Dazed And Confused at 30: The kids are still alright, alright, alright
Richard Linklater's timeless high school stoner movie gifted the world Matthew McConaughey—and remains a relatable treat
Film Features Dazed and Confused
To paraphrase David Wooderson, “That’s what I love about these high school movies, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” Indeed, the best high school films remain, and filmmaker Richard Linklater’s Dazed And Confused, which on September 24 celebrates the 30th anniversary of its release, is one of the most enduring of them all, ranking among the best in its genre. A box office flop at the time, Dazed’s seemingly meandering but deceptively well-structured storyline paints a vivid portrait of the small town high school experience and, with authentic specificity, what that felt like in 1970s Middle America.
At the same time, it conveys some of the zeitgeist brewing in popular culture at the moment. While the film certainly has a rosy patina of nostalgia-bait, both for the era it depicts and the era it was made, Dazed And Confused still transcends through both lenses, thanks to Linklater’s naturalistic, unforced and laid-back storytelling. Much like its precursors American Graffiti and Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Dazed—the lowest-key and stoner-iest of its niche—mixes everyday teenage hijinks with quietly monumental rites of passage, all climatically timed to the last day of school. It emerges as a terrific “hangout” movie that also conveys stealthy coming-of-age journeys experienced by many of the characters in its expansive ensemble.
The movie that just keeps L-I-V-I-N
For every bong-hit of cinematic pleasure recognizable in its universal quality—the upperclassmen hazing the incoming freshman; the sexually charged bantering; the misplaced braggadocio; and the fumbling flirtations—there’s something even more deeply resonant as the characters pass toward adulthood. That includes the class-clown Don (Sasha Jensen), the blissed-out, beautiful, but barely verbal Michelle (Mila Jovavich), the mean girl Darla (Parker Posey), the freshman tormenter O’Bannion (Ben Affleck), and the arrested-development philosophizer Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey).
The entry of Mitch (Wiley Wiggins) into a more grown-up world is harrowing at first, but once he finds himself warmly invited in he’s entranced by the new experiences that await. Intellectual but decidedly unsmooth Tony (Anthony Rapp) gains confidence in his own appeal as he clicks with freshman Sabrina (Christin Hinojosa), while his friend Mike (Adam Goldberg) gets the unwelcome lesson that he’s better off using his brains than his fists. And at the film’s crescendo, Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London), who is increasingly ambivalent towards the pressure to commit to an anti-drug pledge in order to keep his place on the football team, finally chooses to assert himself against the coach’s authority and agree to play on his own terms.
These journeys are contrasted by two holdouts, both tellingly past their high school expiration dates: O’Bannion, who clings to his simmering rage and sadism even when his hazing ritual is exposed as something darker than a mere annual pranking, and Wooderson, whose party hearty good vibes barely cloak his casual refusal to move forward into full-blown adult L-I-V-I-N. Both underscore Pink’s clear-eyed, mature assessment, “If I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself.”
That both the laugh-out-loud moments and the subtly shaded life transitions ring with recognizable truth is what elevates Dazed And Confused above the average high school film; no high concept or convoluted plot machinations are needed. The best of the genre—which, along with Dazed, includes American Graffiti, The Breakfast Club, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, American Pie and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower—follow the everyday dramas and absurdities of simply being teenagers in high school, navigating the often delicate, sometimes fraught, always thrilling territory between childhood and the larger world. Whether capturing a contemporary time period or trying to channel the essence of a bygone era, the crème of these films connects us emotionally, at any age, directly to high school experiences—the ones we had and the ones we wished we’d had.
Loaded with future stars
Like so many of its high school film predecessors, there’s something delightful about seeing just how many future Hollywood stars Linklater managed to pack into his cast. Many went on to high-profile careers, like Jovovich, Posey, Rapp, Goldberg, Joey Lauren Adams, Rory Cochrane, and Cole Hauser; still others continue to shine as full-fledged superstars, like Affleck, McConaughey, and (blink and you’ll miss her) Renee Zellweger. Something about this movie’s knew-them-when quality, like old high school yearbook photos, greatly enhances Dazed’s re-watchability. A few of these actors even appeared in the films of the other young maverick independent directors who burst onto the scene around the same time as Linklater, including Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith.
There’s also the seemingly era-specific but ultimately timeless template first laid down by George Lucas’ American Graffiti, one that still works wonders: the soundtrack filled to the brim with enduringly appealing music from classic ’70s artists—including Aerosmith, KISS, Alice Cooper, The Runaways, Peter Frampton, Deep Purple, ZZ Top, Seals and Crofts, and Lynyrd Skynyrd—is both ear candy to audiences of a certain age and potent enough to capture the attention of younger generations encountering the songs for perhaps the first time.
