By Brogan Morris /
20. Fast Times At Ridgemont High
Director Amy Heckerling and author Cameron Crowe's exposé of high school life circa the early 1980s is up there with the likes of Dazed And Confused and Superbad as a crucial depiction of American high school life. Featuring the requisite gratuitous nudity and narcotics-induced hijinks, Fast Times is a sketch show of American teens behaving badly, featuring the likes of Jennifer Jason Leigh and none-more-'80s star Judge Reinhold being very, very stupid. Fast Times is best known, however, as the film that launched Sean Penn's career, and for good reason: Penn gives a legendary, arguably never bettered performance as perpetually stoned slacker Jeff Spicoli. The stoner character is a cliche that rarely goes beyond caricature, but Penn - true to the form that would make his name - successfully makes a real person out of the stereotype, in an immortal, hilarious turn.