The 50 Best School Movies
School sucks, but at least it's inspired these awesome flicks.
Image via Complex Original
As August winds down, there’s an impending sadness in the air. Those beach bars inhabited by dudes looking to flirt with Snooki wannabes just recently posted advertisements for their end-of-summer bashes. You’re currently figuring out how to break it off with that summer fling before the female, seasonal flavor tries to plan a fall vacation together. Comic book fans have suddenly realized that Hollywood’s string of superhero-led summer blockbusters is officially over, giving way to awards season dramas. And, in the workforce, employees only have three weeks left to use their paid Summer Friday days off.
The hugest buzzkill of all, however, is that students are about to start an all-new school year, waving goodbye to brainless fun in the sun and prepping for pop quizzes, thesis papers, boring professors, and late nights with faces stuck inside of books. Education is a remarkably important thing, of course, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that, in the wake of summer’s relaxing days and drunken nights, it’s a serious-minded drag.
At least formal edification has provided Hollywood with strong plot fodder. Since the early days of cinema, movies of all genres have peered into the hallways of high schools and universities, whether it’s to laugh at awkward outcasts who can’t get laid or to address societal ills and racial injustices through a scholastic microcosm.
With pupils of all ages getting ready for that dreaded first day of classes, we’ve gone back through film’s history to rank The 50 Best School Movies, timeless flicks that should ease the frustrations of summer’s end. That is, until that summer fling of yours posts pics of her and some new guy on Facebook.
Written by Matt Barone (@mbarone)
50. Can't Hardly Wait (1998)
Director: Harry Elfton and Deborah Kaplan
Stars: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Seth Green, Ethan Embry, Lauren Ambrose, Peter Facinelli, Charlie Korsmo
Lesson Learned: If a hot drunk chick is down to smash, don't lock yourself in a bathroom; by the time you get out, she has already banged half of the football squad.
It's not terribly inventive, but Can't Hardly Wait is the best '80s teen comedy released in the '90s. Shaped around one of those epic high school house parties that seem to only happen in movies, it's an ensemble flick that pays equal credence to each of its teen movie genre character types: the arrogant jock, the hot chick with a heart of gold, the nerd who wants the gold-hearted hottie, a wigger, and even the geek who turns sheik for a night.
Looking all kinds of sexy, Jennifer Love Hewitt and her glorious cleavage embody the perfect dream girl, even if her acting isn't always top-notch. And as the goofy white kid who's dying to be black, Seth Green swipes every one of his scenes with ease. The rest of the cast is likeable, too, but, really, Can't Hardly Wait earns its spot on this list simply for depicting the kind of domestic bash that we'd kill to travel back in time and experience as a teenager. The shindigs we hit up as high school kids either got broken up by coppers or featured more sausage than buns.
49. The Faculty (1998)
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Stars: Josh Hartnett, Jordana Brewster, Elijah Wood, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Shawn Hatosy, Usher Raymond, Salma Hayek, Robert Patrick, Famke Janssen, Christopher McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth
Lesson Learned: In case of an alien invasion, consult with your school's nerdy social pariah, not the cool kids.
No matter how under-qualified they may be, teachers rule every school. A gym teacher laughs whenever you're out-of-shape ass gets picked last during kickball team drafts? The principal is going to take Mr. Buzzcut's word over yours, most likely. That overweight English professor says she won't give you the well-deserved A-grade unless you, well, ace her private exam? Good luck trying to convince the higher-ups.
So just imagine if you and your geeky pals tried informing the world that your teachers have been inhabited by evil aliens, hell-bent on turning every student into a mindless vessel of extra-terrestrial domination. The guidance counselor would have to work overtime.
That's the central dilemma for the motley crew of teens (the jock, the brain, the nerd, the outcast, and the rebel) at the center of Robert Rodriguez's goofy sci-fi homage The Faculty. Basically a Scooby Doo adventure set against a teen angst backdrop, Rodriguez's flick acknowledges its us-versus-them aesthetic, but, fortunately, it's more concerned with its genre kicks and admittedly so-so CGI effects. More fun than superlative, The Faculty is Invasion Of The Body Snatchers for an American Pie generation.
48. Back To School (1986)
Director: Alan Metter
Stars: Rodney Dangerfield, Sally Kellerman, Burt Young, Keith Gordon, Robert Downey Jr., M. Emmet Walsh, Adrienne Barbeau, Ned Beatty, William Zabka
Lesson Learned: Sharing a classroom with your dad can actually make you seem cool, not like a tool.
Nearly seven years after his death, Rodney Dangerfield, if he's surfing the web in that cyber lab above the clouds, would be happy to know, on this list, he's getting his much desired respect. Though it's quite easy to appreciate the late comedy icon's work in Back To School, a sort pre-Billy Madison romp about a rich dude who voluntarily goes back to college to better educate himself.
It's a rather lightweight affair, lacking in any notable pathos or pretentious themes, and it's all the better for it. Actually given a film to play in that's, you know, good (or, in other words, the opposite of Ladybugs), Dangerfield fires off his trademark one-liners in a good-natured comedy that will forever command attention whenever it reruns on cable, which, frankly, isn't often enough.
47. Easy A (2010)
Director: Will Gluck
Stars: Emma Stone, Amanda Bynes, Penn Badgley, Dan Byrd, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Cam Gigandet, Lisa Kudrow, Malcolm McDowell, Aly Michalka, Fred Armisen
Lesson Learned: Contrary to popular belief, teenage girls are just as obsessed with S-E-X as pre-adult boys are.
There's a reason why Emma Stone is currently the hottest young actress in Hollywood, and, concurrently, why Lindsay Lohan must look at her and want to smack herself silly. It's Easy A, a teen sex comedy that reinvents Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter for a post-John Hughes world.
Stone plays a high school chick who yearns to be amongst her school's crème de la crème, and, to get to such popularity, she whips up a lie about her sexual prowess (that she's the best lay on campus) just to get a rep. And that she does, dressing in skimpier clothes to feed into her peers' newfound interest.
Eventually, typical story-beats of the high school genre surface, and, if not for Stone, Easy A could very well have dipped into mediocrity. Fortunately, though, the spunky redhead owns the role, turning a faux slut into a full-bodied role model for teen girls, as well as a fresh wifey prototype for us fellas.
46. Summer School (1987)
Director: Carl Reiner
Stars: Mark Harmon, Kirstie Alley, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Dean Cameron, Kelly Jo Minter, Shawnee Smith
Lesson Learned: Teachers can be just as much fun, and just as immature, as their students.
The term “summer school” seems like an oxymoron, but, alas, it's not. Unfortunately, it's a reality for high school slackers who couldn't make the grade during the fall and spring semesters. Instead of picking up beach bunnies at the shore, underachievers are forced to sit inside air-condition-less classrooms as their better educated friends even out farmer's tans. Needless to say, it's a drag.
What teens fail to realize, though, is that's also an undesired experience for the teachers, as well. Such a reversal of misfortune is at the center of Summer School, an underrated '80s comedy about a carefree gym teacher (Mark Harmon) whose plans for a Hawaiian vacation get spoiled by a necessity to proctor a group of young misfits. His lessons are unconventional, though: He gives one girl driving lessons, helps a pregnant girl control her breathing patterns, and allows a couple of horror fanatics to screen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the classroom. Sure beats calculus.
