As said in the title, all these are classic teenage movies, which means that almost everyone knows these movies. If there’s some that you don’t know, I would suggest you watch them, right now!
The movies are ranked from my least favorite, favorite to my number one favorite movie.

 

10. It’s a boy/girl thingHe’s the girl

Teenage Romance/comedy.

Plot:
The movie is about Woody and Nell. Two polar opposite teenagers, who can’t stand each other. And then, they are also neighbors.
Woody is the star on the school football team, and Nell is the nerd, who buries herself in her books.

One day, as they are on a school trip visits the local museum, an old god decides to switch up their souls. Now Woody’s stuck un Nells body, and Nell in his.
But how will Nell manage to graduate high school, when it’s Woody who has to do it?
And how will Woody get a scholar ship, when it’s Nell who’s playing football?
In the end, they have to help each other.

 

9. Easy A

Comedy/Romance

This movie with Emma Stone as the main character, is inspired by the novel “The Scarlet letter”.

Plot:
When Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone), a 17-year-old high school student, decides to lie to her best friend, about having a date in the weekend, to avoid camping with the best friend and her hippie parents. When Monday comes around, her best friend wanna hear all about the date, and Olive tells her, she lost her virginity to the guy. Little did Olive know, that an overly religious girl from school overhears this, and soon the whole school knows.

After Olive helps out her friend, by pretending to be sleeping with him, so that he can shut down the rumors of him being homosexual (Which are true, btw.), she now gets the new title “dirty skank”. Instead of being embarrassed, Olive embraces her new image. She starts wearing more “slutty” clothes, and all with an A on it – like in “The Scarlet letter”.
But soon Olive will know, that this lifestyle’s not as interesting, as she might have thought.

8. Mean Girls

Teenage drama/comedy/romance.

If you haven’t seen – or even heard of this movie, you must have been living under a rock, since at least 2004, when this movie came out. It is so popular among classic teenage movies that they even made a musical based on it!

Plot:
When 16 year old – homeschooled, Cady Heron, moves back to the US after a 12 year research trip in Africa, she can finally attend high school for the first time in her life. Here she meets her best friends Janis and Damian, who teach her about the various cliques at the school and to never become friends with the 3 popular girls called the “plastics”.

One day the “plastics” defends Cady against a sexist classmate, and asks her to sit with them, at their table. Janis decides to abuse this and asks Cady to act like she’s friends with them, and then tell Janis everything they say.
But it can be really hard to go behind peoples backs, and Cady soon finds herself in love with the idea of popularity. It’s not hard to guess why this could be a problem.

 

7. Dirty Dancing

Drama/romance.

Another iconic teen movie that is certainly one of the classic teenage movies everyone knows. The movie with Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey as the main stars is from 1987 but takes place in the summer of 1963.

Plot:
17-year-old Frances “Baby” Houseman and her family went on summer vacation at her father’s friends upscale Catskills resort.
When she one day attends one of the staff’s secret “dirty” dancing parties, she meets the dancer Johnny Castle. Baby is immediately attracted to him, and dances with him at the party.

When Penny, Johnny’s dance partner gets pregnant, Baby helps her out, by loaning money from her father so that Penny can get an abortion. First Penny declines the offer, because it would mean that she would miss a performance, costing them to lose the seasons salary, but Baby is fast to volunteer to step in for Penny.
This means that Baby now has a lot of practicing to do, as she’s not quite the dancer, and it’s Johnny who has to teach her. 

 

6. Juno

Drama/comedy.

With Ellen Page and Michael Cera as the main stars.

Plot:
After having had sex for the first time, Juno finds out she’s pregnant, and the father is her best friend – Paulie Bleeker. In the beginning, she wants to have an abortion, but changes her mind and decides to go with adoption. This leads her to meet her babys future mom and dad: Mark and Vanessa Loring – The perfect couple. Vannessa is beyond excited to become a mom, but also terrified of the idea of Juno changing her mind. This makes the meetings between Vanessa and Juno kinda awkward. Mark and Juno shares a lot of interests and soon becomes good friends.

As her pregnancy starts to show, so does her feelings for her childs father, Paulie. Paulie is clearly in love with Juno, but Juno acts rejectingly towards him.
This is a movie filled with drama as well as humor. 

 

4. Breakfast Club

Comedy movie.

I don’t believe you, if you say you’ve never heard of this movie, this is probably the most famous, classic teenage movie of all time.

Plot: When five students, from the same school but different cliques, has full day detention one Saturday in March, social statuses is sat on standby as they together make the day unforgettable.

 

4. Heathers

A cult classic, comedy/romance with a little twist of thriller. This served as the inspiration for many later classic teenage movies such as Mean Girls, though Heathers is darker and more unconvetional. And like it’s “little sibling” Mean Girls, it has a hit musical based on it.

Starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, from 1988.

Plot: Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) is one of the popular girls in her high school. Her only friends are the popular, but feared group of girls with the same first name: Heather.
One day, when the new boy Jason “J.D” Dean, fires a gun at two boys who tries to bully him, Veronica finds herself fascinated by him.
After a party where Veronica and the ‘first’ Heather, Heather Chandler has a fight, J.D shows up at her house, and they end up having sex outside. Afterwards they bond over their shared hatred for Heather Chandler and the hierarchy of High School.

