The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

Phoebe Gloeckner's 2002 book mixes diary prose with drawings, and Marielle Heller's film finds a lovely equivalent: animated inserts spring out of the frame to show what 15-year-old Minnie, an aspiring comic artist in 1970s San Francisco, is feeling in the moment. Bel Powley is extraordinary in the lead, and Heller refuses to judge her. That frankness is also the caveat. Minnie's affair with her mother's boyfriend is at the heart of the story, so this is a sharp, uncomfortable coming-of-age film for adults rather than a gentle teen comedy.