The Best New YA Films Coming to Theatres

Young adult (YA) fiction has been around, in various forms, for as long as there has been literature. But the vast success of “Harry Potter,” both at the bookshop and on the big screen, turned YA film adaptations into a veritable industry.

This year, a wide variety of young adult movies is coming to AMC, based on novels that feature elements of fantasy, tragedy, romance and even horror. Here are the best new YA movies coming to theatres.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

[Credit: CBS Films / Lionsgate]

Yep, it’s a horror movie but technically it’s also a YA adaptation, as the film is based on stories in the three-volume book series that scared a whole bunch of kids, beginning in 1981. Producer Guillermo del Toro (THE SHAPE OF WATER) and director André Øvredal (TROLLHUNTER) have crafted a story in which a young girl channels her horrible secrets into a book of scary stories, which, when discovered by a group of kids decades later, unleashes its terrors on the real world. (August 9)

Where’d You Go, Bernadette

[Credit: Annapurna Pictures]

When Bernadette Fox (Cate Blanchett) disappears, her 15-year-old daughter, Bee (Emma Nelson), sets out to discover the story behind her missing mom in this adaptation of Maria Semple’s novel directed by Richard Linklater (BOYHOOD). The results of the search are … complicated, just as Bernadette was. Bee’s mother rather famously didn’t like, well, anyone. Naturally, the teen Bee believes the disappearance to be her own fault. WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE is a story about the tension between childhood and adulthood and the process of coming to understand all of the things that parents compartmentalize in order to build the illusion of stability. (August 16)

Little Women

[Credit: Sony Pictures Classics]

Greta Gerwig writes and directs the latest adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s archetypal YA novel. The film will focus primarily on the teen years of the four March sisters, played by Saoirse Ronan (above, in THE SEAGULL), Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlen. The girls move to a new home with their mother (Laura Dern) while their father serves in the Union Army during the Civil War. Gerwig’s previous film, LADY BIRD, was a wonderful new take on the coming-of-age story, so we can’t wait to see what she does with a foundational classic. The all-star cast also features Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet, James Norton, Louis Garrel, Bob Odenkirk, Chris Cooper and Abby Quinn. (December 25)

Artemis Fowl

[Credit: Walt Disney Pictures]

The beloved science fiction YA series by Eoin Colfer finally hits the big screen. Kenneth Branagh (CINDERELLA, THOR) directs the story of Artemis, played by Ferdia Shaw, a 12-year-old genius who is a descendant of a long line of criminal masterminds. When his father goes missing, Artemis sets out to find him — and to prove the existence of fairies, which could be related to his father’s disappearance. Unfortunately, the fairies don’t want to be found, and Artemis finds himself engaged in a battle of wits with the secretive civilization. Never a good thing to get into when dealing with a race that has been clever enough to remain hidden for centuries. (May 29, 2020)

Check back in with the AMC Scene for more YA adaptions soon!