The story concerns a headstrong private-school teen-ager, Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin), whose innocent distraction of a Broadway bus driver leads to a fatal accident.

NEWYORKER: Margaret

He grew up in the villages outside the city of Wuhan, and left school as a teen-ager for a job walking the tracks with a hammer and a gauge.

NEWYORKER: Boss Rail

As a teen-ager in Czechoslovakia, he was sent to a state-run boarding school where talented young skiers trained for the Olympics.

NEWYORKER: Streaming Dreams

As before, Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), a chubby Baltimore teen-ager in 1962, lives to dance and to make out with the sweet, good-looking school king (Zac Efron), and much of the movie feels like a prolonged platter party.

NEWYORKER: Hairspray