10 Amazing Teen Movies You Might Have Missed
“When you grow up, your heart dies.”
Teen movies are a mainstay of cinema.The rock ‘n’ roll teen films of the '50s gave the genre its first heyday and the genre then exploded into popularity through the '80s and have remained a favourite of film fans.
The '80s gave us the Brat Pack canon of films and made huge stars of actors like Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick and some of the genres most popular movies. The most recent flock of teen films from American Pie onward mostly follow a similar blueprint, mainly because American Pie was so unstoppably successful.
Teen films appeal to a broad audience, offering relatable themes to teens of all generations and nostalgia to adult viewers of all ages. They help people through - or help them remember - some of life’s important early milestones: first kisses, heartbreak, triumphs, love and tragedy.
The movies on this list are all great examples of teen movies and represent the breadth of the genre. They are all underappreciated, well worth discovering or revisiting and cover a broad range of themes such as alienation, bullying, coming-of-age, violence, sexuality and disenfranchisement.
10. Class Of 1984
Whilst Mark L Lester is most certainly best known for Commando, it is Class of 1984 that is arguably his best work. It’s a teen-dystopian set movie where kids routinely pass through metal detectors into school and everyone is armed, including the teachers. The school is run by a gang of punk-rock/hardcore kids led by the insane but brilliant Timothy Van Patten as Stegman. It’s a frighteningly unhinged performance from Van Patten and for a teenage character, he is memorably evil.
When new teacher, Mr Norris, joins the staff he refuses to stand by as Stegman is allowed to terrorise the school and deal drugs to the students. As he tries to combat Stegman’s hold on the school the actions of both escalate extremely. Class of 1984 is part-teen comedy at times, part exploitation revenge movie, for all its slightly tongue-in-cheek set-ups and lines, there are also some truly shocking moments.
The acting throughout is surprisingly good and while the story is similarly seen in a number of other films, it's very well executed and it has a great soundtrack. There’s a very early appearance from Michael J Fox here too.
The serious message which Lester was shooting for was dismissed by some critics at the time and since, but given recent world events around mass shootings and gun control it’s possibly reached its time to become more relevant. Particularly when viewing one of the stand out scenes involving Roddy McDowell as a Biology teacher giving a lesson to his class at gunpoint.