No film here is good or bad. It is only like something.

2007 · Comedy

Two best friends about to leave for different colleges try to buy drink for a party, mostly so the night will mean something. The plan rests on a fake ID with one name on it.

• SimpleStrongly simple

2014 · Drama

A first-year drummer at a competitive music school wins a seat in the top band, which is run by a conductor who teaches through humiliation. It is mostly the two of them in one room.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• RealisticStrongly realistic
• FastClearly fast
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2010 · Drama

A Harvard undergraduate builds a website that spreads from campus to campus, and is sued by the friend who funded it and by classmates who say he took their idea. Told through the two depositions, with a great deal of fast talking.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• FastStrongly fast

2012 · Comedy

Two rookie cops with nothing to show for themselves are sent back into high school undercover, where the social rules have changed since they were students. It runs on the two of them bouncing off each other.

• SimpleClearly simple
• LightClearly light

2016 · Musical

A boy in 1980s Dublin, moved to a rough school when his parents run short of money, starts a band mostly to impress a girl standing outside it. They learn to play as they go.

• LightClearly light

2009 · Comedy

Two friends go looking for the classmate who vanished after they survived a brutal engineering college, and the search takes them back through their student years. Broad jokes and songs, then it turns serious.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2016 · Animation

A boy who led the bullying of a deaf classmate in primary school tracks her down years later to try to say something to her. Most of it is quiet, awkward conversation between teenagers who do not know how to start.

• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• IntimateClearly intimate
• HeavyClearly heavy

2020 · Comedy

Four schoolteachers in their forties test a theory that people do better with a bit of alcohol in their blood, so they start drinking at work. It follows the four of them over a term and swings between funny and sad.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• IntimateClearly intimate

2000 · Action

A class of Japanese ninth-graders is taken to an island, handed weapons, and told that in three days only one of them may be left. It moves fast and does not soften what the kids do to each other.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• FastClearly fast

2019 · Comedy

Two straight-A students find out the night before graduation that the classmates they looked down on got into the same colleges, so they cram four years of fun into one evening. It is one long night, mostly the two of them talking.

• SimpleClearly simple
• IntimateClearly intimate

2023 · Comedy

Two unpopular high school seniors start a self-defense club, mostly as a way to get near the cheerleaders they like. Broad, rude, and set in a version of high school where nothing has consequences.

• SimpleClearly simple
• IntimateClearly intimate

2022 · Drama

Two thirteen-year-old boys who have been inseparable their whole lives start a new school, where the other children ask what exactly they are to each other. Quiet, slow, and close to their faces.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• HeavyStrongly heavy
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• SlowClearly slow

2021 · Drama

The only hearing member of a deaf fishing family joins the school choir and finds she can sing, just as the family business needs her on the boat. Warm and straightforward, moving between sign and speech.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven
• SimpleClearly simple
• IntimateClearly intimate

2001 · Science fiction

A teenager in 1988 sleepwalks out of his bedroom, and a jet engine falls through the roof into it. A figure in a rabbit suit tells him the world ends in 28 days, and the film is in no hurry to explain.

• ComplicatedClearly complicated

2018 · Comedy

A thirteen-year-old girl posts advice videos nobody watches and tries to get through the last week of middle school. Small scenes shot close up, and often hard to watch out of sheer embarrassment.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• SimpleClearly simple

2011 · Fantasy

The last of the Harry Potter films picks up mid-run, with three teenagers hunting the objects keeping a dark wizard alive, and ends at the school where it all started. Most of it is the final battle.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic
• EpicClearly epic

2004 · Fantasy

In his third year at Hogwarts, Harry learns that the man who broke out of the wizard prison is looking for him. Greyer and rainier than the first two, and it moves quickly for a long film.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic

2007 · Comedy

A sixteen-year-old finds out she is pregnant and picks a couple in the suburbs to raise the baby. Everybody talks in a very particular way, and the whole thing is over in an hour and a half.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• IntimateClearly intimate
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2017 · Comedy

A high school senior in Sacramento calls herself Lady Bird, wants to go to college on the other coast, and fights with her mother about all of it. Short scenes, one school year, funny and quick.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• SimpleClearly simple

2008 · Horror

A bullied twelve-year-old in a snowed-in Stockholm suburb makes friends with the girl who has moved in next door and only comes out at night. It is very quiet and very cold, and it takes its time.

• IntimateStrongly intimate
• HeavyClearly heavy
• SlowClearly slow

2004 · Comedy

A sixteen-year-old raised in Kenya starts at an American high school and gets adopted by the three most popular girls in it. Fast, quotable, and a joke every few seconds.

• IntimateClearly intimate

2004 · Comedy

A teenager in small-town Idaho draws mythical creatures, feeds his brother's llama and helps a friend run for class president. Deadpan, barely plotted, and full of long flat pauses.

• SimpleStrongly simple
• LightStrongly light
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2024 · Drama

Two Black teenagers meet at a brutal Florida reform school in the early 1960s and get each other through it. It is shot almost entirely from inside their eyes, so you see what they see and little else.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• HeavyStrongly heavy
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2012 · Animation

A boy who can see and talk to dead people turns out to be the only one who can stop a three-hundred-year-old curse waking up his New England town. Stop-motion, funny, and scarier than most films aimed at kids.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic

2016 · Horror

A lifelong vegetarian starts at the veterinary school where her older sister is already a student, and hazing week makes her eat raw meat. Bloody, funny in places, and hard to watch in others.

• HeavyStrongly heavy

2023 · Thriller

An Oxford scholarship student is invited to spend the summer at the enormous country estate of his rich, easy-going classmate. Long lunches in the heat, and it gets uncomfortable early.

• HeavyClearly heavy

2003 · Comedy

A broke guitarist takes his flatmate's substitute teaching job at a posh prep school and quietly turns his fourth-grade class into a rock band. Loud, silly, and mostly kids learning to play.

• LightClearly light
• SimpleClearly simple

2015 · Horror

Two students are left behind at a Catholic boarding school over the winter break, while a young woman hitches a ride through the snow toward them. Very slow, very quiet, and told out of order.

• SlowStrongly slow
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• HeavyClearly heavy

2023 · Comedy

A disliked teacher at a New England boarding school is stuck minding the boy nobody collected for Christmas 1970, along with the cook who has just lost her son. Slow, snowy, and mostly the three of them.

• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• RealisticStrongly realistic
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• SlowClearly slow

2019 · Drama

A high school wrestler in south Florida is holding together a bad shoulder, a girlfriend, and a father who expects a great deal. It changes shape halfway, and the camera and music never sit still.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven

2025 · Horror

At 2:17 one morning, seventeen children from the same class get out of bed and run off into the dark, and the town starts looking for someone to blame. Told in chapters, each following a different person.

• HeavyClearly heavy

2024 · Musical

Two students at a school for wizards in Oz become friends despite having nothing in common: one green and unwanted, one blonde and adored. The first half of the stage musical, with big numbers and a lot of singing.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic