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Each Generation’s High School Movie


Neonmoon

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Mean Girls might be better for millennials than American Pie. I was born in 85 (which makes me an old millennial) and I think I was in jr high when American Pie came out. Mean Girls is I suppose gender specific but it is classic.

Is there another micro generation that could argue about American Pie vs Can’t Hardly Wait?

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24 minutes ago, Sweetnsourpoke said:

I'm thinking Fast Times at Ridgemont High over Breakfast Club, IMO 

I’d give the nod to John Hughes, who made a few high school movies that marked that era for the Gen X’ers – Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Weird Science, and The Breakfast Club. The Breakfast Club was pretty fucking edgy for that time.

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15 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Isn't Superbad millennial?

Millennial here, 2012 HS graduate. I’ve never seen American pie or know of anyone that ever referenced or talked about it. EVERYONE in high school knew Superbad and Mean Girls. 21 Jump Street movie & Project X honorable mentions. 

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21 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Mean Girls might be better for millennials than American Pie. I was born in 85 (which makes me an old millennial) and I think I was in jr high when American Pie came out. Mean Girls is I suppose gender specific but it is classic.

Is there another micro generation that could argue about American Pie vs Can’t Hardly Wait?

I was born in 1980 so I’m probably that microgeneration. I was 5 when Breakfast Club came out but out of high school when American Pie came out. 
We were probably more Varsity Blues, Can’t Hardly Wait or even the I Know What You Did Last Summer group. 

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9 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Heathers it he most Gen X of movies.  The teenagers there are adulting the entire time with no supervision.  They're fucking, drinking, smoking, and killing.  The adults are just on the periphery, if anything.  The movie is also very morbid, which is also very Gen X.

Add on that all, if not most, of the key actors were actually teenagers themselves.  

Using that standard, River's Edge aligns well... 

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2 minutes ago, Frank The Tank said:

I was born in 1980 so I’m probably that microgeneration. I was 5 when Breakfast Club came out but out of high school when American Pie came out. 
We were probably more Varsity Blues, Can’t Hardly Wait or even the I Know What You Did Last Summer group. 

Yeah it’s my oldest sister’s group. Also 10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless, and She’s All That

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19 minutes ago, Dutchrudder said:

For 90s there were a lot of movies that could qualify:

Can't Hardly Wait

She's all That

10 Things I Hate About You

Cruel intentions

Varsity Blues

Mallrats

Clueless

Theres Something about Mary

Scream / I know What You Did Last Summer

 

This is a good list. I’d add a couple of the most Gen X movies were Reality Bites and Empire Records 

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3 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

This is a good list. I’d add a couple of the most Gen X movies were Reality Bites and Empire Records 

Reality Bites is solid if you're looking at early adulthood rather than HS years.

For that time of life, might I also suggest....Office Space?  At first glance, it's a comedy but on a deeper level, it's a coming of age movie for white collar/junior tech types.  If you were in Texas and worked in tech in the 90's, the show is a cultural documentary.  

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18 minutes ago, Frank The Tank said:

I was born in 1980 so I’m probably that microgeneration. I was 5 when Breakfast Club came out but out of high school when American Pie came out. 
We were probably more Varsity Blues, Can’t Hardly Wait or even the I Know What You Did Last Summer group. 

Yeah I think ours are Can’t Hardly Wait and Varsity Blues. 

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33 minutes ago, Helobious said:

Millennial here, 2012 HS graduate. I’ve never seen American pie or know of anyone that ever referenced or talked about it. EVERYONE in high school knew Superbad and Mean Girls. 21 Jump Street movie & Project X honorable mentions. 

Correct. 

 

The 80s have a lot of good classics to choose from. Ferris Bueller, Breakfast Club, Fast Times, Back to The Future - even Dead Poets Society although it's dark and not as archetypal "high-school".

Some good ones not mentioned yet:

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Clueless (1995)

Election (1999)

Juno (2007)

Dope (2015)

 

Then you have high-school sports movies that are also very high-school-culturey like Friday Night Lights and Coach Carter. And you have high-school sports movies that are less high-schooly like Hoosiers and Remember The Titans.

Another honorable mention are the Twilight movies that were decently popular. Not great movies necessarily but definitely very defining of an era/certain female demographic. I don't know if they're all set in high school though - it might just be the first one. 

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2 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Some good ones not mentioned yet:

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Beat me to it.

Animal House was high on our list.

Edited by RPM
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2 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

I'm an ancient millennial in that I hung out with Gen X'ers and so we watched Dazed and Confused on a loop and Can't Hardly Wait with a young douchey Seth Green was played on a loop on one of the stations (HBO, SHO, MTV) every summer.

Mainly though my generation's Summer viewing was MTV Beach house (and Spring Break) with Live episodes of Singled Out and Room Raiders between Eminem and Radiohead sets.

I was born in '81 and this is correct. 

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Just now, locodos said:

full_Bill_Ted-3.png

I adore Bill and Ted and almost listed it but it doesn't quite feel like a "high school" movie for me. Sure, they're in high school, but outside of Bill and Ted the other main characters aren't high school kids and it doesn't take place at their high school at all except like the very last scene. 

