MRQE Ranks: Cinema's 55 Best Teen Movies

1

Back to the Future (1985)

Cast: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Synopsis: Contemporary high schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) doesn't have the most pleasant of lives. Browbeaten by his principal at school, Marty must ... [MORE]

2

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Cast: Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Paul Gleason, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy

Director: John Hughes

Synopsis: John Hughes wrote and directed this quintessential 1980s high school drama featuring the hottest young stars of the decade. Trapped in a day-long S... [MORE]

3

Say Anything... (1989)

Cast: John Cusack, Ione Skye, John Mahoney, Lili Taylor, Joan Cusack

Director: Cameron Crowe

Synopsis: Ione Skye plays Diane Court, high-school valedictorian on the verge of heading to England on a prestigious scholarship. This is especially thrillin... [MORE]

4

Boyz n the Hood (1991)

Cast: Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr., Morris Chestnut, Larry Fishburne, Nia Long

Director: John Singleton

Synopsis: Director John Singleton's debut chronicles the trials and tribulations of three young African-American males growing up in South Central Los Angele... [MORE]

5

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran

Director: Nicholas Ray

Synopsis: This landmark juvenile-delinquent drama scrupulously follows the classic theatrical disciplines, telling all within a 24-hour period. Teenager Jimm... [MORE]

6

Hoosiers (1986)

Cast: Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper, Barbara Hershey, Sheb Wooley, Fern Persons

Director: David Anspaugh

Synopsis: Hoosiers tells the true story of a group of underdogs who become champions. Set in the 1950s, Hoosiers is about a hard-luck, unemployed college bas... [MORE]

7

Juno (2007)

Cast: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Olivia Thirlby

Director: Jason Reitman

Synopsis: When a teenage girl is faced with an unexpected pregnancy, she enlists the aid of her best friend in finding the unborn child a suitable home in th... [MORE]

8

Rushmore (1998)

Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Brian Cox, Seymour Cassel

Director: Wes Anderson

Synopsis: After the highly acclaimed independent film Bottle Rocket, director Wes Anderson followed up with a quirky Touchstone Studios film entitled Rushmor... [MORE]

9

Donnie Darko (2001)

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze

Director: Richard Kelly

Synopsis: Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a bright and charming high-school student who also has a dark and willfully eccentric side; he does little to mask his ... [MORE]

10

Rumble Fish (1983)

Cast: Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Dennis Hopper, Diana Scarwid

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Synopsis: One of two S.E. Hinton novels Francis Ford Coppola directed in 1983, Rumble Fish is a stylized black-and-white film about the death of gang culture... [MORE]

11

Diner (1982)

Cast: Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Tim Daly

Director: Barry Levinson

Synopsis: Writer-director Barry Levinson's autobiographical first feature fondly remembers his Baltimore youth. It's late 1959, and six guys in their early ... [MORE]

12

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Cast: Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, Alan Ruck, Jeffrey Jones, Jennifer Grey

Director: John Hughes, John Hugues

Writer: John Hughes

Synopsis: Teenaged Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) is a legend in his own time thanks to his uncanny skill at cutting classes and getting away with it. In... [MORE]

13

Election (1999)

Cast: Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Klein, Jessica Campbell, Colleen Camp

Director: Alexander Payne

Synopsis: In this satirical comedy, a hotly contested high school election becomes a metaphor for the current state of American politics. Jim McAllister (Mat... [MORE]

14

American Graffiti (1973)

Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Cindy Williams, Harrison Ford

Director: George Lucas

Synopsis: It's the last night of summer 1962, and the teenagers of Modesto, California, want to have some fun before adult responsibilities close in. Among t... [MORE]

16

Hairspray (2007)

Cast: John Travolta, Nikki Blonsky, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken

Director: Adam Shankman

Synopsis: Adam Shankman's adaptation of the stage musical Hairspray, itself an adaptation of the non-musical John Waters film of the same name, stars Nikki B... [MORE]

17

Risky Business (1983)

Cast: Tom Cruise, Rebecca De Mornay, Joe Pantoliano, Richard Masur, Bronson Pinchot

Director: Paul Brickman

Synopsis: Risky Business is the film in which 19-year-old Tom Cruise dances around his living room in his underwear. He does this to celebrate the fact that ... [MORE]

18

Dazed and Confused (1993)

Cast: Jason London, Rory Cochrane, Sasha Jenson, Wiley Wiggins, Milla Jovovich

Director: Richard Linklater

Synopsis: Like George Lucas' American Graffiti, Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused is an affectionate look at the youth culture of a bygone era. While L... [MORE]

19

Superbad (2007)

Cast: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Bill Hader, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Director: Greg Mottola

Synopsis: Operating under the assumption that by procuring alcohol for an upcoming party they will finally be able to break their longstanding losing streak ... [MORE]

20

Scream (1996/I)

Cast: Drew Barrymore, Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, David Arquette, Courteney Cox

