What are the Best Movies Set on a College Campus?

We’re going back to school with a movie marathon of films featuring faculty, freshmen, fall, football, great sweaters and hard-earned wisdom. Our expert on all things cinematic, Abbie Martin Greenbaum, has curated a list of the best movies set on a college campus.

the back to school movie marathon

School is back in session! You know what that means: shiny new notebooks, cute fall clothes, and a year’s worth of memories to be made.

College is a liminal space – one of the few times in our lives that is isolated from the rest of the story, set aside for personal growth and transformation. Because of this, it is an extremely fruitful setting for movies of all genres. They can be serious, sophomoric, earnest or edgy. We’re always happy to go along for the ride. 

College is the stuff that cinema is made of – and if you want to experience it all again, or maybe for the first time, here are ten of the best movies to help you do it. We have classics old and new, as well as a few great films you might not have seen yet. 

Don’t be surprised if you recognize yourself and your friends (or frenemies) somewhere in this mix. Your alma mater might even be playing a supporting role.

the best movies set on a college (or boarding school or law school) campus

1. Legally Blonde

Legally Blonde, the girl power blockbuster, is always worth a repeat viewing. Reese Witherspoon famously stars as Elle Woods, the Malibu sorority girl who applies to Harvard Law School in the hopes of winning back her ex-boyfriend. Though Elle borders on ridiculous at times – as she trots, toting her Chihuahua, into an environment she is totally unprepared for – she is also someone the audience is absolutely rooting for from beginning to end.

This movie’s longevity is due in part to the feeling it inspires of uncomplicated, ecstatic triumph. When Elle wins – after months of hard work, good intentions, and learning from her mistakes – we all win. If school is about self-actualization above all else, then Elle Woods is an all-star example.

2. Everybody Wants Some!!

If your desire for a college flick revolves mostly around a need for aesthetically pleasurable, pain-free nostalgia, Richard Linklater’s baseball movie Everybody Wants Some!! is the masterpiece of your dreams.

What it lacks in plot, it makes up for in costumes and charisma, dancing its way into our hearts with a comedy about orientation weekend, sportsmanship, first love, and friendship. If you want to travel back to the 80’s without experiencing any kind of angst along the way, this is one brand of sentimental we can all get behind. And don’t worry, you don’t need to be a sports fan to hop on board.

3. Good Will Hunting

Good Will Hunting is the kind of movie that doesn’t come along often, and it’s a must for any comprehensive back to school movie fest. If we choose to think of college as a time for exploring character, then Good Will Hunting takes this literally. The heart of the movie revolves around the relationship between Will (played by Matt Damon) and his therapist (played by Robin Williams).

Will is a janitor at MIT with a genius-level IQ. He’s trying to fly under the radar, but is discovered by a professor at the school when he solves an impossible math equation. Though the film’s core is its commitment to exploring its characters’ emotional lives, the world of academia looms large as a motivating factor for all them.

4. Social Network

Anyone who thought that a movie about a website (even if it is Facebook) would be boring was proved wrong in 2010. That’s when Social Network from Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher exploded into cinemas. Since then, it has proven to be timeless: the kind of airtight, quick-witted drama whose appeal never really seems to dim.

Over time, it has become emblematic of a particular moment in history: pre-social media, pre-#MeToo. While we have issues with how women are portrayed throughout the story, this is a fascinating window into the way in which the time the Facebook founders spent at Harvard influenced the trajectory of their achievements. We get to see the good, the bad and the ugly – as when long-time friendships get sacrificed for fame, money and power. The incredible cast – Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Rooney Mara, and Armie Hammer (playing identical twin brothers) – seals the deal. This is a quintessential college film – almost Shakespearean in scope – that’s worth watching more than once.

5. The Graduate

Although The Graduate is technically about, yes, a college graduate, it plays in the same sandbox as the rest of these films. What do you do, now that you are still a young person, but are being thrust into a world of adults and expected to behave as one of them?

This is a unique look at that pivotal time in life, through the eyes of a guy who does not really know what to do with himself. And yes, it features the legendarily scandalous relationship between recent grad Benjamin Braddock and Mrs. Robinson, the much older friend of his parents. This is a movie that seems like wry entertainment on the surface. But the longer you think about it, the more it slides into much darker places.

