For every Fast Times at Ridgemont High, there's a Donnie Darko. Mainstream teen romps sell at the onset, but experimentally-charged flicks tend to reel in audiences well after the fact - if ever at all.
The following ten are examples of High School-set or teen-involved movies carried by performances from young actors who treated their work with the commitment of a seasoned veteran. They are also from filmmakers who knew the teen movie formula and decided to flip it on its head. With honorable mention paid to Jennifer's Body, which has already been granted the cult classic status the below-listed would like to attain.
Elephant
As the middle portion of Gus Van Sant's "Death Trilogy," the controversial film follows the events leading up to, and during a school shooting. It captures the in-real time perspective of a student body that goes from unaware of what's about to happen, to confronting their mortality.
Based on the Columbine High School Massacre, the 2003 Palm d'Or-winning psycho-drama was well-received by critics, many of whom were complimentary of its resisting the urge to cross the line between public service re-enactment and misguided exploitation.
Get Over It
Riding the loose Shakespeare adaption wave 10 Things I Hate About You (based largely on "The Taming of the Shew") helped popularize, this less-successful, 2001 teen comedy chose "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as its own starting point.
Short-lived TV Shows like Freaks and Geeks - another early 21st-century ensemble of then-unknown, future A-listers - gain more notoriety with each passing year. So here's hoping the similarly star-studded Get Over It can gain a second life as well.
Prom Night
Despite a polarizing reaction upon release, a small cult following among slasher fans has already kept afloat the non-Laurie Strode Jamie Lee Curtis horror film's that's number one crime was not being a Halloween entry.
Dismissed by critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel for its depiction of violence against women, the film whose title explains its setting and context quite well was praised by differing crowds for its other elements - like a Disco-rich soundtrack that makes revisitors wish the music genre never died.
Mid90s
Jonah Hill's personal directorial debut placed the actor behind the camera to reflect through an indie lens on his days growing up in 1990s Los Angeles - where he combatted growing pains by befriending a crew of older skaters despite not being a talented skater himself.
The film juxtaposes Stevie's (Sunny Suljic)'s surrogate family-formation with a healthy dose of old school, era-appropriate hip hop tunes that comfort Hill's semi-autobiographical stand-in on the dreaded walks and rides back home.
Bully
Hitting select theaters in 2001, the film - based on the true story of South Florida teens who conspired to successfully murder their friend who had been abusing them for years - was felt, by some critics, too disturbing for mass appeal.
Others praised the filmmakers' lack of sugar-coating, regarding the tackling of real-life teens who may not fathom the weight of what they have done - believing audiences could ultimately assume the role of a most formidable jury before the teens/characters eventually faced one themselves.
Trojan War
Making only $309 (not thousand, hundred) on a $15 million budget may seem reprehensible at first. But 1997's Trojan War deserved much more than the single theater release it, for some reason, received.
Starring then real-life "It Couple" Will Friedle (Boy Meets World) and Jennifer Love Hewitt (Party of Five, I Know What You Did Last Summer), the film essentially plays like a less-polished version of Superbad, crossed with all the tropes found in a John Hughes/Molly Ringwald joint from the Brat-packed 1980s.
Big Time Adolescence
The hype surrounding Judd Apatow and Pete Davidson's The King of Staten Island on-demand and streaming release in the year without movie theaters may have been warranted, but surely buried the earlier buzz surrounding another coming-of-age where the latter shined.
Big Time Adolescence, currently available on Hulu, pits the Saturday Night Live actor as the older, stoner best friend/mentor opposite American Vandal's Griffin Gluck - a high school nobody that's sister used to date Davidson's character. A premise for the ages.
The Dirties
Burgeoning super-indie director Matt Johnson's (Operation Avalanche, Nirvanna the Band the Show) 2012 debut is as drop-dead hilarious as it is darkly-resonate about the state of high school hallways.
For the film notably distributed by indie pantheon Kevin Smith, Johnson and pal Owen Williams star as a pair of outcasts who love to film recreated scenes from popular violent movies and comically fantasize about what they would like to do to their many bullies. Soon enough, audiences and characters alike realize one of them is not joking.
The Assassination Of A High School President
"Forget it Funke, it's high school." This humorous 2008 send-off to journalism-driven thrillers, classic teen comedies, and New Hollywood's own hard-boiled pastiches could perhaps be one of the best films ever to receive a direct-to-DVD release.
With a post-production process delaying its rollout, many wound up sleeping on the film that evoked Rushmore, likely inspired or at least influenced American Vandal, and gave Bruce Willis the chance to trade in his action hat for an irreverent, maniac high school principal one for a change.
Me And Earl And The Dying Girl
Often mischaracterized as a less-mainstream and therefore, less bankable The Fault in Our Stars, 2015's Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is not so much about teenagers dying of fatal illnesses, as it is about teenagers earning the chance to rewrite their stories and excuses for having to miss class.
A pair of amateur spoof filmmaking best friends' lives are changed for the better when one of them (Thomas Mann, Project X) befriends a classmate and former crush (Olivia Cooke) diagnosed with leukemia. As Cooke's (Thoroughbreds, Ready Player One, Sound of Metal) career continues to catapult these days, so too should the number of eyes sampling this underrated exercise in expectation-subversion.