10 Underrated Teen Movies Of The Last 20 Years

The teen movie genre keeps evolving, and the past two decades have seen it explore important youth themes, like in Booksmart or Love, Simon.

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If there’s one person to thank for giving us the teen movie genre, it’s John Hughes. His 1980s hits The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and more awakened our need for Hollywood films about frothy yet angsty adolescence. The 1990s carried the torch from there, giving us several high school-set flicks starring the likes of Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr..

Come the 21st century, the genre cooled down a bit. However, there were still several noteworthy teen movies, from cult hits like Mean Girls and Superbad to Oscar-nominated fare like Juno and Lady Bird. But some excellent films fell through the cracks. We’re here to fish them out and introduce you to 10 Underrated Teen Movies Of The Last 20 Years.

10 Paper Towns (2015)

After the success of The Fault in Our Stars, one would think that any movie based on a bestselling John Green novel would automatically become iconic. Though Paper Towns found a modest audience, it never reached the levels of its predecessor.

The film tells the tale of mild-mannered Quentin Jacobson (Nat Wolff) who rounds up his friends to go on a road trip after his crush, the mysterious Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne), disappears. The premise may seem a little preposterous, but the teens are realistic, funny, and relatable. Plus, we’re all for a film that shatters the illusion of the noxious Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

9 Booksmart (2019)

From Ferris Bueller to the American Pie crew to Seth and Evan in Superbad, movies about wild teenage behavior tend to be male-driven. But first-time director Olivia Wilde shows us that a crazy, debaucherous last high school hurrah is just as important to girls as it is to guys. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever sparkle as two good-girl besties determined to break bad.

Booksmart may not have broke new ground in terms of plot, but the characters experiencing these tried-and-true rites of passage are a diverse group of contemporary teens who are much fresher than the story they’re living in. They deserve a bigger audience than they got.

8 Love, Simon (2018)

Love, Simon is typical, John Hughes-inspired teen fare, except for one big exception — it is the first major Hollywood teen movie with a queer protagonist. Simon Spier (Nick Robinson) is a closeted gay teen who connects with an anonymous male classmate online and wants to discover the identity of his unknown love interest.

While the hype and positivity surrounding the film was huge, it didn’t become the classic it was expected to turn into. It’s possible that the plot was too derivative to stand out from the pack. But if anything, Love, Simon may have helped pave the way for other Hollywood films about queer teens to get greenlit. And that’s worth celebrating.

7 Easy A (2010)

Many teen movies have dipped into the well of classic literature. Iconic films like Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You are based on well-known works by Jane Austen and Shakespeare, respectively, and have become classics in their own right.

Easy A isn’t necessarily based on The Scarlet Letter, so much as protagonist Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) declares herself a modern-day Hester Prynne. Olive begins to lie about her sexual conquests, even pinning Hester’s trademark red “A” to her chest. Released at the beginning of the decade, Easy A gave a voice to young female sexuality, much more than its literary teen predecessors, and deserves more credit than it got.

6 The Spectacular Now (2013)

Like many others on this list, The Spectacular Now follows the wholly unoriginal romance movie trope of opposites attract. In this case, hard-partying Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) falls for quiet loner Aimee Finecky (Shailene Woodley).

But what makes this film shine is the rawness of its characters, as well as the tender chemistry between the two leads. It’s not just one of the greatest teen films of the past twenty years; The Spectacular Now is a romance for the ages, and deserves to be remembered as such.

5 The Bling Ring (2013)

Teenagers are often to blame for the decline of society, but Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring points the finger squarely at our fame-obsessed society itself. But don’t worry — it also gives you plenty of opportunities to role your eyes at these narcissistic teens.

Based on a true story, The Bling Ring follows a group of teens, deliciously led by Emma Watson in her most un-Hermione Granger performance ever, who rob celebrities’ homes, using the wonderful world wide web to know when best to strike. Some critics have dismissed the film as superficial, but it’s superficiality itself that The Bling Ring is trolling. Its societal skewering is a fun ride that more people should hop on.

4 Brick (2005)

If there’s one genre mashup audiences would never expect, it’s the teen movie and the neo-noir. But that’s what makes Brick so brilliant. It centers around Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a heartbroken lone wolf who is determined to catch the culprit who murdered his ex-girlfriend, Emily Kostich (Emilie de Ravin). Brendan speaks like a hardboiled gumshoe, making the film supremely quotable.

Brick is also the directorial debut of Rian Johnson, who helmed the last Star Wars film and whose Knives Out is currently in cinemas. Hopefully with Johnson’s popularity, viewers will look back at his filmography as a whole and discover this indie gem.

3 The To Do List (2013)

While Easy A may have kicked off the decade with a teen movie that embraces female sexuality, it’s adorably PG-13. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — actual teenagers deserve a quality movie about themselves that they can see in theaters. But a comedy rated a hard R, one starring Aubrey Plaza as an adorkable teen horndog, is all kinds of necessary.

Plaza plays Brandy Klark, a type-A, sexually inexperienced valedictorian who develops a massive crush on her hunky lifeguard co-worker, Rusty Waters (Scott Porter). Wanting him to find her desirable, the fastidious Brandy crafts a list of every sex act under the sun and vows to experience them all in order to be a better lover for Rusty. Based on this premise, The To Do List is as crass as you can imagine, finally giving women their (smarter) version of American Pie.

2 Blockers (2018)

Blockers is an exquisitely modern teen film. It follows three teenage girls (Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan and Gideon Adlon) who make a pact to all lose their virginity on prom night. Their parents (Leslie Mann, John Cena and Ike Barinholtz) get wind of the girls’ plan and try to stop it.

This movie has all the raunchy fun of a classic teen sex comedy while also being extremely sex-positive. Blockers explores important themes like healthy sexual alternatives to intercourse and queer identity. It’s a strong contender for #1 on the list, but the fact that it’s more about the parents may make some viewers question whether it’s an authentic teen movie. For our money, it is, and one that more people should check out.

1 The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

There is no film this decade — or maybe ever — that better captures young female sexual agency than The Diary of a Teenage Girl. Directed by Marielle Heller (whose A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is currently in cinemas), the film focuses on shy artistic teen, Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley in what should have been an Oscar-nominated performance), who wants to lose her virginity. She starts an affair with her mother’s boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgård).

What makes this film so spectacular is that it doesn’t portray Minnie as either a helpless victim or a Lolita-type seductress. She’s simply a complex, flawed, sexual person trying to discover her identity in a world full of complex, flawed, sexual people. The fact that the film was a massive bomb at the box office is a travesty that needs fixing. The Diary of a Teenage Girl deserves an audience. Now.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/underrated-teen-movies-last-twenty-years-booksmart-love-simon/