Back to School Films
It’s that time of year: back-to-school season. That time when parents are rejoicing, students are groaning, and teachers are frantically preparing for the unpredictable road ahead. Love school or hate school, you are sure to find at least one school related film that you will like in our curated film selection below. Happy Viewing & School Year!
High School Flings
Lady Bird (2016, dir. Greta Gerwig)
Lady Bird is far, far more than a high school romance story. It is primarily a mother-daughter fable, but the way that Greta Gerwig portrays school girl crushes and love is something worth discussing. Lady Bird stars Saoirse Ronan as the title character, an idealistic high school senior who longs to escape her uninspiring surroundings in Sacramento and expand her mind in New York City after she graduates. Lady Bird’s enthusiasm gauge is always at 100%, and we see this clearly as she obsesses over her two high school boyfriends in her senior year, Danny (Lucas Hedges) and Kyle (Timothée Chalamet). Lady Bird learns from each relationship that she is on a completely different wavelength; she is too busy romanticizing love to realize that the other person in the relationship is unfulfilled or not as invested as she is. She’s a girl who is in love with being in love, and throughout the film we get to witness her journey from idealism to heartbreak to self-reflection. -Bailey 😍💔
Easy A (2010, dir. Will Gluck)
A modern ultra-loose adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, complete with sassy dialogue, a storyline that perfectly captures the ridiculousness of a high school rumor mill, and a John Hughes 1980’s-esque ending, yes please! Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) is your typical 17-year-old high school girl, who just wants to get her best friend to stop pestering her about her sexual (in)experiences, so she tells one little, white lie that sparks a whole lot of trouble. This teen comedy has the most amazing supporting cast and is truly one of the best high school back-to-school films out there. -Sarah 😉A
Caught Laughing in Class...
The Trouble with Angels (1966, dir. Ida Lupino)
School mischief and nuns go hand-in-hand. They are the peanut butter and jelly of the school film genre. In this comedy, teens Mary (Hayley Mills) and Rachel (June Harding) meet and become best friends during their first year as students at St. Francis Academy, a Catholic boarding school for girls. The film follows them through their three years at the school, as the pair foster their affinity for pranks and mischief, much to the vexation of Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell). The chemistry between Mills and Harding is palpable throughout the film, and it’s great fun to witness their increasingly ridiculous shenanigans. Rosalind Russell is, of course, amazing in her role, where she must match wits with these wily girls, conveying frustration, understanding, and cunning at any given moment. -Bailey 👼👼🚬
The Major and the Minor (1942, dir. Billy Wilder)
Before Billy Wilder became more well-known after having directed The Seven Year Itch (1955), Some Like it Hot (1959), and The Apartment (1960), he got his directing start with a funny little film called The Major and the Minor. The premise of the film is simple enough, Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) quits her job in New York City, after a client made a pass at her, and is determined to return home to Iowa, but once she reaches the train station she realizes that she only has enough money to purchase a “child’s fare,” meant for those aged twelve and under. Desperate to get home, Susan dresses like a schoolgirl, nicknames herself “Su-Su,” and gets into a whole lot of trouble on her journey home when her train is stopped due to flooding and Su-Su is taken in by Major Philip Kirby (Ray Milland), a teacher at an all-boys military academy. This film is a delightful screwball comedy that is sure to get you laughing. -Sarah 🚆🍭💍
Bailey in the 1st grade, 1997.
Girl Power
Mean Girls (2004, dir. Mark Waters)
Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), having been previously homeschooled in Africa, is enrolled in an American public high school for the first time during her junior year. As she attempts to wrap her head around high school culture, traditions, and cliques, she becomes a member of “The Plastics” – a group of popular girls who are at the top of the social food chain, and chaos ensues. This comedy takes classic teenage girl tropes from various high school movies and dissects them, analyzes them, and reveals the subtle and intricate ways that they factor into the complex and merciless world that is high school. I for one am grateful to have had this hilarious, quotable, and insightful movie to prepare for my high school years. -Bailey 😒💅
Legally Blonde (2001, dir. Robert Luketic)
According to Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon), “Whoever said orange is the new pink was was seriously disturbed.” I believe the same could be said for those who say that Legally Blonde isn’t a great film, because it is, which makes them seriously disturbed. The film, based on a lackluster book by Amanda Brown, has sparked a handful of sequels and even a Broadway musical, but it is Reese Witherspoon’s portrayal of Elle Woods that solidifies the greatness of Legally Blonde. Elle transforms over the course of the film from a bubbly ‘unserious’ California girl, to a surprisingly adept and astute Harvard law student, her journey through law school is the epitome of girl power. -Sarah 💔📚👠
Schooltime Horror
Tom Brown’s Schooldays (2005, dir. David Moore)
This British TV movie follows Tom Brown (Alex Pettyfer) through his first year in a British boarding school. In this harsh environment where the older boys rule the school, Tom must quickly learn to avoid the sadistic and dangerous bullying of his arch-rival Flashman (Joseph Beattie) while also taking guidance from the sympathetic new headmaster (Stephen Fry). This adaptation of the classic novel by Thomas Hughes not only does justice to its original source material, but actually elevates it with the liberties it takes. For a coming-of-age story, this movie has intense scenes of violence and peril, as well as distressingly sad moments that linger after the film’s end. While not a “horror film”, the movie depicts the real-life horrors of systematic bullying found prevalently in British boarding schools. -Bailey 🎩
Carrie (1976, dir. Brian De Palma)
High school goes to the dark side in this adaptation of Stephen King’s classic 1974 coming-of-age novel, Carrie. There have been many other remakes and adaptations of this story, but none of them capture the otherness that is Sissy Spacek’s portrayal of the lead character, as her mannerisms, stilted movements, and haunting gaze take the character to a whole other level. -Sarah 🔥🔥🔥
Sarah in Kindergarten, September 1996.
