Loser, as the earliest film featured on this list, sort of feels like a relic from a bygone era. It was made in a strange time when you could conceivably cast Jason Biggs as a romantic lead in a teen comedy, after all. In this film, Biggs plays a naive small town boy who ends up getting a scholarship to NYU and constantly finds himself at odds with his fellow students. His roommates are a bunch of drugged out party animals who walk all over his meek requests to have a little bit of quiet time to study, and the girl of his dreams is having an affair with one of their meanest professors (played by Greg Kinnear, because of course it's played by Greg Kinnear). He is a total fish out of water, but he manages to remain surprisingly endearing as he navigates his way through city life. Loser certainly wasn't a film that was going to break any new ground in filmmaking, but it turned out to be a solid movie by the same director who made Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless.
Audrey Fox is an ex-film student, which means that she prefers to spend her days in the dark, watching movies and pondering the director's use of diegetic sound. She currently works as an entertainment writer, joyfully rambling about all things film and television related. Add her on Twitter at @audonamission and check out her film blog at 1001moviesandbeyond.com.
