Top Ten Favorites: More School Movies

 "If you were happy every day of your life, you wouldn't be a human being. You'd be a game-show host."Heathers (1988)

Hello, my lovely friends!  

    There is something so nostalgic about slipping back into the halls of high school, even if it is just through a screen while lounging in your favorite sweatpants on a Sunday night. Over the years, our little group chat has debated almost everything, but nothing gets us talking quite like the movies that shaped our teenage years and defined our idea of high school drama. Whether we were praying for a dramatic makeover, wishing for a spontaneous dance routine, or just trying to survive our real-life awkward phases, these films held our hands through it all. Here is our collective round-up of the school movies we keep going back to.

    To kick things off, we have to talk about Heathers, which is about as dark and biting as high school comedies get, but Winona Ryder and Christian Slater make every single line so iconically cool that you cannot look away. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Bring It On gives us pure, bright, ridiculous early-2000s energy, filled with cheer routines we all definitely tried to copy in our living rooms and dialogue that is still burnt into our brains. Then you bring Pitch Perfect into the mix, and suddenly we are all singing acapella in the shower again, cheering for Fat Amy, and remembering just how fun it was when this movie completely took over the internet.

    Moving into the classic eras, Can't Buy Me Love gives us that ultimate eighties fake-dating trope that never gets old, complete with lawnmowers and African ant dances that still make me laugh out loud. Footloose brings that same decade energy but trades the fake dating for angry barn dancing, reminding us all why Kevin Bacon was everyone's original crush and why we still cannot sit still when that title track comes on. Then, of course, there is Mean Girls, the absolute crown jewel of teen movies that defined an entire generation's vocabulary, where every single line is quotable and October third is practically a national holiday for us at this point.

    If you want a little magic mixed into the classroom, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone takes us right back to that cozy autumn feeling of wishing a letter would show up in our mailbox, complete with giant floating candles and moving staircases. On a much more serious note, Dangerous Minds hits you right in the nineties feelings with Coolio playing in the background while Michelle Pfeiffer tries to reach a room full of tough kids through poetry and karate. Speaking of poetry, Dead Poets Society is the ultimate tearjerker that makes you want to stand on top of your desk, cry your eyes out, and instantly call your best friends to tell them to seize the day. Wrapping it all up is The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which somehow captures that exact ache of being young, feeling infinite, driving through tunnels with the music blaring, and finding the people who truly get you.

    Looking back over all of these, it is pretty amazing how a simple movie set in a school can bring up so many different feelings and old memories for all of us. No matter how many years go by or how much our lives change, putting one of these on feels like taking a little trip back in time.

Top Ten Favorites: More School Movies
1. Heathers (1988)
2. Bring It On (2000)
3. Pitch Perfect (2012)
4. Can't Buy Me Love (1987)
5. Footloose (1984) 
6. Mean Girls (2004)
7. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
8. Dangerous Minds (1995)
9. Dead Poets Society (1989)
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

Thanks for spending a little piece of your day with me. Sending you lots of warmth and wishing you a wonderful day ahead. Can’t wait for our next chat!