Director: Wes Craven

Synopsis: Scream is at once a slasher film and a tongue-in-cheek position paper on the "dead teenagers" movies of the late 1970s/early 1980s that plays as ha... [MORE]

21

Carrie (1976)

Cast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, John Travolta, Amy Irving, William Katt

Director: Brian De Palma

Synopsis: This classic horror movie based on Stephen King's first novel stars Sissy Spacek as Carrie White, a shy, diffident teenager who is the butt of prac... [MORE]

22

WarGames (1983)

Cast: Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Ally Sheedy, John Wood, Barry Corbin

Director: John Badham

Synopsis: Once more, a wise-guy teenager tries to prove he's smarter than any adult-and nearly destroys the whole world in the process-in WarGames. Computer-... [MORE]

23

Brick (2005)

Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas, Nora Zehetner, Noah Segan, Noah Fleiss

Director: Rian Johnson

Synopsis: A tough-talking teen attempts to uncover his ex-girlfriend's killer in director Rian Johnson's hard-boiled high-school noir, told in the style of a... [MORE]

24

Friday Night Lights (2004)

Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Lucas Black, Garrett Hedlund, Derek Luke, Jay Hernandez

Director: Peter Berg

Synopsis: H.G. Bissinger's best-selling true-life account of a few months in the life of a high-school football team comes to the screen in this adaptation w... [MORE]

25

Dead Poets Society (1989)

Cast: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Kurtwood Smith, Josh Charles

Director: Peter Weir

Synopsis: Robin Williams toned down his usually manic comic approach in this successful period drama. In 1959, the Welton Academy is a staid but well-respect... [MORE]

26

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Cast: Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Robert Romanus, Brian Backer

Director: Amy Heckerling

Synopsis: Amy Heckerling's adaptation of Cameron Crowe's Fast Times at Ridgemont High is often considered one of the finest films of a disreputable genre (th... [MORE]

27

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Cast: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick

Director: Edgar Wright

Synopsis: Based on Bryan Lee O'Malley's Oni Press comic book of the same name, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World follows the eponymous slacker rocker on his colorf... [MORE]

28

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Josh Hartnett, Hanna Hall

Director: Sofia Coppola

Synopsis: A dark comedy punctuated by moments of drama, The Virgin Suicides explores the emotional underpinnings of a family starting to come apart at the se... [MORE]

29

Easy A (2010)

Cast: Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Dan Byrd, Thomas Haden Church

Director: Will Gluck

Synopsis: Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is re-imagined as a contemporary high school comedy in this tale of a scheming student who plots to give h... [MORE]

30

Remember the Titans (2000)

Cast: Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Wood Harris, Ryan Hurst, Donald Adeosun Faison

Director: Boaz Yakin

Synopsis: A high school football coach finds himself fighting for stakes much higher than the State Championship in this drama based on actual events. In 197... [MORE]

31

Mean Girls (2004)

Cast: Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried, Tina Fey

Director: Mark S. Waters

Synopsis: Tina Fey from Saturday Night Live wrote and appears in this comedy about the alternately funny and terrifying pecking order among teenage girls. Ca... [MORE]

32

Pretty in Pink (1986)

Cast: Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy, Jon Cryer, James Spader, Harry Dean Stanton

Director: Howie Deutch, John Hughes, Howard Deutch

Writer: John Hughes

Synopsis: John Hughes crafts an exemplary '80s Brat Pack romance out of the standard Cinderella story in Pretty in Pink. Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald) is a te... [MORE]

33

L.I.E. (2001)

Cast: Brian Cox, Paul Franklin Dano, Billy Kay, Bruce Altman, James Costa

Director: Michael Cuesta

Synopsis: A teenaged boy in desperate need of a father figure finds one in a place no one should ever have to look in this controversial drama. Howie (Paul F... [MORE]

34

Grease (1978)

Cast: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway, Didi Conn

Director: Randal Kleiser

Synopsis: "Grease," said the poster and the Barry Gibb song, "is the word." Transferring its setting from Chicago to sunny California, and adding a dash of d... [MORE]

35

Clueless (1995)

Cast: Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd, Dan Hedaya

Director: Amy Heckerling

Synopsis: Jane Austen might never have imagined that her 1816 novel Emma could be turned into a fresh and satirical look at ultra-rich teenagers in a Beverly... [MORE]

36

Saved! (2004)

Cast: Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin, Patrick Fugit, Heather Matarazzo

Director: Brian Dannelly

Synopsis: Mary (Jena Malone) is entering her senior year at American Eagle Christian High School. She seems to be in an ideal social position as one of the "... [MORE]

37

Kids (1995)

Cast: Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce, Chloe Sevigny, Sarah Henderson, Rosario Dawson

Director: Larry Clark

Synopsis: Kids offers a bleak, unblinking view of a group of vacuous, thoughtless New York City teens in their ceaseless quest for sex, drugs, and trouble. T... [MORE]

38

American Pie (1999)

Cast: Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari, Alyson Hannigan, Shannon Elizabeth, Chris Klein

