Coming of Age in Cinema: A History of Teen Movies

You can tell a lot about people by their favorite teen movies. For baby boomers teen movies were about monsters from outer space, usually watched from the backseat of a car at the local drive-in. Most of these films were B-movie schlock, made on a shoestring budget. But a funny thing happened on the way to adult hood. Teen movies grew up as well.

Every generation has its favorite teen movies, and you can often tell how old someone is based on what picks they make for the best teen movies ever made. With that in mind, here are a few teen movies that cross the lines between generations. We'll start old school and work our way to the present.

Top Teen Movies by Generations
These teen movies are the best of their decades.

Top Teen Movies of the 1950s
The '50s are when teen movies, and teens for that matter, really came into their own. Aside from some monster movies, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Them, It! and Creature from the Black Lagoon that were aimed squarely at the teen audience, teen films are ones featuring teens and issues important to teens of that era, and often, beyond.

Rebel without a Cause
Nicholas Ray's 1955 classic launched James Dean into superstardom. The movie pushed the bounds when it was released with underlying homoerotic tension between Sal Mineo and Dean. It was subtle of course, this being the Eisenhower administration and all, but the film bristles with tension and superb performances throughout.

To watch the original theatrical trailer for Rebel without a Cause, click HERE.

Top Teen Movies of the 1960s
Teen movies waned a bit in the 1960s as Hollywood struggled to find an audience in the ever-changing counterculture movement resulting in a host of beach blanket bingos.

Splendor in the Grass
Natalie Wood is 6 years older in this 1961 tale of young lovers. Warren Beatty is hunk that drives Natalie Wood crazy - literally.

Top Teen Movies of the 1970s
The '70s began with the Film Brats coming of age and producing a body of films noted for gritty realism exploring serious issues. In a portent of things to come, the late '70s saw a rise in teen movies. One of the best was made by Mister Film Brat himself.

American Graffiti
Another look back into the recent past, George Lucas' first big hit featured a cast of unknowns who would go one to become major stars.

Grease
I got chills, they're multiplyin'. This 1978 anthem to twenty-year-old teenagers everywhere takes a nostalgic look back at teens of the 1950's. Although geared more for adults, when you have a high school, teen pregnancy, and catchy rock songs, it fits in with teen movie genre.

Rock 'n' Roll High School
If anyone knows how to take the old teen movie low-budget formula into gold, it's schlock-meister Roger Corman. This 1979 film deserves a spot on the list for its title alone.

Top Teen Movies of the 1980s
Perhaps the golden age of teen movies, mostly due to two men, John Hughes and Cameron Crowe, the 1980s holds some of the best films of the teen movie genre. This list is rather lengthy, so we'll go light on the details. Besides - you know all these films already.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Perhaps the best teen movie of them all, Bueller was released in 1986.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Cameron Crowe's 1982 movie brought the world Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli.

A pictures worth a thousands words, so you can watch the trailer HERE.

The Breakfast Club
One location, five talented teen actors and a jerk of a principal equals a superb teen movie in John Hughes 1985 classic.

Heathers
Darker than Hughes or Crowe, Heathers still packs a punch.

Pretty in Pink
The cute guy in the BMW or Duckman?

Sixteen Candles
You say it's your birthday? What if no one remembers?

Top Teen Movies of the 1990s
A new generation of teen movies brings another look back and another glimpse of the future.

Dazed and Confused
Richard Linklater takes a trip back to the last day of school circa 1976 in this funny look at high school released in 1993.

Boyz n the Hood
Most high school movies leave the drama at what to wear to prom, but John Singleton gives us another look high school from the streets. This film, released in 1991, was not your parents' idea of a teen movie.

American Pie
The decade ends with this 1999 comedy that set the tone for the 2000s.

Top Teen Movies of the 2000s
The decade's not over, but a couple teen movies have risen above the pack of horror spoofs and miscellaneous dreck to qualify for the list.

Brick
Like a throwback to film noir films of the 1940s, Brick seems to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Napolean Dynamite
Okay, so this is dreck, but if you didn't find this funny, chances are you weren't a teenager in 2004 when this movie came out.

While there are many other films that could be included on this list of top teen movies, that's the beauty of looking at these films. Every generation has a movie or a song that it embraces as its own. Even the difference of a year or two changes that perspective. Teen movies, more than many other genres, capture the zeitgeist of the times, and reveal more about a generation than many give them credit for doing.

So which decade holds your favorite teen movie? Chances are it's the one you grew up in.