The next morning they break into Chandlers house. J.D jokingly pours drain cleaner in a cup to serve to Heather, but Veronica shuts him down. Instead Veronica mixes orange juice and milk together, with the intention of making Heather vomit. When she’s ready to give it to Heather, she mixes up the different cups and gives Heather the drain cleaner. J.D sees this but doesn’t try to stop her. Heather drinks the liquid, falls through a glass table, and dies. J.D convinces Veronica to write a letter, faking Chandlers handwriting, to make it look like suicide.

But as they find out, one dead popular girl doesn’t change the broken structure of high school hierarchy, the crimes are only just beginning.

 

3. Clueless

Probably one of the most iconic 90’s teenage movies.
1995 teen comedy/romance movie.

Plot: The rich – not so intelligent, 16-year-old girl, Cher Horowitz lives in a mansion in Beverly Hills with her father.
Cher’s ex-stepbrother, Josh who goes to college, comes to visit them in his break from college. This is not something Cher’s very fond of, as he always teases her, and mocks her attitude. 

One day, Cher sets up two of her lonely teachers, in an attempt of getting better grades, and a happier teacher. After seeing how happy she made them, she realizes how much she likes doing good deeds, and making other people happy. This makes her take in the new girl in her class, even though her best friend, Dionne doesn’t think that’s a good idea, as the new girl is “Tragically unhip”.

Cher gives the new girl, Tai a makeover and teaches her all the things she needs to know about being a cool, popular girl. She also tries to set Tai up with one of her best guy friends, Elton, who seems to be a lot more interested in Cher. While trying to make other people happy, Cher realizes that she needs some happiness in her life too, just as a new guy, with incredibly good taste moves to her school. 

 

2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

This movie is a Romantic/drama/coming of age movie.

It’s based on the novel of the same name, written by Stephen Chbosky.
With Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller as the main characters.

Plot: 15-year-old Charlie Kelmeckis, a naïve outsider who has just been discharged from a mental health care institution (depression), is about to start his freshman year at high school.

At a football game, Charlie meets two seniors: Sam (Emma Watson) and her stepbrother Patrick (Ezra Miller), and they invite him to a party. At this party Charlie accidently eats a hash brownie and that leads to him entertaining a big group of people. When Sam a little later makes him a milkshake, he tells her about his past, and him losing his best friend to suicide, leaving him without any friends. This makes Sam announce loudly to the entire party, that they have a new member of their group, Charlie.

And that’s the beginning of Charlie’s best, but also most problematic year of his life, as he experiences friendship and love, as well as heart break, fights, and learning about a long remembering memory, he didn’t even know he had. 

 

1. 10 Things I Hate About You

My number one favorite teen movie of all the classic teenage movies of all time. If you’ve never seen this movie, you should definitely give it a try, if you love teen romance/comedy movies.
This movie is a new take on the Shakespeare story “the taming of the shrew”.

Starring Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Lewitt and Larissa Oleynik.

Plot:

Cameron James (Joseph Gordon-Lewitt) is a new student at Padua High School. Here he meets Michael Eckman, who shows him around the school, and teaches him about the cliques.
Soon Cameron experiences ´love at first sight´ when he sees Bianca Stratford, a popular, beautiful girl. When Cameron asks Michael who she is, Michael is fast to tell him that Cameron has no chance with her, besides, everyone knows that the Stratford girls aren’t allowed to date.

On their way home they meet the other Strandford girl, Katarina ‘Kat’ Stratford. Cameron soon finds, that the sisters have nothing in common, as sweet and shy as Bianca seems, Kat is the total opposite – angry, but very self-confident.

Bianca wishes to date ‘the cool, rich, model guy’ Joey Donner, and asks her father, who is not very fund of the idea. Bianca then exclaims that it’s not fair that she’s the only girl in the school who doesn’t date. Her father is fast to say, that she’s not the only one, ‘cause Kat doesn’t date either. Kat adds to this, that that’s not something she plans to do either. Now their father gets an idea. Bianca is allowed to date… When Kat does.

Bianca then tells this to Cameron, in hopes of him dealing with it so she can date Joey. Cameron is so naïve, that he soon starts the mission ‘get Kat on a date’, so that Cameron can date Bianca. The only problem is, every guy in their school seems to be horrified of Kat.

They were ready to give the whole thing up, but then they see Patrick Verona, the ‘bad boy’. Everyone in the school has a creepy or weird thing to say about him, like “He ones ate a duck” and “Last year, he starred in porn movies”. Perfect, now all they need is someone stupid enough to pay Patrick to take Kat out on a date. And this is when Joey gets in the picture. He also wants to take Bianca out, and is willing to pay Patrick to make that happen.

Nothing can go wrong with that, right?

 

Those were my favorite classic teenage movies. Have you watched all of them? Are there any teenage movies you love, that I missed? Feel free to tell me in the comments!

 

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