45. PCU (1994)
Director: Hart Bochner
Stars: Jeremy Piven, David Spade, Chris Young, Megan Ward, Jon Favreau, Alex Desert, Jessica Walter
Lesson Learned: When visiting college campuses as a high school senior, never pass up the opportunities to romance co-eds and piss off all student coalitions. It's a guaranteed good time.
Skipping class to throw ground chuck at hippie-ish vegans. Playing in organized Frisbee matches instead of studying. Getting completely shit-faced at an epic frat party. That all sounds like what you wish your collegiate experience was like, doesn't it? That's certainly the case for us, which is why PCU holds up as not only one of the most underrated '90s comedies, but also an unintentionally fantastical school flick.
Jeremy Piven perfected his cooler-than-you, snarky shtick as the seemingly middle-aged head of a slackers' fraternity, which exists solely to piss off every other student group on campus, especially a band of WASP-y young republicans led by David Spade. Piven's character is an academically minded enrollee's roommate nightmare; for those able to appreciate the importance of keg stands, though, he's the ultimate antihero.
44. Saved! (2004)
Director: Brian Dannelly
Stars: Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin, Patrick Fugit, Heather Matarazzo, Eva Amurri, Mary-Louise Parker
Lesson Learned: Religion divides as much as it unifies; call it the Bill Maher Theory.
Any cynic who's either graduated from or currently attending a Catholic school should be able to appreciate Saved!, a satirical look at overly religious high school students. The topical comedy focuses on a clique of teenage girls known as the “Christian Jewels,” who proudly flaunt their God-fearing beliefs every chance they get; one of the girls, Mary (Jena Malone), undergoes a crisis of faith, though, when her boyfriend says that he might be gay.
Without crossing the line into insensitive meanness, Saved! then sets its sights on Christianity's views on homosexuality and out-of-wedlock pregnancy, playing the former issue for laughs in a dream sequence that features Jesus telling Mary how to, in God's son's eyes, alleviate her guy's man-on-man urges. Fortunately, Saved! never feels too preachy.
43. Dead Poets Society (1989)
Director: Peter Weir
Stars: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Josh Charles, Kurtwood Smith
Lesson Learned: Seize the day, or else you'll end up as just another privileged rich kid who whines too much.
As manic as he is during stand-up routines and talk show appearances, Robin Williams is a brilliant dramatic actor whenever he wants to be, or is able to calm his loony side long enough to keep a straight face. His work in Good Will Hunting might be Williams' most recognizably lauded “serious” role, but 1989's Dead Poets Society was the funnyman's first major move towards purists' respect. And, as evidenced by his Academy Award nomination, Williams nailed it.
The comedian turned legit thespian plays a free-wheeling professor at an uptight academy in 1959, where his penchant for jumping onto desks and ripping textbooks to shreds is looked down upon by higher-ups; his students, however, grow to love his methods, especially gravitating to Williams' character's love of poetry. The students are a pasty, mostly uninteresting bunch of WASPs, but Williams' performance is a real delight.
42. Cruel Intentions (1999)
Director: Roger Kumble
Stars: Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair, Joshua Jackson, Eric Mabius, Sean Patrick Thomas
Lesson Learned: By the looks of it, Sarah Michelle Gellar is one hell of a kisser.
Full disclosure: There's not all that much “school” in Cruel Intentions, save for the privileged characters' shared enrollment at a swanky private high school in Manhattan. Oh, and a bit of sexual education, with Sarah Michelle Gellar teaching Selma Blair how to French kiss—sadly, Blair doesn't go for any extra credit.
But, still, there's some rather hot girl-on-girl tongue action, and that's the film's true appeal. Your girlfriend loves Cruel Intentions for Ryan Phillippe's character, a heartbreaking pretty boy who decides to throw his game away for Reese Witherspoon's well-to-do character, that of the headmaster's daughter. We, however, prefer Gellar's super-horny rich bitch, a hottie who's so thirsty for sex that she routinely offers herself to Phillippe, a.k.a. her step-brother. Naturally, we'd prefer that she spent more time with Blair.
41. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Director: Jared Hess
Stars: Jon Heder, Efren Ramirez, Jon Gries, Aaron Ruell, Tina Majorino, Haylie Duff
Lesson Learned: The gun that's most effective for killing wolverines? A freakin' 12-gauge. What do you think?
Seven years after the fact, Napoleon Dynamite seems about as hip as the phrase “Fo shizzle.” There's plenty to blame for the oddball comedy's loss of coolness, chief of which are all of those irritating “Vote For Pedro” T-shirts, every unimaginative Napoleon costume seen on Halloween, and star Jon Heder's inability to make anything else of note since. But none of that is director Jared Hess' fault, so give the film another chance, will you?
Forgetting about all of its negative ubiquity, we're still impressed by the director/co-writer's bizarrely singular world, a rural town that doesn't seem completely of our time yet doesn't feel ancient, either. The film's cavalcade of quirky, one-of-a-kind characters only adds to the strangeness; throw it all together and you've got a highly quotable and unique pop culture phenomenon thats strengths go way beyond ligers and “fat lard” llamas.
40. School Daze (1988)
Director: Spike Lee
Stars: Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee, Tisha Campbell-Martin, Ossie Davis, Bill Nunn, Branford Marsalis, Kadeem Hardison
Lesson Learned: Those popular, hot chicks on campus? They have feelings, too—as do the hardcore militants.
Spike Lee and subtlety have never gone hand-in-hand, a clear disconnect that has alternately powered and hindered the controversial filmmaker's work. School Daze, the Brooklyn-born auteur's second feature, walks a fine line between both effects.
First, the downside: that “Wake up!” climax, a heavy-handed coda that feels all the more forceful twenty-three years later. That overdone ending aside, School Daze, Lee's candid look at the inner workings of an all-black university's Greek life, is also bogged down by unnecessary musical numbers. But even the song-and-dance diversions can't undermine the film's overall impact.
With his trademark harshness toward racial stereotypes and inter-personal relations, Lee posits the fictional Mission College as a hotbed of pent-up rage, concealed insecurities, and social inequalities. In typical Lee fashion, storylines, such as Tisha Campbell-Martin's sorority sister character begrudgingly sleeping with a nerdy frat pledge, aren't resolved—he leaves it up to viewers to decide who's right, who's wrong, and whose prejudices are justified. Well, after you wake the fuck up, of course.
39. Pump Up The Volume (1990)
Director: Allan Moyle
Stars: Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, Mimi Kennedy, Scott Hunter
Lesson Learned: There aren't many things in life more empowering than gangsta rap, especially for suburban kids.
In some ways, Pump Up The Volume supplants the classic superhero motif into a high school setting, though there aren't any goofy costumes or choreographed fight sequences. But there is a preeminent supervillain: The Man. And the heroic avenger is Mark Hunter (Christian Slater, in one of his best performances), a nebbish Clark Kent-type by day who slinks around his high school's crowded hallways in pure anonymity. At night, though, he becomes Hard Harry, a renegade disc jockey who chastises authority figures and blasts hardcore hip-hop and rebellious punk rock jams.
