High School Movie Classics Streaming Now
Plus, send in your questions for a DYLA mailbag next week!
Some of the most beloved movies of the past few decades are about high schoolers. This just makes sense. The high school experience can be fun, terrifying, formative, and hilarious, often all at once, and most people go through it. The movies have continued to find new and interesting ways to tap into this experience while never losing sight of the main themes of independence, identity, and/or purpose.
Every generation gets their iconic high school cinematic touchstones. With back-to-school in full swing right now, we wrote about a few classics of the high school movie canon today, but there’s so many more out there: The Breakfast Club, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 10 Things I Hate About You, Mean Girls, Superbad, 21 Jump Street, Lady Bird, and on and on. Read this week’s recommendations below and then check out our mini-reviews for new releases Annette, CODA, and Beckett.
ASK DYLA: Next week we are doing something a little different for the newsletter. It’s a Do You Like Apples mailbag! Billy and Drew will be answering your movie-related questions, whether they be specific to us (What are our desert island movies?), personalized movie recommendations for you (Your favorite genre is sci-fi, so what are the best sci-fi movies you might not have seen?), or just general inquiries about film (Which category should the Oscars add? Is Timothee Chalamet his generation’s Leonardo DiCaprio?). Reply to this email with your questions, or hit us up on Twitter or Instagram!
Drew recommends...
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (streaming on Netflix)
Everyone wants to be Ferris Bueller, but were you much like him in high school? I know I didn’t often cut class to explore the city in an expensive car with a pretty girl. If we’re honest, many of us were more like Cameron, fearful or confused about what to do or who to be, or Ferris’ sister Jeanie, envious or annoyed at those who seem to be having all the fun. This is part of why Ferris Bueller’s Day Off will never die. It’s more of an escapist fantasy than a high school comedy.
Ferris, as brilliantly played by Matthew Broderick, is an untouchable idea of a character. He’s never fazed or concerned. He doesn’t believe in anything, only himself. Ferris doesn’t really have a character arc; he doesn’t change or come to any big realization. He’s the same from the first scene to the last -- “a righteous dude.” It’s Ferris’ best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) that traces the arc we normally associate with a movie’s main character. We first see Cameron paralyzed with uncertainty and fear, traumatized by his icy and unhealthy family. But as the carefree Ferris draws him out of his shell, this sets up Cameron to become a more open and assertive person. (This is probably why fans have come up with semi-plausible theories about why the whole movie takes place in Cameron’s head, or as it’s known online, the “Cameron Fight Club” theory.)
No one was better at telling coming-of-age stories in the 1980s than writer-director John Hughes. Even before Ferris Bueller, Hughes had already made Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink in the preceding years. His ear for teen dialogue and keen understanding of the dynamics that make up a high schooler’s life was uncanny. With Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Hughes injected some of his own childhood into the equation. He spent his high school years in suburban Chicago, so the city became a natural setting for his movies. In Ferris Bueller, we go along with Ferris, his girlfriend Sloane, and Cameron as they skip school and enjoy what Chicago has to offer, which includes soaking in a game at Wrigley, wandering through the Art Institute, and joining -- nay, leading -- an ongoing parade. It’s an innocent and idealized version of America’s third-largest city, and thus, it became one of the most famous Chicago movies.
If you watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off today, it doesn’t seem all that dated, which is why it can be enjoyed by those that weren’t even born when it came out. It’s just fun and effortless escapism, a fantasy where Ferris teaches us not to miss out on life. No matter how far removed you are from your high school years, that’s a lesson you can’t afford to skip.
Election (streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime)
When high school gets political, it can turn unpleasant in a hurry. That’s the basis for Election, a 1999 dark comedy-satire that only has a small cultural footprint but may have been ahead of its time. Writer-director Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants) transferred the ugliness of American politics to an Omaha, Nebraska high school with razor sharp wit and insight. Along with an outstanding early Reese Witherspoon performance, Election is a smart and funny take on ambition and election ethics.
The story follows a mild-mannered high school teacher named Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) and Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), an overachieving student running for school president. McAllister despises Tracy’s ruthlessly driven demeanor and sets out to interfere with her plans to win the election. With all due respect to her work in Walk the Line or Legally Blonde, this may be Witherspoon’s best performance. Tracy Flick is an instantly memorable character, and Witherspoon was so good she started to get typecast as Flick. Meanwhile, Broderick, 13 years after Ferris Bueller, is playing her antithesis, a bitter and pathetic teacher whose life didn’t go the way he planned.
Election nails how poorly some men respond to an ambitious woman, a message that wasn’t all that common in 90s movies. However, Tracy is no angel herself. She reveals her share of shortcomings throughout the story, which makes for a more nuanced movie. One of the best things about an Alexander Payne film is that he never worries about presenting his flawed characters honestly, warts (or swollen eyes) and all.
Billy recommends…
Scream (streaming on HBO Max)
A horror movie that ushered in a new era of awareness that the horror movie genre had not seen much of. Wes Craven had created classics in the 70s and 80s that were game changers before he came to Scream with The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Those classics fit perfectly into the slasher era they were made in. By the time of Scream there were copycat after copycat trying to recreate the 70s/80s horror magic. So instead of one more lesser attempt Craven decided to create a meta horror that is equally a spoof on the genre while being horrifying at the same time.
What makes this movie timeless is how it approaches the tropes of a genre that often become stale. It subverts and adheres to the cliches at the same time. It has a masked killer and dumb high school kids. Their dumb is heightened even more though because these characters are aware of horror movies cliches. For example, we have a character in Scream that is watching a horror movie and yelling at the screen when a character isn’t noticing the killer behind her. All while a killer is coming up behind him.
That’s enough of explaining how it is subverting the genre because I want to reiterate how horrifying this movie is. A classic slasher movie, sure, but it opens with the best iteration of a “it’s coming from inside the house” moment in horror movie history. A legendary Drew Barrymore performance as a “scream queen” that sets a new tone for the horror genre for a whole generation. Now that we are transitioning into fall, use this movie as a perfect gateway into the horror genre. It will scratch that itch for any horror junkie plus it has the perfect amount of laughs to soften the blow for any horror novice.
Recent Release Mini-Reviews
Annette (in theaters and streaming on Amazon Prime)
Billy: The ending really wrapped things up well. So glad to have weird theater experiences again. I can only describe this as the tunnel scene from Willy Wonka elongated into a 2 hour musical.
I wouldn’t say this was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, but it swung for the fences. Need more movies that are as unapologetic as this one. - 3 / 5 Apples
CODA (streaming on Apple TV+)
Billy: What felt dry 80% of the way through is completely redeemed by a really touching final act. Apple TV is really leaning into that Ted Lasso feel-good film/tv and I’m here for it. - 3 / 5 Apples
Beckett (streaming on Netflix)
Drew: This is the type of conspiracy thriller that is usually right up my alley, where an average Joe stumbles into political intrigue amid chase scenes and a plot that only gets more ludicrous as it goes on. Beckett is a throwback to those 70s paranoid thrillers in some ways. Its style is grounded, injected with realism so as not to be confused with the modern Hollywood thriller. However, this is just another totally forgettable Netflix Original, watchable enough in the moment before it slips from your brain. I’ll probably forget it the second I post this review.
One last thing though. This seems like a role that John David Washington would be well-suited for, yet he doesn’t add much depth to an already thin character. JDW absolutely deserves his own action franchise, but Beckett needed a more compelling actor at its center. - 2.5 / 5 Apples