Linklater understood the power of context when it came to perfect needle drops. He closed out the movie with Mitch—alive with the thrill of his all-night adventure and still buzzed as he comes home at dawn—sinking into Foghat’s “Slow Ride,” juxtaposed against Pink, Wooderson, Slater, and Simone embarking on their quest for Aerosmith tickets. The song, if not the film itself, serves as an apt metaphor for cruising through the high school years (and in Wooderson’s case, a little beyond).
102 Comments
“while his friend Mike (Adam Newhouse)“- uhh, who?
Perhaps they partook of the devil’s lettuce before writing the article, cause they meant Adam Goldberg.
Oh I know they meant the one and only Hebrew Hammer, I just want to know how you can fuck up so badly to put Adam Newhouse.
The gif was meant as a reference to the fuck up of mistaking Mr. Numbers for Mr. Newhouse.
Adam Newhouse is probably friends with Ken Norton, who this very site said was let go from his role as Bruce Banner and replaced with Mark Ruffalo prior to The Avengers.
They confused Edward Norton with the guy from ‘Mandingo’? Holy Christ….
The resemblance is striking!
Poor Adam Newhouse – ignored, misunderstood, and misnamed since 1976.
I was actually born after the day and year presented in the movie, but there is something about the people and the school that ring true to those of us who went to school before the internet. Having to occupy yourself with going out, having fun with people, riding around aimlessly, it was still a think into the 90s. I still have this movie on in the background sometimes just for the nostalgia.*puts on my old man hat*
I was born 5ish years before the movie is set, but it does accurately depict how me & my friends in kindergarten spent the last day of school.(in my high school reality I needed cash, so I mostly worked weekends at the restaurant that was the hangout for the kids whose parents gave them cash).
That sounds like a hell of a kindergarten.
Yeah, we didn’t drink beer and climb water towers untill grade school!
It’s really hard to explain to kids these days what it was like being a teenager before the internet and cell phones. Kids today can still get in a car and cruise around but it’s not the same. The concept of cruising so long and far that you get lost just doesn’t happen anymore. You don’t stumble across some new cool place one day and then never manage to find it again. You never have that experience of walking out of school or your shitty part time job, getting in your buddies car and just leaving the world you know and feeling the freedom of no one being able to find you.
well and so much of driving these days is just following a dot on a screen. you don’t really feel ‘alone’ in a car like you used to.
I was born around when t he movie came out, and I feel like we were the last gasp of just driving around aimlessly, smoking weed and hoping to find beer to drink in a park.
Finding that one guy who would buy underage kids beer for a 100% mark up.
I bought a bottle of Svedka for $40 once 😂
And porn meant actual magazines!
Often stashed somewhere in the woods….
Used porn. With pages stuck together for some reason.
Finally finding your way to that kickass party after a couple of hours driving around, perhaps with the help of tips from classmates you come across on the road, was one of the great pleasures. I also thank the lord every day I came of age before the advent of digital photography. I was looking through some high school and college-era albums I took from my parents’ house recently and holy shit.
Oh, me too. I have photos and videos from high school (I had a VHS-C camera). I still have the tapes, but no way to play them. Which is probably good….
When I mention to people that my teenage summers involved a lot of road trips down to and around the Jersey Shore, I’ve actually described the experience as kind of like Dazed and Confused, minus the marijuana and plus an ocean.
Or going to another city and finding a book or record store selling you things you’ve only heard the names of before. Now if you’ve heard of something you can just order it from Amazon or find it for free somewhere on the Web. Great in a sense, but the feeling of finding a treasure is lost.
Oh yeah. I remember the trip my gaming group took to Games Plus in Mount Prospect for the first time. Before then we only got D&D books at Walden books in the mall and our local comic store sold a few things. That store was huge and had tons of stuff. It became a monthly trip to go out and shop there.
I don’t know if you still live in the area (my mother did decades ago), but apparently the Mount Prospect Games Plus still exists (according to the web). So many games stores from the 1980s don’t.
I’m actually closer to it now where I live and I know it’s still there. Haven’t been over in ages but it’s still one of the best games stores I’ve been to, one of the oldest continuing operating one too(40 years at this point) They do a famous twice yearly auction that pulls people from across the country. It’s a great place to sell old stuff and get used table top gaming stuff at a steal
Now that I’m a parent of a teenager, I have no idea how my parents dealt with me being a knucklehead out in a car with other knuckleheads in the late 90s.
it was just accepted back then. that’s what kids will do.
