5 Movies For Your Back-To-School Marathon!

It’s August, which means ─ pandemic or not ─ school must go on, in some way shape or form.

For students, this is a hectic time, between buying school supplies, packing for a move, and getting mentally prepared for another year of hard work. Summer is winding down and the last of it should be spent doing something relaxing; so, here are some of the best movies to watch while gearing up for the fall!

1. Lady Bird (dir. Greta Gerwig)

Set in early-2000s California, Lady Bird follows a young girl (Saoirse Ronan) as she navigates the ups and downs of adolescence. High school is ending, and she’d rather (literally) jump out of a moving car than stay in Sacramento for college. Her mother (Laurie Metcalf) loves her but doesn’t like her; her first boyfriend is gay and the second is a liar; and she dropped her childhood best friend for a popular girl who only likes her for her fake house. Lady Bird makes bad decisions, and her life is imperfect. It is also raw and fulfilling and hers. This movie encourages viewers to go out and make mistakes, because that is when memories are formed and lives lived. 

2. Revenge of the Nerds (dir. Jeff Kanew)

It’s a tale as old as time: nerds vs. jocks, cool vs. not. When freshman dorks Lewis (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert (Anthony Edwards) join a fraternity at Adams College, they unknowingly start a war between the social classes, with the Alpha Betas attacking from all sides. What ensues is a series of pranks, each larger than the last, that will go down in history. Revenge of the Nerds is the perfect lighthearted movie to switch on when the going (back to school) gets tough. 

3. Palo Alto (dir. Gia Coppola)

For a group of high schoolers in Palo Alto, California, life is a blur of party after party. Fred (Nat Wolff) is a harsh, unrefined, firecracker of a kid who puts himself in danger just to feel anything. April (Emma Roberts) is daydreaming simultaneously of her older soccer coach (James Franco) and Fred’s best friend, Teddy (Jack Kilmer), who could care less about her. Emily (Zoe Levin) throws herself at every boy who looks at her twice and she doesn’t know why. Palo Alto is a portrait of suburban adolescence; it is truthful to the point of being painful, and painful to the point of enjoyment. It is a reminder of growing up, and a suggestion that we may never stop. 

4. Dazed and Confused (dir. Richard Linklater) 

School may be just around the corner for us, but Dazed and Confused chronicles the last day before the Summer of 1976. At Lee High School, there are certain rites and passages each kid has to go through before they’re a true high schooler. Freshman boys are beat up by the older football players, while freshman girls are verbally humiliated by the cheerleaders. This hazing comes with consequences, however, and senior Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London) has a lot on the line. He can follow his coach’s orders to lead a straight-edge summer and become the face of respectability, or he can risk it all by joining in on the traditions and fun of his fellow classmates. 

5. Dear White People (dir. Justin Simien)

Samantha White (Tessa Thompson) runs a radio show at her college called “Dear White People” that examines and criticizes the racism that runs rampant on campus, which ─ unsurprisingly ─ doesn’t go over well with most of the student body. The son of the school’s president, Kurt (Kyle Gallner), throws a “blackface-themed” party in response, leading to a fight between Black students who are standing up for themselves, and the white students who are mocking and belittling their identities. 

BONUS: St. Elmo’s Fire (dir. Joel Schumacher) 

This one is for those of us done with school, looking out into an empty August. What is life like after graduation? What happens next? St. Elmo’s Fire follows a group of seven friends on their journey to answer those questions. They struggle with money, drinking, step-monsters, and friends-turned-more. With the idea that nothing comes next, they have completed the final step on their linear path of growing up. What follows is just nebulous.