Favorite Teacher Moments
To Sir, with Love (1967, dir. James Clavell)
In this film, Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier) accepts a new position as a teacher at a school in the East End of London. Initially, his rowdy and rebellious students are disenchanted and unwilling to learn from Thackeray, but he gradually gains their respect and friendship, as he guides them through their final year of school and attempts to prepare them for adult life. Though the film is a pretty obvious imitation of the 1955 Richard Brooks film, Blackboard Jungle (in which Poitier played one of the unruly students), and though it is full of some decidedly anti-feminist sentiments, the film is loved for the way in which the students grow to value and admire Thackeray (or “Sir,” as they affectionately refer to him). As for my favorite teacher moment in the film, I have to go with the school dance scene toward the end of the film, where Poitier goes all out with the most awkward dance moves to The Mindbenders’ “It’s Getting Harder All the Time.” Do yourself a favor and seek out this scene ASAP. -Bailey 🧡
Kindergarten Cop (1990, dir. Ivan Reitman)
I don’t remember how old I was when I first watched this movie, but I remember laughing hysterically at the antics of undercover LAPD detective John Kimble (Arnold Schwarzenegger) when he becomes a ‘substitute’ teacher and must manage a kindergarten class. Kimble is trying to find the wife of a drug kingpin in order to get her to testify against her husband in exchange for immunity, after having supposedly stolen millions of dollars from him before fleeing with her son. I won’t give away much more of the storyline, but Kimble’s choice at the end of the film stands out to me as a truly great and heartwarming teacher moment. -Sarah 👮🏫🚸
Friends Forever
The Harry Potter Series (2001-2011, dir. Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron, Mike Newell, David Yates)
You can’t talk about school movies without mentioning one of the most beloved fictional schools of all time. In J.K. Rowling’s book series, and the movie adaptations that followed, Hogwarts was as much of a character as any of the witches or wizards that populated this story’s universe. The films do justice to the books, especially when it comes to the atmosphere of Hogwarts, which is simultaneously welcoming, foreboding, warm, sinister, mischievous, and downright magical. Furthermore, the audience was given the authentic school experience of witnessing the ten-year growth of the lead cast of characters, especially best friends Harry, Ron and Hermione (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, respectively). Being a year younger than the main cast members of the films, I was lucky enough to get to watch these movies as they were released with my own best friends, and witness the characters grow up, all the while understanding how much we were growing along with them. -Bailey 🧙⚡
Grease (1978, dir. Randall Kleiser)
You can’t get more iconic in depictions of back-to-school drama than with this delightful musical romantic comedy. Grease sweeps audiences up in the friendships and romances of a group of Rydell High School students, focusing on the unlikely budding relationship between the devotedly square Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) and Danny (John Travolta), a “greaser” with a ‘bad-boy’ image to uphold. The musical numbers act like a whole extra character within this film, which will leave you humming “You’re the One that I Want” long after the credit roll. -Sarah 📣🎵👚🚗💏
Finally, a film that both Bailey and Sarah agree is:
The All Time Best Teen Movie About High School
10 Things I Hate About You (1999, dir. Gil Junger)
In this modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, lovestruck Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has a crush on girly, popular Bianca (Larisa Oleynik). However, Bianca’s father forbids her to date until her jaded, isolated older sister Kat (Julia Stiles) begins to date herself. In order to date Bianca, Cameron pays the rebellious Patrick (Heath Ledger) to woo Kat. A reluctant, yet fabulous, romance ensues. From the star-studded cast, to the complex relationship drama, stolen from The Bard himself, to Patrick’s hilariously beautiful serenade of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”(channeling some Frankie Valli vibes) to Kat on the bleachers, this movie is an absolute joy to watch. It’s enough to make anyone want to jump on a table and dance. If you have never seen this film, watch it stat, it should be on everyone’s required viewing list. - Bailey 🔺🎺& Sarah 💕🥰
What films give you the most back-to-school vibes? Any nostalgic school-days favorites? Share your thoughts and film selections in the comments below!
Copyright © 2019 Sarah Crane & Bailey Lizotte
