A high-school boy is given the chance to write a story for Rolling Stone Magazine about an up-and-coming rock band as he accompanies them on their concert tour.
After being kicked out of his rock band, Dewey Finn becomes a substitute teacher of an uptight elementary private school, only to try and turn his class into a rock band.
A listless and alienated teenager decides to help his new friend win the class presidency in their small western high school, while he must deal with his bizarre family life back home.
It's the last day of school at a high school in a small town in Texas in 1976. The upperclassmen are hazing the incoming freshmen, and everyone is trying to get stoned, drunk, or laid, even the football players that signed a pledge not to.Written by
Jon Reeves <jreeves@imdb.com>
The word "fuck" was used fifty-nine times throughout this movie. See more »
Goofs
It goes from pitch black to twilight and back again several times during the scenes after the baseball game and before the party at the moon tower. See more »
Quotes
Carl Burnett:
Don't let the fact that you won't be able to sit down all summer affect your game
See more »
Alternate Versions
An early cut features a subplot of the cops looking for the stolen statues and finding them in the car when the cops bust Randal and his friends for being on the Football Field. See more »
What a great, great movie. If you want to know what being in High School in the mid 70's was like, rent this film. I grew up in the metro Manhattan area. We didn't have the freshman hazing, and few of us could afford the cars (although we sure knew about them and lusted after them), but the rest of this movie is so dead on about my experience of High School in the 70's that it's scary. Every character in the film corresponds with someone that I knew during that time. Yes, there was a lot of pot smoking, yes, obtaining beer was quite easy for underage kids...I used to buy it in bars when I was 16. We made pipes in shop class. We hung out and had parties at night, drove the streets drinking beers and smoking joints listening to the same music. There were no youth centers though. The girls that I knew were as beautiful, and also struggled to get into their jeans. They used pliers too, but they also put them on while they were wet to further get that skintight look. There was no HIV virus to worry about, Herpes was not a big thing then, the biggest worry was getting pregnant. Everyone was having sex... All of these facts also were no big deal. Most of my peers grew up just fine, and now are upstanding pillars of the community. Many today would like you to believe that this is an example of the road to ruin. It was an incredible great time. The film has interesting character development, with the same types I remember. Philosophers, heads (now called stoners), bullies and waifs. This is my American Graffiti and it is perfect. Waxing nostalgic? Perhaps, but anyone that didn't live through that time will sill love the dialog in this film, as it deals with the universal experience of that point in one's life. This is high school in the 70's. Check it out.
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What a great, great movie. If you want to know what being in High School in the mid 70's was like, rent this film. I grew up in the metro Manhattan area. We didn't have the freshman hazing, and few of us could afford the cars (although we sure knew about them and lusted after them), but the rest of this movie is so dead on about my experience of High School in the 70's that it's scary. Every character in the film corresponds with someone that I knew during that time. Yes, there was a lot of pot smoking, yes, obtaining beer was quite easy for underage kids...I used to buy it in bars when I was 16. We made pipes in shop class. We hung out and had parties at night, drove the streets drinking beers and smoking joints listening to the same music. There were no youth centers though. The girls that I knew were as beautiful, and also struggled to get into their jeans. They used pliers too, but they also put them on while they were wet to further get that skintight look. There was no HIV virus to worry about, Herpes was not a big thing then, the biggest worry was getting pregnant. Everyone was having sex... All of these facts also were no big deal. Most of my peers grew up just fine, and now are upstanding pillars of the community. Many today would like you to believe that this is an example of the road to ruin. It was an incredible great time. The film has interesting character development, with the same types I remember. Philosophers, heads (now called stoners), bullies and waifs. This is my American Graffiti and it is perfect. Waxing nostalgic? Perhaps, but anyone that didn't live through that time will sill love the dialog in this film, as it deals with the universal experience of that point in one's life. This is high school in the 70's. Check it out.