Drenched with teen angst, Pump Up The Volume is a rallying cry for young outcasts to speak their piece or get lost in the neverending shuffle of high school politics and societal neglect. It also has a ballsy, anti-Hollywood ending that doesn't let Slater's character off the hook, but it doesn't condemn his minor teenage revolution, either.
38. School Ties (1992)
Director: Robert Mandel
Stars: Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Chris O'Donnell, Cole Hauser, Ben Affleck, Anthony Rapp, Amy Locane
Lesson Learned: It's OK to want to kick the living shit out your least tolerant classmates.
Believe it or not, there was once a time when Brendan Fraser was one of Hollywood's most gifted actors and Matt Damon was a lowly nobody still reaching for leading man status. As evidence of such a Twilight Zone-like notion, School Ties is an oft-overlooked study in Fraser's earlier promise; as a mature and complicated look at the ills of anti-Semitism, it's an eye-opener that overcomes its sporadic schmaltz through rich performances. Fraser, for one, is actually outstanding; after revisiting School Ties, you'll never look at Furry Vengeance the same again.
The man who'd become George Of The Jungle plays a football stud of a high school senior who transfers into a prestigious academy in hopes of earning an Ivy League scholarship; what his new, bigoted teammates and friends don't know, though, is that he's Jewish. In often labored strokes, School Ties questions acceptance amongst pals, with Damon embodying the world's biggest turncoat, starting off as Fraser's boy but then becoming his religion's meanest detractor. Even when its message begins to feel heavier than a weighted yarmulke, School Ties achieves poignancy through first-class acting.
37. Varsity Blues (1999)
Director: Brian Robbins
Stars: James Van Der Beek, Amy Smart, Jon Voight, Paul Walker, Ron Lester, Scott Caan, Ali Larter
Lesson Learned: Yes, quarterbacks do in fact get all the girls. Sorry, kickers.
Throughout the state of Texas, high school football isn't just a sport—it's a fervent religion. Parents obsess over their sons' pigskin statistics, second place is equivalent to last place, and, most importantly, just catching a pass grants the player an open invitation to lick whipped cream off of a cheerleader's nips. OK, so that last part is the case in Varsity Blues, but we like to think that real-life all-stars receive such delicious treatment.
Slickly produced and energetically acted, Varsity Blues stars James Van Der Beek (Yeah, remember him?) as a second-string QB who moves up to the starting roster once the team's marquee player, and Van Der Beek's best friend (played by Paul Walker), suffers a career-halting injury. Along with the aforementioned whipped bikini, the new playmaker butts heads with a tyrannical coach (Jon Voight) and deals with the pressures of sudden on-campus notoriety.
Varsity Blues looks at high school sports as more of a job than a fun extracurricular activity, which anyone who's ever been a letter-man on a competitive squad knows is the case. As far as whipped cream bikinis, however, those, sadly, aren't as common in reality.
36. Half Nelson (2006)
Director: Ryan Fleck
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Shareeka Epps, Tristan Wilds
Lesson Learned: Just because someone has a teaching certificate framed above their desk, it doesn't mean that he or she isn't a hot mess.
Typically, movies about white teachers and inner city students follow a lazy, worn-down pattern: Students first resist the teacher, but soon warm up to him or her and ultimately steer clear of street violence and/or prison. In the immensely underrated independent drama Half Nelson, though, that approach is flipped on its head, with a role reversal that's both daring and truthful.
Ryan Gosling plays a junior high school teacher who seems to have his shit together, at least in the eyes of pupils, but, in reality, he's a closeted drug addict. One of his students, played by Shareeka Epps, accidentally catches him in an abusive state, and director Ryan Fleck's magnetic film spends the rest of its time passionately developing a non-threatening teacher/student bond that goes against everything flicks like Dangerous Minds have taught us about instructor/learner relationships.
35. Juno (2007)
Director: Jason Reitman
Stars: Ellen Page, Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney, Olivia Thirlby
Lesson Learned: The byproduct of not double-bagging your Johnson: fatherly responsibilities, and quite possibly a baby mama who's wittier than you'll ever be.
When director Jason Reitman's warm and snappy Juno first hit theaters, it was an instant buzz-grabber, and eventual award-winner and a massive cultural influence. Years removed from the flick, though, many folks have unfairly turned against it, citing problems with stripper-turned-scribe Diablo Cody's script, which won an Oscar but also crammed in an endless amount of slightly obnoxious slang (“Honest to blog!”). But we're not having that.
OK, so there's a fair amount of dialogue in Juno that sounds nothing like how normal teenage ladies actually talk, but that's a frivolous argument. Aided by Ellen Page's amazingly confident and vulnerable performance, the film presents a high school female who's something other than a bimbo, or a virginal goodie-two-shoes—you know, the school movie genre's go-to characters for girls.
Page's titular firecracker, who unintentionally gets impregnated by Michael Cera and promises her unborn baby to a couple of childless yuppies (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), is a whipsmart fan of gory horror movies who's not afraid to speak her mind. She's also one of the best-written characters of the last decade. You can bet your hamburger phone on that.
34. Higher Learning (1995)
Director: John Singleton
Stars: Omar Epps, Kristy Swanson, Michael Rapaport, Jennifer Connelly, Ice Cube, Tyra Banks, Kristy Swanson, Busta Rhymes, Laurence Fishburne, Cole Hauser
Lesson Learned: Political correctness is, for lack of a better word, bullshit.
It's not one for subtlety, but Higher Learning, John Singleton's angry indictment of collegiate race relations, is definitely a thought-provoker. At the fictional Columbus University (named after notoriously racist explorer Christopher—Heavy-Handed Element No. 1), neo-Nazi skinheads, lesbian feminists, and militant black men try their damndest to peacefully coexist. And with an ensemble of talented actors on their A-games, specifically Ice Cube, Omar Epps, and Michael Rapaport, the various archetypes make for interesting characters.
At times, though, Higher Learning feels like a precursor to Crash, drilling its no-equality message into viewers' brains with Spike-Lee-like force. Yet, even at its most demanding, Higher Learning packs an emotional punch. The finale, a no doubt Charles Whitman-inspired shooting spree, is particularly scarring.
33. Sixteen Candles (1984)
Director: John Hughes
Stars: Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Michael Schoeffling, John Cusack, Justin Henry, Jami Gertz
Lesson Learned: Never underestimate the power of women's underwear.
Truthfully, we should most identify with Anthony Michael Hall's accurately nicknamed “The Geek” in Sixteen Candles, one of writer-director John Hughes' best movies. Throughout the film, Hall's geeky character habitually tries to score with his crush, Samantha (Molly Ringwald, solidifying her '80s dreamgirl status here), until, in an awesome moment of nerdy triumph, Samantha lends The Geek a pair of her panties for him to show off to his friends. It's a delightful payoff for a dude who's not unlike most of us back in grades nine through twelve.
