Everyone take your seats, because class is in session! There are few settings as rich in romance, scandal, heartbreak, and hilarity as high school — a perfect storm of pressures, both social and academic, and passions, both personal and extracurricular. 

As such, the halls of these familiar institutions — rife as they are with gossipy cliques, college dreams, and unbridled adolescent emotions — have provided the backdrop for countless beloved movies. These films portray a wide variety of high school experiences, so there’s something for everyone. Whether you’re a sports star, a debate clubber, a dance champ, a mean girl, an artsy weirdo, a class clown, or the undisputed Most Likely to Succeed, the syllabus for your ultimate teenage stream is below. 

Alex Strangelove

Craig Johnson’s sincere rom-com revolves around a love triangle of an underrepresented type: Alex (Daniel Doheny) is dating his best friend Claire (Madeline Weinstein) when he meets Elliot (Antonio Marziale), whom he finds surprisingly compelling. Even as he makes plans with Claire to lose his virginity to her, he’s distracted by his undeniable feelings for Elliot, making him reflect upon his sexuality. Funny and sincere, there’s nothing strange about it — but plenty to love. 

Alex Strangelove

1h 39m   TV-MA   2018

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Candy Jar

Step aside, queen bees and jocks — this one’s a love story for the nerds. Sami Gayle and Jacob Latimore star in Ben Shelton’s rom-com as a pair of Ivy-hopeful overachievers, co-presidents of their private high school’s debate club. The only thing this duo can agree on is how much they hate each other (a grudge partially inherited from their mothers, onetime classmates played by Christina Hendricks and Uzo Aduba). But when they’re forced to compete in their last high school debate tournament as a team, their rivalry begins to evolve into a romance.

Candy Jar

1h 32m   TV-14   2018

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Do Revenge

Armed with the killer instinct (and killer wardrobes to go with it), the teenage girls played by Maya Hawke and Camila Mendes in Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s Do Revenge are not here to make friends. After a cruel public humiliation, Mendes’ queen bee finds an unexpected ally in Hawke’s new girl, and the pair conspire to bring down their respective tormentors. Like so many vendettas before, however, our heroines’ quest delivers more twists and turns (not to mention wisdom from their school’s chic headmaster, played by ’90s teen queen Sarah Michelle Gellar) than anyone bargained for. 

Do Revenge

1h 58m   TV-MA   2022

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The Half Of It

A tenderhearted LGBTQ-teen spin on Cyrano de Bergerac, Alice Wu’s The Half of It transposes Edmond Rostand’s play to a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Leah Lewis stars as the film’s Cyrano, Ellie Chu, an introverted straight-A student with a great love of literature and classic cinema. After striking a deal with jock Paul (Daniel Diemer) to write love letters and texts to popular girl Aster (Alexxis Lemire) on his behalf, Ellie develops not only a close friendship with Paul but her own romantic feelings for Aster, who remains oblivious to the true identity of her correspondent. 

The Half Of It

1h 45m   PG-13   2020

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He's All That

This gender-swapped remake of 1999’s She’s All That gives that millennial Pygmalion a Gen-Z makeover. Mark Waters’ film stars Addison Rae as a teenage influencer who, after being humiliated in a live stream gone awry, takes a bet that she can turn an artsy loner (Tanner Buchanan) into the prom king, hoping to win back her clout with the transformation. Though made for a new generation of teens, the film also makes loving nods to its predecessor, featuring some of the original stars in small roles and a new version of a certain swoony ballad on the soundtrack. 

He's All That

1h 31m   TV-14   2021

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The Kissing Booth

When Vince Marcello’s adaptation of Beth Reekles’ YA novel The Kissing Booth landed on Netflix in 2018, the high school romance — in which a teenage girl, Elle (Joey King), starts dating Noah (Jacob Elordi), the older brother of her best friend, Lee (Joel Courtney), after locking lips at a school fundraiser’s kissing booth — became a phenomenon. The wildly popular film bloomed into a trilogy, with The Kissing Booth 2 and The Kissing Booth 3 chronicling the evolution of the central couple’s relationship through the rest of Elle’s time in high school. 

The Kissing Booth

1h 46m   TV-14   2018

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Moxie

The second feature directed by Amy Poehler, Moxie serves plenty of just that. Based on Jennifer Mathieu’s 2017 YA novel, the film stars Hadley Robinson as Vivian Carter, a shy but plucky teenager who, inspired by a stash of old feminist zines belonging to her mother (played by Poehler), secretly starts her own. Teaming up with new student Lucy (Alycia Pascual-Peña) and several other girls in their class, who are also fed up with the normalized misogyny and sexual harassment they’ve suffered at school, Vivian launches the anonymous publication to effect change and empower her classmates. 

Moxie

1h 51m   PG-13   2021

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The Perfect Date

A working-class high school senior looking to fund his Ivy League dreams stumbles upon the perfect money-making scheme: professional plus-one. Noah Centineo stars in Chris Nelson’s 2019 romantic comedy as Brooks, a cash-strapped but highly socially adaptable teen, who launches an app through which girls can hire him to be their perfect date, each time adopting a new personality according to the client’s preferences. Somewhere in all the characters he’s playing, however, he’s got to find the person he really is — and somewhere among all the girls he goes out with, there just might be one that’s right for him, too. 

The Perfect Date

1h 30m   TV-14   2019

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To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

Based on Jenny Han’s series of young adult novels, the To All the Boys trilogy serves up three delicious doses of sweet high school romance. The first film, directed by Susan Johnson, sees shy daydreamer Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) mortified when her little sister distributes all the secret love letters she wrote to her crushes over the years — including popular lacrosse star Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo). The follow-ups, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You and To All the Boys: Always and Forever, follow Lara Jean when another love letter recipient comes back into her life and when she and Peter graduate high school. 

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

1h 40m   TV-14   2018

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Work It

Upon learning that her application to her dream school looks exactly like that of countless other AV nerds with 4.0 GPAs, Quinn (Sabrina Carpenter) realizes that her only chance is to stand out. So she goes from being the lighting designer for her high school’s celebrated dance team to one of its members. With the help of best friend Jasmine (Liza Koshy), choreographer Jake (Jordan Fisher), and a mismatched crew of teammates, the previously clumsy Quinn finds her rhythm — and a passion she didn’t know she had — in Laura Terruso’s rousing dance comedy.  

Work It

1h 33m   TV-14   2020

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