Focus Features

Director Nicholas Ray practically invented the genre of teen movies in this intense 1950s coming of age story. Has there ever been a movie that better captures the insecurity and torture of being the new kid in school? James Dean, Sal Mineo, and Natalie Wood deliver soul-wrenching performances, and a scene at the Griffith Park Planetarium somehow manages to put all of teen life into cosmic perspective.

This entire movie takes place during one night in 1962—the night before two high school grads, played by Ron Howard and Richard Dreyfuss, will be heading off to college. Writer-director George Lucas nails the eternal conflict we all feel at that age—between craving the security of home, and needing desperately to leave it and go out into the world—all woven together with a fantastic wall-to-wall rock ‘n roll soundtrack.

A teenager turns his house into a bordello while his parents are out of town. Even if this film wasn’t funny and smart and thought provoking, it’d still make the cut because it’s got one of the hottest teen sex scenes of all time—Tom Cruise and Rebecca de Mornay making love on a subway train while it barrels through the night.

Okay. So this film isn’t technically speaking a teen film, but I loved it when I was a teen, so I’m making an exception. It takes the story of Romeo and Juliet and transplants it into New York City during the 1950s. The Montagues and the Capulets are morphed into two rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. This movie really understands the whole love at first star-crossed sight thing, and the score, by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, is to die for.

This film is about a girl who can’t seem to stop lying. But her motivation for lying is pure—to help the underdogs at her high school become more popular. Emma Stone’s performance as Olive is thoroughly charming, and her parents, played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, are the best parents I've ever seen in a teen film—hilarious, outrageous and adorable.