Whenever we reflect upon Sixteen Candles, though, all sentiments and fondness point right towards Samantha, due to Ringwald's tender performance, a showcase of adorable sweetness and sympathetic vulnerability. Rightfully so, Ringwald's Sixteen Candles' role has become the poster-girl for the prolific '80s teen comedy genre. Like the movie's top geek would be, we're not mad at that.
32. Stand And Deliver (1988)
Director: Ramon Menendez
Stars: Edward James Olmos, Estelle Harris, Lou Diamond Phillips
Lesson Learned: Sometimes, gangbangers just need a hug.
So, you inexplicably like derivative teacher-saves-urban-kids movies like Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers? OK, first off, you need better standards; secondly, it's time to acknowledge one of the only films to not turn such an inspirational premise into a lifeless melodrama: Stand And Deliver.
Starring an electric Edward James Olmos, it's based on the true story of Jaime Escalante, a hard-nosed math teacher who bettered the lives of East L.A. ruffians through not only calculus but the openness to become each kid's friend. Yes, it's the exact same set-up as every other movie of its kind, but Stand And Deliver utilizes its strong acting (including a breakout turn from Lou Diamond Phillips) quite well and never treads into mushy sentiment.
31. Hoosiers (1986)
Director: David Anspaugh
Stars: Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, Dennis Hopper
Lesson Learned: Not all white men can jump, but some can definitely shoot the lights out, Daisy Duke basketball shorts and all.
Coach Carter. Glory Road. Slam Dunk Ernest. In the pantheon of inspirational basketball movies, the majority of them either suck or are too generic to elicit any sort of detailed recollection. In essence, every post-1989 example is trying to be Hoosiers, the best of all play-hoop-and-become-better-men films.
Based on a true story, the Indiana-set Hoosiers follows a reluctant gent (the great Gene Hackman, especially great here) who leads an all-white team of high school basketball players to their league's championship. Conceptually, it's not much different from every other motivational sports picture, yet it's a testament to the crucial benefits of stellar acting (also to the credit of co-star Dennis Hopper) and crisp, hook-free storytelling.
30. Clueless (1995)
Director: Amy Heckerling
Stars: Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Paul Rudd, Brittany Murphy, Donald Faison, Elisa Donovan, Breckin Meyer, Jeremy Sisto
Lesson Learned: Daddy's trust fund can't buy you love.
Don't ever say that you can't fuck with a Jane Austen story. A modernized take on the classic 19th century novelist's Emma, Clueless is the original version of MTV's The Hills, except that it's hilarious, irreverent, fresh, and not full of airheaded fame whores.
It's your basic coming-of-age story set in Beverly Hills, circa 1995, and centers on a pampered rich girl, Cher (Alicia Silverstone, killing it throughout), whose vain existence lacks the love of a boyfriend. She tries seducing the new kid in school, who turns out to be a gay James-Dean-wannabe; then, she gets sexually harassed by an arrogant male friend. That she ultimately ends up with her half-brother (Paul Rudd, pre-fame) is an incestuous resolution that's never questioned.
Not that it needs to be, either. Clueless isn't notable for its plot—it's a '90s classic due to the bubbly characters, winning performances, and hip (for its time, at least) script. And for making grown men want to scream every time a Cher-inspired girl said, “As if!” back in '95.
29. Cooley High (1975)
Director: Michael Schultz
Stars: Glynn Turman, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Garrett Morris, Cynthia Davis
Lesson Learned: You won't fulfill those lofty goals if babes and peer pressure get in the way.
Without Cooley High, we might not have Boyz N The Hood or any of its ilk. The black answer to 1973's all-honkey affair American Graffiti, director Michael Schultz's dramedy, set in the inner city of Chicago, in 1964, adopted a much lighter tone than the future hood movie it'd eventually influence, but the themes are the same.
Preach (Glynn E. Turman) is a fan of poetry who dreams of making it as a Hollywood screenwriter, while his main man Cochise (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) is Cooley Vocational High School's resident ladies' man/basketball star. Cooley High starts off like many other teen comedies, with situational comedy, girl troubles, and parental conflicts. But the film takes a left turn once Preach and Cochise get caught up in a stolen car fiasco. Subsequent inner-city-youth-gone-bad flicks have delivered more visceral drama, but Cooley High's seminal nature shouldn't be overlooked.
28. Mean Girls (2004)
Director: Mark Waters
Stars: Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Tina Fey, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, Lizzy Caplan, Amy Poehler, Ana Gasteyer, Daniel Franzese, Tim Meadows, Jonathan Bennett
Lesson Learned: There's little more satisfying than watching the "cool" kids get their comeuppance.
Teen comedies, by definition, are prone to narrative immaturity. Thinking their target audience could care less about sharp intelligence and witty irreverence, screenwriters of nonsense such as She's All That settle for generic mediocrity, churning out a dumb script for pretty faces to lifelessly act out. And then there's a scribe like Tina Fey, who's smarter in her sleep than most of Hollywood's writers are on three cups of coffee.
Taking a crack at the high school movie genre, the hilarious and smart Saturday Night Live writer approached teenage classism with an inclusive spirit. The characters, from Lindsay Lohan's scheming good girl to Rachel McAdams' despicable another-word-for-female-dog, aren't caricatures—they're relatable even in their most heightened states, something Fey acutely knew would be crucial to selling the movie's higher caliber of lowbrow humor.
And, for the love of LiLo, don't call this one a “chick flick.” Excellent flicks, particularly hilarious ones, are gender neutral.
27. Teen Wolf (1985)
Director: Rod Daniel
Stars: Michael J. Fox, James Hampton, Susan Ursitti, Jerry Levine, Mark Arnold, Mat Adler, Lorie Griffin, Mark Holton, Doug Savant
Lesson Learned: Some girls really do like hairy men.
It's the ultimate dream for any mediocre high school male: Scott Howard (Michael J. Fox) is a scrub on the basketball team, and an even bigger dud when it comes to the ladies. He has friends, sure, but not ones that will earn him any extra goodwill amongst the school's population of beautiful girls—shirts, like the one Scott's pal Styles wears, that say “What Are You Staring At, Dicknose?” aren't exactly chick magnets. Similar to any teenage guy who's forced to take his best girl-friend to the prom, Scott's in need of an edge.
Thankfully, his family's big secret is that they're lycanthropes, a.k.a. werewolves. But not the dangerous, Lon Chaney, Jr. kind; they're fun-loving, slam-dunking hairballs that women love and guys want to emulate.
In Teen Wolf's fantastical set-up, an average kid becomes exceptional in all aspects due to his inner wolf, which, if you're in the mood to analyze, is a horror-tinged metaphor for meek ones breaking out of their shells, so to speak. Though, in the innocently funny Teen Wolf's case, it's best to think less and chuckle more.
26. Election (1999)
Director: Alexander Payne
Stars: Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick, Chris Klein, Jessica Campbell, Colleen Camp
Lesson Learned: It takes everything but credible qualifications to become a president of any kind.
Political races are never less than vicious, no matter what level of government. Another commonality amongst all presidential competitions, whether on a global scale or merely small-town, is the popularity contest quotient, the issue-deficient reason why a living, breathing gimmick such as Sarah Palin was able to even stay in the last presidential race—she's a star in those (scary) red states.
Writer-director Alexander Payne transplanted such ideas directly into the high school movie genre with the 1999 independent hit Election, a callously funny satire on how the hiring of authority figures can quickly descend into name-calling, backstabbing, and sexual scandal. Reese Witherspoon is outstanding as an obsessive running for her school's open position of student body president. Bisexual allegations ensue, a teacher (Matthew Broderick) gets embroiled in the mayhem, and a dimwitted athlete (Chris Klein) becomes a legitimate contender based solely on his popularity. Sort of like Sarah Palin, only she's a beauty pageant contestant, not a jock. Not much of a difference.
25. The School Of Rock (2003)
Director: Richard Linklater
Stars: Jack Black, Mike White, Sarah Silverman, Joan Cusack, Miranda Cosgrove
Lesson Learned: It's easy to forget about a teacher's blatant disregard for proper education if he plays a mean bass guitar.
At first glance, Richard Linklater's The School Of Rock looks and feels like Nickelodeon fodder; shit, it even co-stars iCarly herself, Miranda Cosgrove. The story of a failed rocker who seeks musical redemption through a class of musically inclined youngsters, it's every bit as cutesy-funny as Cosgrove's show. But it's also steeped in rock 'n' roll history, joyously pleasant, very funny, and anchored by Jack Black's best performance to date. The adult-friendly family flick is written with such unassuming warmth and intelligent humor, by co-star Mike White, that it's leagues above your typical kids' movie. Credit Linklater's background in the independent film circuit—he's no Spy Kids type.
24. Lean On Me (1989)
Director: John G. Avildsen
Stars: Morgan Freeman, Beverly Todd, Robert Guillaume, Michael Beach, Jermaine "Huggy" Hopkins, Lynne Thigpen
Lesson Learned: Students both obedient and unruly will fall in line once an authority figure threatens them with a baseball bat.
Not many actors in Hollywood's history have a filmography as staggering as Morgan Freeman's—well, maybe Samuel L. Jackson. But, still, Freeman has overextended himself in the movie world so much that it's not a shock to hear his voice apathetically narrate the opening of this weekend's Conan The Barbarian remake (Seriously, he does!). With such a long, busy career to his name, it's pretty wild to think that, at one time, Freeman was an on-the-rise character actor. The time was 1989, and, after earning positive reviews for a few independent flicks, he was given the chance to headline a major pic of his own: Lean On Me, the true story of inner city New Jersey high school principal Joe Clark.
The result was, and still is, one of Freeman's greatest performances, a powerful turn that's rigid enough to sell Clark's no-holds-barred demeanor and compassionate enough to convey a sense of care for the film's many disenchanted and illegally-minded student characters.
23. Battle Royale (2000)
Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Stars: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Takeshi Kitano, Chiaki Kuriyama
Lesson Learned: When it comes to their entertainment, Japanese people really are batshit crazy.
Hollywood has taken great pleasure out of remaking the best of Asian cinema, but there's no way in hell that America's film industry will ever dare to remake the insanely brutal Japanese flick Battle Royale, and don't even try to label the in-production adaptation of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games as a Royale counterpart. The Hunger Games is Pixar by comparison.
It's not a surprise that there's been no Battle Royale remake—director Kinji Fukasaku's bleak film centers on junior high school kids heinously murdering one another. The film takes place in a futuristic Japanese society that's in dire economic straits; in order to quell youth riots and disorder, the government launches a program in which kids are taken prisoner and dropped onto a deserted island, where they're forced to kill each other. If there's more than one kid standing after three days, the exploding collars tightly fastened around their necks will be detonated.
A true masterpiece of sadistic art, Battle Royale needs to be seen to be believed. Just try not to laugh in disbelief at how Fukasaku keeps a running tally of dead kids for the audience's sake.
22. Dazed And Confused (1993)
Director: Richard Linklater
Stars: Jason London, Matthew McConaughey, Adam Goldberg, Anthony Rapp, Milla Jovovich, Ben Affleck, Wiley Wiggins, Rory Cochrane, Michelle Burke, Joey Lauren Adams, Cole Hauser
Lesson Learned: Even as us men age, high school girls stay the same age. And never abandon their jailbait status.
Have you ever wondered what your parents were like back in their high school days? Hopefully not the “senior class tramp” and “the worst varsity athlete on campus.” Chances are, if they've ever borrowed one of your Cypress Hill and/or Bob Marley CDs, mommy and daddy were much like the characters in Dazed And Confused, Richard Linklater's look at high school life in the hippie-laden '70s that captures a bygone time period about as authentically as any movie made twenty years after the fact ever could.
With its wide array of memorable characters, this multi-plot comedy never tries very hard to pull laughs from its audience—it simply follows interesting kids doing normal things, albeit hilariously. Dazed And Confused also works on a film geek level, showing the earliest, and ten times funnier, days of now-famous actors like Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey. After watching this, you'll hope that pops was a lot like the latter's character, Wooderson, the king of younger-tail-chasing Zen.
21. Heathers (1988)
Director: Michael Lehmann
Stars: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walker
Lesson Learned: Even the most taboo of subjects (i.e., rampant teen suicide) can be used for uncomfortable hilarity.
On paper, Heathers isn't all that funny. Set in an everyday high school, Winona Ryder's breakout film hinges on a clique of hateful, stuck-up girls, bullies, and teenage suicide. In all, it's one of the darkest high school movies ever made, and a big part of that mystique is credited to screenwriter Daniel Waters' crackerjack of a script, which flip-flops from vicious black comedy to emotionally gruesome moments with unwavering poise.
Ryder plays the only member of an all-girl crew of social terrorists with a conscience; after watching her cohorts torment her undeserving fellow classmates, Ryder's character and her derelict boyfriend (Christian Slater) plot to dethrone the queens of mean. Soon, one of the girls dies, along with a pair of football stars, whose corpses are positioned in a homosexually suggestive manner, spawning the memorable line, “I love my dead, gay son!”.
Heathers veers into some rather twisted and bleak territories, yet, somehow, it's consistently amusing. In other words, it's the quintessential dark comedy.
20. Revenge Of The Nerds (1984)
Director: Jeff Kanew
Stars: Robert Carradine, Anthony Edwards, Timothy Busfield, Curtis Armstrong, Julia Montgomery, James Cromwell, Donald Gibb, Ted McGinley, John Goodman
Lesson Learned: Once the lights are off, blonde chicks can't tell the difference between a musclebound jock's body and a scrawny nerd's.
We're still not sure how Comic-Con has yet to use 1984's Revenge Of The Nerds as its official movie event, a required screening to rally the geeky troops, so to speak. The comic book fanatics' yearly congregation aside, Nerds is quintessential viewing for anyone who's deemed “un-cool” by jocks, cheerleaders, and other thought-to-be superior people.