Director: Paul Weitz

Synopsis: It's said that most American men think about sex once every two or three minutes, but this statistic would seriously underestimate the horniness of... [MORE]

39

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Cast: Jon Heder, Jon Gries, Aaron Ruell, Efren Ramirez, Diedrich Bader

Director: Jared Hess

Synopsis: The directorial debut of filmmaker Jared Hess, who also co-wrote the screenplay, Napoleon Dynamite is a quirky, offbeat comedy set in the small Ida... [MORE]

40

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Cast: Larisa Oleynik, Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Andrew Keegan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Director: Gil Junger

Synopsis: As Shakespearean adaptations go, it's not quite as odd as moving +The Tempest to another planet (as in Forbidden Planet) or +Hamlet to a Canadian b... [MORE]

41

Summer School (1987)

Cast: Mark Harmon, Kirstie Alley, Robin Thomas, Dean Cameron, Patrick Labyorteaux

Director: Carl Reiner

Synopsis: On the eve of his Hawaiian vacation, irresponsible high school teacher Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon) is forced into teaching a summer-school class. Hi... [MORE]

42

Crazy/Beautiful (2001)

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Jay Hernandez, Jean Bruce Scott, Herman Osorio, Miguel Castro

Director: John Stockwell

43

The Faculty (1998)

Cast: Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Josh Hartnett, Shawn Hatosy

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Synopsis: Miramax Films darlings Robert Rodriguez and screenwriter Kevin Williamson teamed up for a high-school alien-horror film that they described as The ... [MORE]

44

The Craft (1996)

Cast: Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True, Skeet Ulrich

Director: Andrew Fleming

Synopsis: After killing her mother in childbirth, growing up in San Francisco with her father and stepmother, attempting suicide, and moving to Los Angeles, ... [MORE]

45

The Girl Next Door (2004)

Cast: Emile Hirsch, Elisha Cuthbert, Timothy Olyphant, James Remar, Chris Marquette

Director: Luke Greenfield

Synopsis: Boy meets girl who's already met all sorts of boys and girls in this teen-slanted comedy. Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) is a straight-laced and hig... [MORE]

46

Bring It On (2000)

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, Jesse Bradford, Gabrielle Union, Clare Kramer

Director: Peyton Reed

Synopsis: The hard work, dedication, and personal politics behind "rah rah rah!" and "sis boom bah!" go under the microscope in this engaging teen comedy. To... [MORE]

47

Can't Hardly Wait (1998)

Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ethan Embry, Seth Green, Lauren Ambrose, Charlie Korsmo

Director: Harry Elfont, Deborah Kaplan

Synopsis: After the Huntington Hills High graduation ceremony, the fun gets underway at the graduation party where an assortment of jocks, geeks, prom queens... [MORE]

48

St. Elmo's Fire (1985)

Cast: Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore

Director: Joel Schumacher

Synopsis: Post-collegiate angst, '80s style, is the subject of this coming-of-age ensemble piece, which traces the fortunes of a group of Georgetown grads as... [MORE]

50

Varsity Blues (1999)

Cast: James Van Der Beek, Jon Voight, Paul Walker, Ron Lester, Scott Caan

Director: Brian Robbins

Synopsis: In his first feature following the success of television's Dawson's Creek, James Van Der Beek stars as Jonathan Moxon, the back-up quarterback on h... [MORE]

51

17 Again (2009)

Cast: Zac Efron, Leslie Mann, Thomas Lennon, Matthew Perry, Tyler Steelman, Allison Miller, Sterling Knight, Michelle Trachtenberg, Adam Gregory, Hunter Parrish, Katerina Graham, Tiya Sircar, Melora Hardin, Brian Doyle-Murray, Jim Gaffigan, Mario Cassem, Melissa Ordway, Josie Loren, Randy Gordon, Collette Wolfe, Tommy Dewey

Director: Burr Steers

Synopsis: A former high school basketball star gets a second shot at life when he's miraculously transformed into a teenager and offered the opportunity to r... [MORE]

52

Never Been Kissed (1999)

Cast: Drew Barrymore, Michael Vartan, Molly Shannon, David Arquette, Leelee Sobieski

Director: Raja Gosnell

Synopsis: Many people wish they could go back to high school, knowing what they know as an adult; Josie Geller gets the chance to do just that in the comedy ... [MORE]

53

Footloose (1984)

Cast: Kevin Bacon, Lori Singer, John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, Christopher Penn

Director: Herbert Ross

Synopsis: In this lively adolescent-oriented musical, a city kid attempts to adapt to life in an ultra-conservative backwater Midwestern town. Once there, he... [MORE]

54

Empire Records (1995)

Cast: Anthony LaPaglia, Rory Cochrane, Johnny Whitworth, Liv Tyler, Renee Zellweger

Director: Allan Moyle

Synopsis: A funky little record shop provides the setting for this youthful comedy that centers on the workers there as they try to help poor Joe Anthony LaP... [MORE]