Awesome movies with a child/teenager in the leading role

In 1944 Spain, a girl is sent to live with her ruthless stepfather. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun. He tells her she's a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks.

Salvatore, a famous film director, returns to his hometown for the funeral of the local theater's film projectionist, Alfredo. He reminisces about his life as a young boy falling in love with cinema.

While attempting to escape from a claustrophobic family scene, Enio, a 14-year-old boy, defies a stormy night that will lead to a brutal clash with fate.

In the slums of Rio, two kids' paths diverge as one struggles to become a photographer and the other a kingpin.

Nicholas has every reason to keep things in life unchanged; however, when he accidentally overhears mum and dad talking about a new baby brother, his world will turn upside down. Will they abandon him to make room for the little stranger?

The emotive journey of a former schoolteacher who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.

After a boy loses his sister's pair of shoes, he goes on a series of adventures in order to find them. When he can't, he tries a new way to "win" a new pair.

A young boy from a working class family in post-war Germany struggles with his estranged father returning from war captivity, while a friend of his plays for the German National Soccer Team at the 1954 FIFA World Cup in Switzerland.

After finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet resistance movement against ruthless German forces and experiences the horrors of World War II.

Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl.

A five-year-old Indian boy is adopted by an Australian couple after getting lost hundreds of kilometers from home. 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.

Two 12-year-old Chilean children from different social classes become friends in 1973. They both discover each other's world as political tensions in their country increase.

A 9-year-old girl weathers big changes in her household as her parents become radical political activists in 1970-71 Paris.

An 8-year-old boy, raised by his grandmother, is surrounded by problems in his family he finds only himself capable of solving.

A brutal dictator comes face to face with the injustices committed by his regime when his country is taken over by revolutionists.

In 2001, Afghanistan is under the control of the Taliban. When her father is captured, a determined young girl disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family.

A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus.

In Paris, a Turkish shop owner befriends a Jewish boy in his mid-teens.

Several people try to help a little girl to find the money her mom gave her to buy a goldfish with.

Several Jewish and Palestinian children are followed for three years and put in touch with each other, in this alternative look at the Jewish-Palestinian conflict. The three filmmakers followed a group of seven local children between 1995 and 1998. They all have a totally different background. These seven children tell their own story about growing up in Jerusalem. Through this portrait of their generation, we see how deep rooted and almost insoluble the problems of the Middle East have become. When the protagonists speak out in an epilogue a couple of years later, it becomes apparent that all have lost their childlike innocence.

The film is seen through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, Harry (Matías del Pozo), who does not know that Argentina's 1976 coup d'état is impacting his life. After witnessing the "disappearance" of dissident friends, a human rights lawyer (Ricardo Darín) and his research scientist wife (Cecilia Roth) flee the city and hide from the military police in a vacant summer house. With them are their two kids: Harry, who is fascinated with the escape artistry of Harry Houdini, and El Enano, his little brother. (Translated as "Little Guy" in the English subtitles, played by Milton de la Canal. The actual translation is "dwarf".) The family adopts new identities and attempts to lead a normal life. Later, they are joined by a student who is using the alias Lucas (Tomás Fonzi). Their new life is difficult, but a visit with their estranged grandparents (Fernanda Mistral and Héctor Alterio) reveals that they are still a close-knit family. Subtly hinted, however, and used as a metaphor, is the mother's constant smoking and El Enano's renewed bed-wetting. Both serve to show how stressful and precarious their situation is.

In 1931 Paris, an orphan living in the walls of a train station gets wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.

A stubborn teenager enlists the help of a tough U.S. Marshal to track down her father's murderer.