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1 hour ago, Sweetnsourpoke said:

I'm thinking Fast Times at Ridgemont High over Breakfast Club, IMO 

I think you're right for the older half of Generation X, but for mid-X and younger (my age) it's 100% Breakfast Club.

Just Say No was a thing by the time we hit high school, and AIDS was a huge thing by then. So things like pregnancy were the least of our concerns re: sex.

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4 minutes ago, ztejas said:

I adore Bill and Ted and almost listed it but it doesn't quite feel like a "high school" movie for me. Sure, they're in high school, but outside of Bill and Ted the other main characters aren't high school kids and it doesn't take place at their high school at all except like the very last scene. 

As much as I love this movie, nothing about it has any relation to reality. Even the movie's creator basically said that Bill & Ted likely would get beaten up by the two classmates who inspired them.

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44 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Heathers it he most Gen X of movies.  The teenagers there are adulting the entire time with no supervision.  They're fucking, drinking, smoking, and killing.  The adults are just on the periphery, if anything.  The movie is also very morbid, which is also very Gen X.

Add on that all, if not most, of the key actors were actually teenagers themselves.  

That's... a really good answer.

Also, Gen Z, it isn't a movie. It's something on YouTube.

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15 minutes ago, ztejas said:

I adore Bill and Ted and almost listed it but it doesn't quite feel like a "high school" movie for me. Sure, they're in high school, but outside of Bill and Ted the other main characters aren't high school kids and it doesn't take place at their high school at all except like the very last scene. 

Those are valid points. 

CSB:   It just so happens that in high school a friend and I both decided to go see a movie Bill & Ted's on a random Thursday night.  We mentioned it to a few folks and told them to meet us there.  Everyone we talked to was like "sure I think I can make it, mind if I invite so and so?"   yeah, no problem, the more the merrier.  Meet in the parking lot at 8. 

When we pulled up it seemed like the whole school was hanging out in the theatre parking lot like some sort of shitty tailgate. 

The theatre was PACKED and that weird random movie turned out to be funny as shit.   Just some lightning in a bottle thing.   So it's absolutely a high school movie to me.

Edited by locodos
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I had an exceedingly disinterested teacher for my high school German classes. He would allow us to watch whatever movies we wanted as long as we could make an argument about how it was related to the German language, culture, etc. 

We watched Bill & Ted's numerous times because Freud mumbles something in German once or twice. Same goes for Die Hard based on “Schieße den Fenster!”, and several other movies (Amadeus, The Heroes of Telemark, etc.) were also in heavy rotation. 

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1 hour ago, David Dennison said:

I nominate Bottoms for Gen Z.

 

I'd add Lady Bird and Booksmart to the list for Gen Z.

How does the era portrayed factor in?  For example, is Porky's Gen X (released in 1981) or Silent Generation (set in 1954)?

Edited by DixonHur
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Gen X

Risky Business

16 Candles

Fast Times at Ridgemont High- might not be ours, but it influenced us.

Weird Science

Back To The Future

Red Dawn- cultural and it starts in a school.

Less Than Zero

Vision Quest

Stand and Deliver

Edited by slorch
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2 hours ago, Celery Man said:

Mean Girls might be better for millennials than American Pie. I was born in 85 (which makes me an old millennial) and I think I was in jr high when American Pie came out. Mean Girls is I suppose gender specific but it is classic.

Is there another micro generation that could argue about American Pie vs Can’t Hardly Wait?

Yes.  Born in 82 and American Pie vs Can't Hardly Wait is perfect for the Oregon Trail Generation. 

I wish I could argue for Dazed and Confused, but that's really Gen X territory.

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1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Reality Bites is solid if you're looking at early adulthood rather than HS years.

For that time of life, might I also suggest....Office Space?  At first glance, it's a comedy but on a deeper level, it's a coming of age movie for white collar/junior tech types.  If you were in Texas and worked in tech in the 90's, the show is a cultural documentary.  

image.gif.c0b856904b98ab8d8e0978acb2396e74.gif

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22 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

I'd add Lady Bird and Booksmart to the list for Gen Z.

How does the era portrayed factor in?  For example, is Porky's Gen X (released in 1981) or Silent Generation (set in 1954)?

no idea if it is that kind of relevant, but booksmart is awesome and i hope it is that movie for that generation

Edited by Celery Man
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Gen Z getting Superbad is like Barry Switzer celebrating a super bowl.  

Graduated 2006, and Superbad came out the next year. That shit was in non-stop rotation in our UT apartment for months. I'll also allow Napoleon Dynamite. 

Also appreciate the "younger" Gen X classics like Can't Harly Wait or She's All That, etc. 

Dazed & Confused is on another level though. Easily tops the list for me. 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, slorch said:

Who gets The Outsiders

See above analysis for why The Outsiders doesn’t fit.  A movie about 1960’s high-schoolers isn’t really Generation X in my humble yet correct opinion, even though it came out when a chunk of Gen X-ears were in high school.

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