The socially awkward brothers of Lambda Lambda Lambda represent the underdogs in all of us, and seeing them outwit the douchebag posse known as Alpha Beta never gets old. Nor does watching head nerd Lewis Skulnick (Robert Carradine) use his brainpower to fool the busty, hot blonde sorority girl (Julia Montgomery) into having sex with him. Sure, Revenge Of The Nerds is lowbrow funny, but it's also undeniably empowering.
19. Rushmore (1998)
Director: Wes Anderson
Stars: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Seymour Cassel, Brian Cox, Mason Gamble, Connie Nielsen, Luke Wilson
Lesson Learned: Guys can save themselves a shitload of stress by just going after girls their own age.
Wes Anderson's films are an acquired taste. The critically hailed writer-director is an auteur in the purest sense, inhabiting his movies with charming yet socially inept characters and telling out-there stories in minimalist terms (The Life Acquatic With Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited).
Rushmore, on the other hand, is totally accessible, despite the presence of Anderson's many trademark quirks. At its core, though, the filmmaker's second feature is a simple high school flick, about an arrogant nerd (a spot-on Jason Schwartzman) who gets caught up in a love triangle with his academy's first grade teacher (Olivia Williams) and a strange millionaire (Bill Murray, as great as ever).
Whenever Schwartzman and Murray go toe-to-toe, Rushmore is sublimely hilarious; Anderson finds ways to make otherwise loathsome characters (a self-righteous 15-year-old geek, a rich prick) seem sympathetic. You'd probably want to knock Schwartzman's character teeth out in real life, but, in Rushmore, you root for him.
18. Brick (2005)
Director: Rian Johnson
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nora Zehetner, Lukas Haas, Noah Fleiss, Emilie de Ravin, Noah Segan, Matt O'Leary, Meagan Good
Lesson Learned: No matter how hard we all try, you just can't trust a dame.
Arguably the most experimental film on this list, writer-director Rian Johnson's debut Brick owes its existence to the films of Humphrey Bogart and the hard-boiled, pulpy crime novels of the 1950s, and that's in no way a slight. Set in a familiar-looking high school, Johnson's murder mystery subverts its modern-day setting with a predominantly noir vibe, presenting Joseph Gordon-Levitt's lead character as a tortured, old-school gumshoe running up against sinister heavies and seductive dames.
If none of that made any sense to you, it's about time you rent 1946's The Big Sleep, or read a Raymond Chandler novel. Clearly, Johnson has done both, quite often. What makes Brick so effective isn't its surface-level gimmick, though—it's how efficiently all involved sell the flick as legitimately inventive storytelling, not hokey karaoke.
17. American Pie (1999)
Director: Paul and Chris Weitz
Stars: Jason Biggs, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Chris Klein, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Seann William Scott, Tara Reid, Mena Suvari, Shannon Elizabeth, Eugene Levy, Chris Owen, Natasha Lyonne, John Cho
Lesson Learned: Thrusting into a fruit-filled pastry doesn't qualify as "popping one's cherry."
Back in 1999, the teen movie genre was stagnant, though, to be fair, there wasn't a massive demand for it, either. But then, American Pie came along in 1999, unexpectedly owned the summer box office, and reinstated one of the '80s most prolific subgenres: the teen sex comedy.
And it did so in raunchy and uproarious fashions. Starring four young actors who genuinely looked like high school kids, not 35-year-olds disguised as seniors, American Pie earns its laughs through absurd situations that manage to play surprisingly true-to-life: a kid tries getting a feel for vagina by screwing an apple pie; the same dude busts early not once but twice in front of both a fiercely hot and horny foreign exchange student and dozens of classmates watching via web cam; and another guy's self-manufactured reputation as a ladies' man gets ruined by a disgusting stint in the girls' bathroom.
Even if none of that has ever happened to you (and we sure hope that's the case), American Pie's believable characters and playful tone allow you to connect to such wildness.
16. Friday Night Lights (2004)
Director: Peter Berg
Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Jay Hernandez, Derek Luke, Garrett Hedlund, Lucas Black, Tim McGraw, Connie Britton, Amber Heard
Lesson Learned: Life's not easy, but it's certainly much, much sweeter when there's an enormous championship trophy nearby.
In light of the recently ended TV series Friday Night Lights, one of the most simultaneously beloved and neglected small-screen programs of the last decade, it's easy to forget that it all started with director Peter Berg's wonderful 2004 stirring adaptation of H.G. Bissinger's stellar book about of a real-life, overachieving high school football team in a small, economically depressed, racially divided Texas town).
The story's the same: A well-meaning high school football coach (in the movie: Billy Bob Thornton) and his dedicated band of pigskin players try to win a championship as the athletes cope with various personal dilemmas. Whereas the similarly angled Varsity Blues handled its subject matter with more goofs than gravitas, Friday Night Lights benches comic relief in favor of rousing in-game action scenes and stone-faced, heartfelt moments of thick character drama. A real cinematic touchdown.
15. American Graffiti (1973)
Director: George Lucas
Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, Bo Hopkins, Candy Clark
Lesson Learned: Sorry, Volvo owners, but badass cars always have, and always will, make ladies swoon.
The lineage of nostalgic teen comedies traces directly back to American Graffiti, arguably the genre's most influential entry. George Lucas curbed his inner sci-fi geek to delicately flash back to 1962, replacing spaceships with muscle cars and aliens with believable high school seniors looking to party hard before heading off to college, and subsequently into the real world. Devoid of cynicism, American Graffiti holds up as a refreshingly cheery joy ride through a time when rock 'n' roll music was a newfound treasure and hot rods attracted wholesome girls like Tony Montana to hard white. It's a lot like Grease, except there's none of that fruity song-and-dance nonsense. *Quickly hides his John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John poster*
14. Elephant (2003)
Director: Gus Van Sant
Stars: John Robinson, Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, Carrie Finklea, Nathan Tyson, Brittany Mountain
Lesson Learned: Even the most mundane of days can erupt in violence.
Films don't get much more haunting than Gus Van Sant's Elephant, an uninterrupted take on a routine high school afternoon that descends into minimalist horror. And, in the director's bravest move of all, there are no answers, just a bunch of nondescript students, doing nondescript things, and casually walking right into a Columbine-like shooting spree. It's harrowing times ten.
With a quiet, dreamlike feel, Elephant spends its first two, milquetoast acts simply watching students going about their business; the unexciting movements, chats, and interactions are so bland that witnessing them feels like hypnosis. It's all intercut with two boys inside a house, playing violent shoot-'em-up video games and brandishing their new firearms.
As Elephant methodically heads into its nightmarish final act, the everlasting dread amplifies; you know something bad will happen, but when? Once it does, it doesn't stop until the film's last chilling shot. “Eenie-meenie-miney-mo” has never sounded so horrific.
13. Old School (2003)
Director: Todd Phillips
Stars: Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Jeremy Piven, Ellen Pompeo, Leah Remini, Perrey Reeves, Craig Kilborn
Lesson Learned: You're never too old to party with drunken freshman chicks—well, at least not in the movies.
College students hear it all the time: “Enjoy school while it lasts, because it's all downhill from there.” For people stuck in desk jobs straight out of Office Space, that's a sad truth. Along with nine-to-five commitments come marriage, kids, diminishing amounts of sex, and, well…need we say more? In director Todd Phillips' Old School, though, middle-aged dudes get their chance to relive the good old days of house parties, beer funnels, and horny co-eds. It's fantasy porn for married men.
