Top of the Class School Movies

20 August 2009

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The teen/high school movie has been a popular genre at the cinema since the fifties when icons like James Dean and Marlon Brando graced the big screen.

Today the teen movie has changed considerably to tackle ideas of sex, families and race, that's when the spoof movie isn't dominating the silver screen.

And we are back in high school this week with the release of I Love You, Beth Cooper starring Hayden Panettiere.

So FemaleFirst takes a look at some of the best teen.high school movies over the years. Most defined the genre as well as launching the careers of some of today's biggest names... and no there's no High School Musical in sight.

Rebel Without A Cause

Rebel Without A Cause was one of the original teen movies released in 1955 and starring screen icon James Dean in his most famous role.

The film revolved around a rebellious teenager who was new in town and defied his parents highlight the gap between the two generations and the difficulties teenagers were having at the time to discover where they fitted in society.

In 1990, Rebel Without a Cause was added to the preserved films of the United States Library of Congress's National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Despite being released in the fifties the film has endured cementing Dean as one of cinema's greatest stars as well as the film still having meaning in today's society.</p>

Grease

This film adaptation of Grease is the zippy smash hit translation from the Broadway musical tribute to the fabulous 1950s.

As a new school year begins, wholesome Australian exchange student Sandy (pop star Olivia Newton-John) and duck-tailed, leather-jacketed Danny (John Travolta) parlay their summertime romance into an on-and-off attraction that may or may not cross clique lines.

Sandy seriously cramps Danny's style, so he dumps her. In response, Sandy begins dating a wholesome athlete, but, as a hedge, she also joins the gum-chewin', tough-talkin' clique known as the Pink Ladies.

This 1978 movie reinvented the teen movie as this musical became a major hit, cementing John Travolta as a superstar and taking Olivia Newton John's career to new height. Even thirty years the later this film is still popular with teens the world over.

American Pie

American Pie was the most successful teen movie of the nineties as it tackled ideas of friendship, family and sex as a group of friends try to lose their virginity.

Jim is your average healthy re-blooded virgin -- he's desperate to "make it" with a woman.

The stakes are raised when his parents catch him with his pants down watching porno films in his bedroom, his one experience with a beautiful exchange student turns into an online disaster and his friends make a pact that by the day of their high school graduation, none of them will be virgins.

Pressure's on, but will Jim rise to the occasion?

The film was a commercial success leading to two sequels that were also a hit at the box office.

Heathers

Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) has sacrificed everything in order to preserve her place in Westerburg High's most impenetrable social clique, the Heathers.

As the only member of the group not named "Heather", Veronica has to work extra hard just to stay afloat. Going against her own morals and intelligence, Veronica succumbs to peer pressure on a daily basis, faking her delight in the humiliation of the school's less popular students.

Bored of the frat parties and cow tipping so popular among her friends, Veronica's curiosity is peaked when a mysterious new guy named JD comes to town.

The dark, brooding JD (Christian Slater) observes Veronica among her pack in the lunchroom, where social hierarchy is most clearly displayed, concluding that Veronica is not a Heather at heart.

When Veronica confides in JD that she hates her friends and wishes Heather #1 was dead, she never expects her words to have such dire consequences.

Before she knows what's happening, JD is dragging Veronica on a killing spree staged as a teen suicide outbreak.

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