Same. I have two teenagers and I appreciate that I’m always in contact with them by and large via cell. Whereas when I was a teen I would just leave and my old man had no idea where I was and no way to keep tabs.I was born 3 years before the year this film was set in.
90s kid in the south here. this movie although 20 years ahead of “my time” felt so goddamn real. just riding around in the cars all night to various hangouts to the party in the field.
Adam Newhouse is a terrific actor. I just wish people would stop confusing him with ‘The Newhouses’ creator Adam F. Newhouse.
the spiritual sequel, everybody wants some!!, is also terrific (and if you catch me on the right day i maybe even like it a little more).saw the new linklater, hit man, at tiff and he’s still got it, btw. shame it sold to netflix i was hoping it would get a big theatrical release because it was so fun with a hot crowd, and it’s a real star-making turn from glen powel.
I saw it there too. I think some of the humour landed a little better in the theatre than it will at home, and i think it helped smooth over some of the more unbelievable stuff in the final stretch. Definitely had a Bernie vibe.
Ever since the first time I watched Everybody Wants Some!!, I’ve been waiting for Glen Powell to become the Next Big Thing and he keeps getting so close, but not quite there.Also: I work in college athletics in Texas, and yes, Texas college baseball players are pretty obsessed with that movie. Shocking, I know, that a movie about a Texas college baseball team partying and getting laid and just generally being cool is popular among Texas college baseball players.
hit man could very well be his actual big break. it had the charm of kurt russell/goldie hawn movie from like 1987.
I’m sure they’re all saying “Full throttle to the bottle!”But yeah, I saw an interview with Linklater where he talks about how Finnegan is supposed to actually be as smart and cool and funny as you remember that one upperclassman from your freshman year being.And Powell fucking nails it.
I love EWS!! so damn much.Powell/Russell/Deutch probably won’t end up matching McConaughey/Affleck/Adams…but my God, the casting is incredible.It’s really fun to see the visual parallels between the characters, too.
Everybody Wants Some! was a great movie.
That cast was great top to bottom (expect no less from Linklater) but the biggest pleasant surprise was once they finally got all of them on the baseball field the actors could actually play. I love Major League but watching Chelsie Ross “pitch” always takes be out of it a little bit, so casting guys who could casually whip it around the diamond was fun to see.
The guy who plays Plummer had never acted before, but had played ball at Harvard, haha!Just like with School of Rock, Linklater said “It’s a lot easier for me to teach a kid to act than to teach them how to play baseball well.”
100%. I also didn’t know Wyatt Russell had been an actual (semi) pro athlete.
Superman was a starter at ASU!
That’s the one I did know. Guy had a sweet stroke.
Just watched the Behind the Scenes thing on YouTube about their skills videos – Hoechner says “I didn’t ‘record a video’ like the other guys – my agent just sent him some clips from when I played in college.”
one of those things i’d never notice but that’s super cool.
Love Everybody Wants Some and love, love, love Dazed and Confused. I think Roger Ebert said something like its the most realistic movie about high school ever made, and I agree. Of other movies mentioned, American Graffiti, The Breakfast Club, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, American Pie and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, I think that only American Graffiti comes close to it.
I think most high school movies aren’t trying to be realistic but to be a wish fulfillment fantasy as to what people wanted high school to be – poor girl gets her dream guy, the various cliques all get together and be friends, etc
Thanks, I never heard of this movie before but I’m almost done and it’s great.
One thing I personally like about the movie is that it is actually positive and upbeat towards the characters. Mitch is a completely unremarkable kid who Pink takes under his wing because Pink is a genuinely nice guy, in addition to being the star QB. Mitch gets a pass from his parents for staying out late. Anthony Rapp gets the confidence to talk to the frosh girl. Everyone except O’Bannon seems to be having fun. Given the high school experience a lot of people have (not great), it was fun to see people actually enjoying themselves. As an adult I realize that the night is not the pinnacle of any of their lives, but I remember *feeling* like those little things were massive victories.
one thing about linklater is you can always feel a genuine understanding and warmth for every character. he always sees everyone’s perspective.
Thanks, this is what I was trying to get at with my post. I contrast that with something like Superbad (as another popular high school movie) and at the end of that movie, Jonah Hill’s character is still a dick (albeit with softer edges towards the girl he is trying to have sex with) and Michael Cera seems like he’s still in a borderline abusive friendship with him.
yeah i think that’s the distinction between the apatow style and linklaters. they both aim for a sweetness and hit it more than the average high school comedies ever did, but linklater would have let the friendship breathe more.
