peter emerges from the experience changed. Suddenly he's no longer willing to do things he doesn't want to, and the thing he wants to do the least is work. He barely goes into the office anymore, he no longer wears uncomfortable suits, and he finally asks out the waitress (Jennifer Aniston) he's been crushing on. Peter is happy for the first time in years, but he also realizes that his current path may be even less sustainable than the one where he mindlessly sat in his cubicle day after day. "Office Space" is a hilarious send-up of office culture that any worker will relate to — even as it ultimately concludes that we all have to find something that makes life worth living. And sometimes that means we have to accept that everything else in our lives will just be tolerable.

Sometimes the romances we thought would last forever in college don't seem nearly as durable after we graduate. That's certainly the case for Jenny (Gina Rodriguez) in "Someone Great." Her sweet relationship with Nate (LaKeith Stanfield) frays as the pair start their lives as 20-something professionals in New York City — reaching breaking point when Jenny gets her dream job in San Francisco and Nate decides against moving across the country with her. Jenny is devastated by the breakup and turns to the only people she can, her college pals Erin (DeWanda Wise) and Blair (Brittany Snow), who join her for one last epic night before she leaves for the West coast.

"Someone Great" shows a humorous, often moving depiction of Jenny's gradual realization that it's time to move on to a better future. Even as she mourns the past and her relationship with Nate, her resilience illustrates how sometimes growing up is about letting youthful romance go. The movie is also a celebration of female friendship in all its messy realities, and how even when we're at our lowest, having friends that support and care for us can make the journey that much easier. 

"Look Both Ways" tells the story of the way one woman's life diverges based on her response to a single turn of fate. In one scenario, Natalie (Lili Reinhart) learns she's unexpectedly pregnant on the eve of her college graduation and decides to move back in with her parents in Austin and have the baby. In the other, she discovers she isn't pregnant, leaving her free to pursue her original plan of moving to Los Angeles to follow her dream of making animated movies. "Look Both Ways" suggests that where we end up in life can hinge on a single decision. At the same time, though, it indicates we can continue to chase our dreams even when the odds seem stacked against us.

In many ways, child-free Natalie's path to becoming an animator is every bit as winding as that of the Natalie that has a baby in her early 20s. Moreover, the movie defies the age-old Hollywood wisdom about soulmates by having Natalie find the right partner just where she is — a potent demonstration of the fact that adult romances can be as much about choice and timing as anything else. "Look Both Ways" will be meaningful to anyone who's reached a fork in the road and is struggling to decide which way to go. While we would never be able to experience the possibilities in the same way Natalie does, it offers plenty of food for thought about the power of decisions and their consequences.

Finding lasting romance often depends on shedding our fairy-tale notions of what love is supposed to be. This is where things start to go wrong between Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) in "500 Days of Summer," who meet when Summer is hired at the greeting card company where Tom works. Summer is clear from the start that she's not interested in a relationship with Tom, but Tom — who still believes in things like soulmates and love at first sight — falls in love with Summer anyway and is then surprised when she abruptly breaks things off. From the start, Tom is too caught up in his own notion of who Summer is and what their relationship should be to notice that his fantasy and reality don't always line up.

The appealing "500 Days of Summer" uses a nonlinear structure to tell a boy meets girl story that doesn't adhere to the traditional rom-com beats — flicking backward and forward in Tom and Summer's unusual relationship. By tracking Tom and Summer's relationship from beginning to end and beyond — until Tom finally starts to move on from the woman he thought he could spend the rest of his life with — the movie tells some hard truths about the realities of modern-day romance — realities that many will learn for themselves in their 20s, even if Tom isn't among them.