It's also Phillips' best movie to date—yes, The Hangover included. Old School solidified both Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn as titans of lowbrow comedy; as for star Luke Wilson, let's just congratulate him for not boring us to tears for a change. They play three working-class friends who launch a half-assed fraternity after Wilson's character moves into a house on the outskirts of a university's campus, which, naturally, brings forth underaged hook-ups and other forms of debauchery. And it remains hilarious no matter how many times you've seen it.
12. Carrie (1976)
Director: Brian De Palma
Stars: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, John Travolta, P.J. Soles, Betty Buckley, William Katt
Lesson Learned: Never, under any circumstances, fuck up a prom queen's big speech.
In writing his 1974 novel Carrie, horror author extraordinaire Stephen King tapped into a truth that all picked-on teenagers have known for decades: High school can be Hell on Earth. And in both King's book and director Brian De Palma's masterful adaptation, a school gymnasium becomes a fire pit of damnation, engulfing both wrongdoers and innocent folks. Its starter is Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), a cute yet painfully shy, and inwardly tormented, young girl whose artificial Prom Queen moment gets disrupted by a showering of pig's blood.
De Palma stages Carrie's telekinetic vengeance with fascinating use of split-screen and an eerie calmness, yet it's the film's prior scenes of quieter horror that most assist Carrie in achieving a she-is-us aesthetic for bullied, misunderstood, and alienated teens.
The film's opening sequence alone is the ultimate young girl's nightmare: While taking a shower in the school's locker room, Carrie suffers her first period, and her evil classmates quickly exploit Carrie's confusion and fear (she thinks the blood means she's dying) by pelting her with tampons. You don't need to be a lady to feel her pain.
11. Harry Potter Series (2001-2011)
Director: Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron, Mike Newell, and David Yates
Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Felton, Jason Isaacs, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter
Lesson Learned: Not all magic sticks need to be zipped up.
With all of its seamless CGI, magical wizardry, convincing gravitas, and jibberish terms (Dumbledore, anyone?), Harry Potter, the most successful Hollywood franchise of all time, is many things to a great many people. But one thing the eight film s' worth of J.K. Rowling adaptations isn't largely recognized as is, that's right, a series of school movies.
Think about it, though; What's Harry Potter without the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Just a nerdy, four-eyed kid with useless wizard powers, that's what. Hogwarts isn't like any school us Pot heads have ever seen in real life, of course; our extracurricular activities included kickball games, not broom-riding competitions. Furthermore, our school experiences wouldn't make for some of the best blockbuster movies ever made, either. Maybe a less funny American Pie, though.
10. Donnie Darko (2001)
Director: Richard Kelly
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Patrick Swayze, Mary McDonnell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Holmes Osborne
Lesson Learned: Drugs are bad...unless they're of the medicinal kind. In that case, take them often, otherwise you'll start talking to dudes in bunny costumes.
School movies, by definition, are traditionally straightforward—all that's required to sate the genre are a campus, somewhat interesting students, and relatable conflicts. The films on this list are all solid (After all, why else would they be included?), but the majority of them are, for better or for worse, conventional. Donnie Darko, on the other hand, overflows with ambition. The striking debut of writer-director Richard Kelly, it's your typical coming-of-age story filtered through time travel philosophies, a dude in a freaky bunny costume, someone named Grandma Death, and the spirit of David Lynch.
Jake Gyllenhaal, pre-A-list, stars as an eccentric high school outcast whose visions of a prophetic rabbit, named Frank, lead him to believe that the world's about to end; it doesn't help that his bedroom, without him in it, was recently firebombed by a broken-off jet engine. There's a multilayered tale of a teenager grappling with both his own psychosis, mortality, and adults' hypocrisy at the film's core. But Kelly's gonzo narrative is one of those flicks that demands repeat viewings before one totally comprehends its point. Thankfully, Donnie Darko is mesmerizing enough to never feel stale.
9. Hoop Dreams (1994)
Director: Steve James
Stars: William Gates, Arthur Agee, Emma Gates, Sheila Agee
Lesson Learned: For some, a chosen sport can become a salvation.
For a nearly three-hour-long documentary, Hoop Dreams moves with the quickness of Derrick Rose. Lively and poignant, director Steve James' epic looks at two inner city Chicago high school basketball players' four years of roundball experience could go on for double its running time and we'd still be down. That's because Hoop Dreams paints such an honest picture of young ballers William Gates and Arthur Agee's lives; going through ups (success on the court) and downs (watching parents' abuse drugs), the film's subjects are intimate characters presented in a grandiose yet still personal way. There's no better portrayal of high school sports out there, nor are there many stronger documentaries.
8. The Last Picture Show (1971)
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Stars: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Clu Gulager, Randy Quaid
Lesson Learned: Nostalgia isn't always what it's cracked up to be; sometimes, it hurts.
The aforementioned American Graffiti, No. 16 on this countdown, presents its nostalgia with pleasantness and smiles; The Last Picture Show, on the other hand, does so with gloom, somberness, and tense introspection. Widely celebrated director Pete Bogdanovich's monumental classic uses its 1951 high school backdrop as a gateway into a much bigger and softly tragic narrative. A young Jeff Bridges is amongst the actors who play teens living in a dying Texas town, where minimal funds gradually sink their neighborhoods into quasi-tombs. Heartbreak, death, and the collective sorrows over a closed movie theater comprise The Last Picture Show's most pain-soaked elements; high school movies don't get much more melancholic than this.
7. Superbad (2007)
Director: Greg Mottola
Stars: Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Emma Stone, Seth Rogen, Bill Hader, Martha MacIsaac, Joe Lo Truglio, Kevin Corrigan
Lesson Learned: It's much easier to just ask someone who's over 21 to buy you some liquor.
We know, we know—whenever you think of Superbad, you immediately picture McLovin. And, shortly after, you start laughing. We can't blame you; as the four-eyed “anti-poon,” Christopher Mintz-Plasse delivers one of the funniest performances of the last ten years. Yet, overlooked by those who rightfully praise Mintz-Plasse and equally superb co-stars Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, the film's script (written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg) is a finely tuned stroke of screenwriting genius.
Without forcing it one way or the other, Rogen and Goldberg's screenplay balances raunchy hilarity with relatable, heartfelt scenarios; growing up, who didn't cop shoddy-looking fake IDs? Or secretly pout over a best friend's decision to attend a different college than you? Or start beaming once “it's in” during your first sexual experience? Superbad touches on everyday high school situations with such intelligence and wit that its characters often sound like comedic prodigies. Why say “This outfit won't get me laid” when you can say “Nobody's gotten a hand-job in cargo shorts since 'Nam”?
6. Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)
Director: Amy Heckerling
Stars: Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Robert Romanus, Brian Becker, Phoebe Cates, Ray Walston
Lesson Learned: The hotness that is Phoebe Cates will never lose its power.
