Heathers

This, the wickedest satire of high school from the eighties--or, indeed, any time--holds up amazingly well, even for those of us who were there. The cruel and cliquish teenagers, the clueless and cynical adults, the grotesque and ghoulish media and society at large--it’s all here. And the laughs remain fresh and hearty, even if the language in which they are delivered has grown somewhat stale. (Of course, the visual language of this film has also aged, but that’s part of the appeal, too--getting a laugh out of what once was fashionable and normal.) In many ways, this is the perfect eighties movie, the perfect teen movie, and the quintessential combination of those two conceptual archetypes. It’s clearly the zenith of Christian Slater’s career (and maybe even the top of Winona Ryder’s arc, too). On top of all that, this flick became a cult classic, and eventually spawned a successful and wildly entertaining musical show that in certain ways exceeded the original. (The film’s script is so well written that many of the musical's song lyrics come directly and intact from the source's dialogue.) No wonder this work has long had standing in the Best of All ranks--it earns some of the loudest PURRs in this whole collection.