I do feel like a big part of it is the difference between a pair of 24 year old writers (on a screenplay they started in their teens!) and a man in his 30s.That distance gives him a lot more grace towards Mike and Tony than Seth and Evan have towards…Seth and Evan.
oh for sure! this year’s ninja turtles is a good example of them softening the teen edginess and aiming for a sweeter center, right down to the villain’s motivation.
Me: (smiling at proof that I’m not the only one who saw how good maybe great the new TMNT was. Even my best movie bud, my 23 yo son was like “you saw what?!)
Woketards offended by some McLovin
Even that local Austin crackpot Alex Jones who showed up in a couple of his movies. I’m sure he’s obscure to everyone who didn’t live in Austin in the 1990s. Imagine if he got a nationwide TV show!
Been a while since I saw it but isn’t Don going to have to repeat his senior year? His entire credo is to go balls-out at all times.
Just watched it on a flight last night (serendipity!) – O’Bannion’s the one who’s going to have to repeat.
That would explain his hostility.
It’s been awhile since I have seen it myself, but IIRC, O’Bannion is the only one who actually gets off on hurting the frosh. The other two football players who participate seem to do it more as a “this is a thing we had done to us as frosh, we’re doing it now, its part of the ritual” vibe. Kind of like Mitch’s sister during the hazing of the female freshman. Parker Posey seemed to enjoy torturing the frosh too but I honestly forget what happens to her and I would not be surprised at all if she disappeared from the movie after that scene.I would add that Wooderson, who would be seen as creepy AF if this movie was made today, comes off more as just kind of a dopey slacker who isn’t really ready to move on. He’s more pathetic than dangerous.
For sure. By the end the other seniors are telling O’Bannion to chill out. He’s obviously got major anger issues.
He honestly seems less creepy when you watch it as an adult, haha – he’s clearly friends with Pink and Don from the football team, so he can’t be older than 20 or so.He comes off as a doof, more than anything else.
I first saw this movie in 2001ish. I was 16-17 years old. I didn’t even smoke or drink. I loved the muscle cars and awesome soundtrack. I think there were two soundtracks that came out on CD for this movie.
Then I watched it through my 20’s high AF and loved it.
I watched it a few months ago. Still a good movie. But I realized how much of a creep Shawn Andrews is/was.
I was a child in the late 70s. I remember the neighborhood high school kids paddling each other and being scared to death of the idea.
I was a child in the late 70’s, and I never heard of anyone paddling someone until I saw Animal House & Dazed and Confused.
I was a child in the late 70’s, and I never heard of anyone paddling someone until I saw Animal House & Dazed and Confused.
Someone always says that when D&C is brought up. Linklater either made it up whole cloth, or was using something he actually experienced, but it’s not really a linchpin to hang the movie’s era specificity on. It’s a plot element in a story, not its raison d’etre. I’m a contemporary of Mitch, and I shiver like I’m in a time machine when I watch this film.
We had several high school kids as neighbors. They told us all about it, showed us their paddles, and generally did a great job of making us dread high school. Luckily, the school banned that stuff in the early 80s, and it died out quickly.
I was a child in the late 70’s, and I never heard of anyone paddling someone until I saw Animal House & Dazed and Confused.
Firstly, I loved this movie and rewatch it from time to time. But how come its not cancelled since the McConaughey character is well over 20 and still perving over teenage high school girls that ‘stay the same age’?
That laid back, friendly vibe is even more impressive when you learn that some serious bad blood popped up between some of the actors, and the third act had to be rewritten after certain pairings refused to work with each other anymore. Which is of course why some of the subplots seem to fizzle out with no closure, but luckily that perfectly fits with the movie’s tone of just being a random snapshot of these people’s lives.
Yeah, wasn’t the kid who was supposed to have the party (Pickford, I think) originally supposed to pretty much be the main character, but he was such an asshole to nearly everyone else that most of his scenes got cut? (Well, at least one person did get along with him. He and Milla Jovovich ran off and got married at some point during filming, but it was annulled because she was underage.)
The rest of the cast who did get along said it was like an endless summer camp filming it: parties, drinking and sex. Really shines through in the performances.
Thanks for a fun read. It’s just shame that Valley Girl so often gets left off lists of best HS movies.
An underrated classic, for sure.
As someone who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. This film captures what it looked and felt like at that time. I remember my parents dressing me up for school in the clothes of that time. The fashion was hideous at that time. Playing little league and dealing with bullies? It happened to me. Smashing mailboxes with a bat? Guilty.
