The traditional high school comedies of John Hughes don’t reflect everybody’s high school experiences. Not everybody was cool like Ferris Bueller; most teenagers are just awkward. A lot of filmmakers feel that way and have upended the tropes of high school movies with a kooky tone that better exemplifies their own memories of youth.
When it comes to quirky high school comedies, Napoleon Dynamite is the reigning champ. From its opening credits being written in food to its hysterically cringeworthy climactic dance sequence, Napoleon Dynamite is about as quirky as movies come. But there are plenty of other unconventional high school movies that broke the mold.
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
The title character in Napoleon Dynamite is decidedly unlikeable, and the movie wouldn’t have worked nearly as well without Jon Heder’s hilariously deadpan performance. Plus, the fact that he’s a loser makes him strangely endearing.
Jared Hess’ movie is the definition of a cult hit. It was produced on a shoestring budget and unexpectedly became a runaway success at the box office.
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
The opening scene of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure states that the journey its titular duo will embark on determines the future of humanity. Then, they’re introduced as a pair of lovable slackers who dream of being rock gods. Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves are perfectly matched as Bill and Ted, who need to pass their latest history assignment or the latter will be sent to military school.
Rufus, played by legendary comic George Carlin, arrives from the Bill and Ted-worshipping future to give them a phone booth time machine to round up a bunch of prominent figures from throughout history and bring them to the present day to help with their history report.
Heathers (1988)
Daniel Waters’ script for Heathers brought a pitch-black comic edge to John Hughes-style high school comedies. Winona Ryder and Christian Slater star as a pair of social outcasts in a high school run by a clique of popular girls all named Heather. They start killing the popular kids and bullies of the school and staging their deaths as suicides. Since all the popular people are supposedly taking their own lives, suicide becomes a cool new thing at the school.
As school shootings and teen suicides have become more frequent, Heathers has naturally become more controversial. But it still resonates as a sharp satire of the high school experience and a subversion of the Hughes brand.
The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)
Iain Morris and Damon Beesley’s The Inbetweeners is one of the greatest British sitcoms in recent memory and one of the most painfully relatable high school stories ever told. The 2011 movie adaptation — in which Will, Simon, Jay, and Neil jet off on a lads’ holiday after their graduation — acted as a surprisingly satisfying feature-length series finale.
The 2014 sequel relied too heavily on broad humor at times, losing touch with the tone of the original series, but it’s still a mostly enjoyable entry in the Inbetweeners saga.
Election (1999)
In addition to poking fun at high school life, Election is also an incisive political satire. According to director Alexander Payne, Barack Obama has named it as his favorite political movie.
Reese Witherspoon stars as preppy Tracy Flick, who launches a hyper-ambitious campaign in her run for student body president. Matthew Broderick co-stars as a scheming teacher who’s bitter toward Tracy because she had an affair with his best friend, which got him fired.
Better Off Dead (1985)
John Cusack has starred in a number of teen comedies, but one of the best — and easily the most surreal — is Better Off Dead, in which he plays a kid who gets dumped by his girlfriend and decides to race his ex’s new boyfriend on the ski slopes.
This movie is pretty wild. There’s even a dream sequence in which hamburgers and fries are brought to life with stop-motion animation.
Juno (2007)
Diablo Cody brought some personal experiences from her own adolescence to her Oscar-winning script for Juno, which follows the 16-year-old title character as she’s impregnated by her friend and has to decide what to do with the kid.
Teen pregnancies are usually vilified in the media, so it was refreshing to see a movie that took a sympathetic approach to the story of a high schooler having a baby.
Rushmore (1998)
Wes Anderson took a stab at a 400 Blows-esque coming-of-age story with his second directorial effort Rushmore, one of his funniest — and quirkiest — movies.
Jason Schwartzman plays a precocious high schooler, Bill Murray plays a wealthy industrialist, and Olivia Williams plays a teacher whom they both fall for.
Dazed And Confused (1993)
Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused doesn’t follow a plot per se. It’s a string of vignettes set on the last day of school as teens usher in their summer vacation with wild partying. It’s less about telling a specific story and more about recapturing the feeling of being young and free when the sky’s the limit.
This is the movie that Matthew McConaughey’s famous “All right, all right, all right” line comes from. He appeared in the movie before he was famous, along with Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich, and Renée Zellweger.
Lady Bird (2017)
Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut Lady Bird adheres to the unwritten rule that the more personal a movie is, the more relatable it will be. Gerwig brought so much humanity and verisimilitude to an all-girls Catholic school in Sacramento in 2002 — and, specifically, one student who recently changed her name — that it rings true to any viewer who went to a high school somewhere.
Saoirse Ronan is transcendent in the lead role, and her incredible chemistry with Laurie Metcalf created one of the greatest mother-daughter pairings in movie history.