Fast Times At Ridgemont High is worthy of many thanks. For one, we're grateful that director Amy Heckerling's equally humorous and intimate film is able to show that kids back in the crazy '80s weren't much different than today's youth; they chased skirts, got stoned, worked long hours for minimal wage, and jerked off in their parents' bathroom. And secondly, Fast Times will forever earn its praise for Sean Penn's performance as burnt-out surfer dude Jeff Spicoli—it's a tour de force of braindead aloofness.
Those aspects of Fast Times are great and all, but let's keep it funky: The movie is a national treasure simply because of Phoebe Cates. Her iconic, slow-motion emergence from that pool, in that red two-piece bikini, which drops to the concrete and lets Cates' boobies fly, is a timeless source of, um, pleasure. Now you know why it's good to know that chicken-choking has long been in vogue.
5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Director: John Hughes
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones, Jennifer Grey, Ben Stein
Lesson Learned: Cutting school is, well, cool.
Sure, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a charming, vibrant, and rightfully beloved '80s comedy full of one-liners and classic scenes, but we like to view John Hughes' lighthearted gem through a different prism. Though teachers, parents, and principals wouldn't agree, Matthew Broderick's breakout flick is also a tutorial on how to properly cut from school. You know, the maneuver you often attempted but could never pull off beyond sneaking out to the parking lot and promptly getting nabbed by security grunts.
All teenage dudes wish they could be half as confidently manipulative as Broderick's Ferris, a rebellious kid who fakes sickness to stay home from school and cavort around town with his girlfriend (the hot-as-hell Mia Sara) and neurotic best friend (a perfectly high-strung Alan Ruck). It's entirely innocent, devoid of any drug use or fiendishly criminal actions; air-surfing atop a parade float and joy-riding in his pal's dad's Ferrari are the extent of Ferris' unruliness.
With such low stakes, Hughes created an antiheroic role model for privileged teens the world over. By movie's end, Ferris' only punishment is having to still live in ho-hum suburbia once his exploits are over. He's a hero for the silver spoon crowd.
4. Billy Madison (1995)
Director: Tamra Davis
Stars: Adam Sandler, Bridgette Wilson, Bradley Whitford, Darren McGavin, Norm MacDonald
Lesson Learned: It's OK to be hot for teacher, though only if you're old enough to be one yourself.
Considering how mediocre his recent comedies have been, it's easy to forget that, at one time, Adam Sandler was the fucking man. Before shockingly unfunny flicks like Little Nicky and Grown Ups drove his annoying-on-purpose routine into the ground, the former Saturday Night Live star's man-child demeanor and innocent vulgarity owned film's comedy market, and there's arguably no finer example of Sandler's moronic brilliance than his first picture as a leading man, 1995's tremendously quotable Billy Madison.
The film's concept is gold: Sandler plays a thirty-something underachiever who reads nudie magazines whenever he's not chasing invisible penguins around his father's multimillion dollar estate. Once daddy's ready to relinquish control of his business empire, though, pops refuses to hand over the reins to his simpleton of a son; in order to prove to “dad that [he's] not a fool,” Billy Boy enrolls into kindergarten and begins a crash course through both elementary and high school.
From there, the laughs never stop, viewers' brains become increasingly useless, and Sandler's funniest movie makes one wish he or she could relive the days of spelling bees and Snack Pack lunches.
3. Rebel Without A Cause (1955)
Director: Nicholas Rey
Stars: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Dennis Hopper
Lesson Learned: Parents just don't understand, nor will they ever.
The misunderstood, brooding teenage outcast—it's one of the school movie genre's most familiar archetypes. Usually, the constantly tense kid walks the halls with a scowl, infuriating the jocks and enticing all girls on the honor roll. But, as is always the case, the loner is much more sensitive than he lets on; sometimes, he's even an insult to Bela Lugosi (see: Robert Pattinson in Twilight).
Whatever the case, he's always a direct descendant of Jim Stark, the tormented focus of director Nicholas Ray's masterful drama Rebel Without A Cause. Played by one of cinema's most enigmatic and tragic stars, James Dean, Jim's a poetic soul trapped inside a troublemaker's body; his attempts to connect with his parents routinely fail, and he's crafty with a switchblade only because his haters demand such skillful retaliation. Jim's also yearning for someone to “get” him, which leads him to Natalie Wood's character, the warm-hearted but equally scarred Judy.
Seen today, Rebel Without A Cause might feel a bit dated, due to its of-another-time practices (switchblade fights, “chicken” car races), but Dean's dynamite performance (first seen a month after his fatal car accident in September 1955) as a lonely teen searching for unavailable answers hasn't lost any of its power.
2. The Breakfast Club (1985)
Director: John Hughes
Stars: Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Paul Gleason
Lesson Learned: Looks can be deceiving, but, more importantly, prudes are way sexier than open-legged broads.
Like Martin Scorsese to gangster movies, or Alfred Hitchcock to suspense, John Hughes is the all-time king of teen-centric films, and The Breakfast Club is his best work. Written and directed by the late Hollywood maverick, The Breakfast Club takes an everyday high school set-up—misbehavers locked up in detention hall—and uses the familiar situation to explore the psychology of teenagers both popular and socially ostracized. It might be set in 1985, but Hughes' funny and revelatory flick speaks volumes about modern-day youngsters, just like it did twenty-six years ago.
Cleverly, Hughes carefully chose the most stereotypical teenaged caricatures and systematically ripped through preconceptions. The abrasive hoodlum (Judd Nelson) is really a lonely basket-case with serious daddy issues; the star athlete (Emilio Estevez) makes his classmates envious yet can't seem to make his father happy; and the popular girl (Molly Ringwald) that all the guys want to sleep with is actually a mega-prude. The Breakfast Club is like a group therapy session, just much more fun to watch.
1. National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
Director: John Landis
Stars: John Belushi, Karen Allen, Tim Matheson, Kevin Bacon, Stephen Furst, Tom Hulce
Lesson Learned: It's not an official frat party until the fat, always drunk brother shows up.
Need a reminder of Animal House's ubiquitous influence on real-life colleges? Just walk into any frat guy's bedroom and check out the iconic, black-and-white John Belushi “College” poster. As for director John Landis' classic comedy's sway over damn near every subsequent university-set movie, watch any one of them and take a shot for every idea, sight gag, and snobs-versus-slobs plot device jacked directly from the National Lampoon team's greatest flick. You'll be hammered before the end of the first act.
Beaming with an anarchist spirit, Animal House has provided a blueprint for all male Greek organizations since its game-changing debut in 1978. At the time, Belushi was a favorite on Saturday Night Live, but his hard-partying, Neanderthal-like character, Bluto, isn't the film's only worthwhile attribute; its cast of then-unknowns, including Kevin Bacon and Karen Allen, is uniformly hilarious.
Of course, reenacting any of the Delta House's actions seen in Landis' pic would result in any frat member's expulsion, but that's the joy behind Animal House: It's an exaggeration of Greek mayhem, punctuated by gleefully lowbrow humor and a reckless abandon that wasn't exactly in vogue throughout Hollywood, circa '78. For its lasting impact alone, Animal House deserves its own plaque on any Greek-minded university's campus.