I grew up in the 70’s (born ‘71) and I remember seeing these kids around my neighborhood. 70’s and 80’s were just an awesome, awesome time period to grow up in.I love this movie.
It’s also pretty amazing what kind of free range lifestyle those kids had, which bothered nobody except the cops.
Or conversely it’s pretty amazing that modern kids have helicopter parents that prevent them from having that freedom that was just taken for granted before. Well, in the 20th century anyway; before then teenagers (and even younger kids) didn’t have much freedom because they were expected to actually work.
Which is amusing because kids today are FAR safer than when I was young. I admittedly have to reign my wife in on that front sometimes.
You’re about my age, right? I’m 52. Did you grow up playing cops & robbers in your neighborhood? We played all the time. The cap guns were realistic, we ran through neighbors yards. Nobody cared.If you tried playing cops and robbers today, the neighbors would call actual cops. Or, just shoot you.
Exact same age. We had bb gun wars in the woods near my house, everyone wearing multiple clothing layers, goggles, and running around with rifles. Every now and then someone took one in the face. I remember one of my friends being shot through the lip and the bb falling out while he was spitting blood. No one’s parents batted an eye. Today that would invite a SWAT deployment, and probably multiple lawsuits.
which bothered nobody except the cops.
And more often than not, not even the cops. They didn’t care about kids being kids back then. Or at least not from my recollection.
Well I mean within the framework of the movie. They were playing mailbox baseball, which I expect would piss off the homeowners as well.
Born in 73 and yup, it was a very different time. Plus I was one of the wave of latchkey kids so man did I run amok.
The movie takes place on May 28, 1976, roughly 17 years before its release date (Sept 24, 1993). Which, for a similar gap for a film today would be a story set in 2006. Honestly, I’d be down for an ‘06 take on this same dynamic. (Terrorism on TV, a Guitar Hero duel in someone’s living room, Destiny’s Child blasting out the window of a PT Cruiser, a bottle of Hooch in every fist…)I was in HS in 93. I still remember an old dude (he was seriously probably 35) yelling out the window of his car at my friend, complaining that she probably didn’t know anything about the band on her shirt (it was Jefferson Airplane). LOL.
I don’t feel like anyone want to take on Superbad, on that front…but I’d LOVE something more similar to Dazed and Confused set around that time (…aka, when I was Mitch’s age).
“A few of these actors even appeared in the films of the other young maverick independent directors who burst onto the scene around the same time as Linklater, including Quentin Tarantino…”I’m having a hard time remembering who, if anyone, from the Dazed and Confused cast has appeared in a Tarantino film. Little help, AV Club?
Nicky Katt
Thanks for mentioning the great Nicky Katt. You still hear people using that famous line from the movie without connecting it to Nicky.Clint : I only came here to do two things, kick some ass and drink some beer. Looks like we’re almost outta beer.
My girlfriend (now wife) and I saw DAZED AND CONFUSED in theaters on opening weekend in ‘93, and based on the advertising we assumed it would be a cheesy B-movie goof, a throwback to ‘80s teen sex comedies. I left thinking that it was one of the greatest, most perfect movies I had ever seen. It came out on VHS just a few months later, and I spent most of that winter turning all of my college friends—or anyone who would listen—onto the brilliance of the movie.On a related note that sounds made up but is completely true: I attended a small get together in Austin in summer 2001, and two of the other guests were Nicky Katt and Quentin Tarantino. Nicky Katt in particular was incredibly nice, which caught me off guard. When I saw he was at the party, I just assumed he would punch me before the night was over.
Sad he left the business. I got some emails from him as I had set up a page for him way back in myspace.
The most incredible thing is that its 30 years old and woketards havent found a reason to be offended yet. Guess we gotta wait another 10 years or so for them to get woker
Eat a brick bitch
Eat my rock hard cock slut
I’ve been meaning to rewatch this film. I absolutely did not like it when I saw it as a teenager about 20 years back. Most of the experiences in it were absolutely foreign to mine in high school and, as noted, some of it just doesn’t really go anywhere.It was fun to see some of the future Hollywood actors in early roles but isn’t one I had any nostalgia for, muc like high school itself.
Definitive hang-out movies by decade set:1960s: American Grafitti1970s: Dazed and Confused1980s: This is Spinal Tap (?)1990s: Go!2000s: Sideways2010s: (?)
Will also accept Empire Records for 1990s
Underrated but fantastic 90s hangout movie: Human Traffic. Unlike GO or Empire Records (and so similar to D&C), it vibes rather than having a plot, but very much captures the feeling of the age. It’s basically the movie version of The Streets Weak Become Heroes.
I did consider it for 90s indeed.