6. Love Story

No list of iconic campus movies can be complete without a brief mention of Love Story. Some might say this 1970 film was the one that spawned the entire genre of college campus cinema.

When wealthy Harvard University law student Ryan O’Neal meets Ali MacGraw, a middle-class student at Radcliffe, it’s love at first sight. They marry, but their bright future is clouded when illness strikes. The entirely predictable plot and dated dialogue may not hold up well to the scrutiny of modern viewers – but the music, Ali McGraw’s iconic preppy-bohemian wardrobe, and the hunky O’Neal make it an enduring cultural touchstone.

7. Drumline

In Drumline, a young Nick Cannon plays Devin Miles: a boy from Harlem who moves to Atlanta and becomes the star of his university’s marching band. Of course, not everything goes as planned, and Devin finds he might have to undergo some personal changes in order to fit in with his new environment.

The movie is an all-around good time, featuring some great music, as well as a young Zoe Saldana, who is as charismatic as ever as Devin’s love interest, Laila. The movie will take you back to 2002 as if it is a one-way time machine.  

 

8. Mona Lisa Smile

If there’s any justice in the world, someday soon Mona Lisa Smile is going to experience a renaissance on social media. Julia Roberts is Katherine Watson, the new art history professor at a highly fictionalized, 1953 Wellesley College. She is an unconventional new voice in a fastidiously conventional environment, trying to convince her vibrant pupils that there is more to life than getting married.

Among her students are characters played by Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ginnifer Goodwin and Julia Stiles, and getting to see these formidable actresses as a group of young friends is a pleasure in its own right.  The movie gives each character her own distinct emotional journey, exemplifying the best of the college movie genre: five stories waiting to happen, thrown together for unexpected results.

9. Kaboom

Of all of the movies set on a college campus on our list, Kaboom is perhaps the most original. Winner of the Queer Palm at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, the film begins as a campy, quirky portrayal of the freshman college experience.

And then it becomes something altogether entirely different: a roller coaster ride with bright lights, crazy colors, and some visuals that you will find hard to forget. Go in knowing as little as possible, suspend all of your disbelief, and you will be glad you did.

10. Dear White People

Before it was a hit Netflix series, Justin Simien’s Dear White People was an extremely popular movie. Set at the fictionalized Ivy League school of Winchester University, Simien’s movie is an insightful look at the racism and systemic aggression endured by Black students at predominantly white institutions.

Tessa Thompson stars as Samantha White, an outspoken voice on campus who tries to bring the school’s many injustices to light. The film also features Tyler James Williams, Teyonah Parris and Brandon P. Bell, all of whom are facing their own battles against the everyday aggression they have to endure while attending school.   

11. Stomp the Yard

The 2007 dance drama produced by Will Packer, Stomp the Yard, is a bravura piece of film-making. The story is centered on DJ Williams, a somewhat troubled college student from LA who enrolls at a fictional historically black university in Atlanta. (Fun fact: he’s played by Columbus Short, who was once a back-up dancer for Britney Spears). DJ’s dance skills get him invited into a fictional Greek fraternity preparing to compete in a stepping competition with their arch-rivals on campus.

Stepping is a form of percussive dance in which the participant’s entire body is used to produce complex rhythms and sounds through a mixture of footsteps, spoken word and hand claps. And the dance sequences are what make this movie really shine. Another treat? Ne-Yo makes his film debut here.

12. American Graffiti

American Graffiti technically takes place on the very last night of summer vacation, making it the perfect back to school movie. Happily, it captures all the feeling of the best kind of college film, even though its not set on campus. Written and directed by George Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Harrison Ford, and many others, the 1973 film plays like a magical guidebook to 1962 California. It will definitely have you thinking about what it means to say goodbye to friends, family and childhood, and to step into the unknown universe of the college campus.

the back to school movie marathon

That’s it! A dozen movies set on a college campus, or involving college students. We hope it inspires you to host your own campus film festival – and that it will remind you of the best days of your own time on campus. Have fun!

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Abbie Martin Greenbaum grew up in New York City and currently lives in Brooklyn, where she drinks a lot of coffee and matches roommates together for a living. At Oberlin College, she studied English and Cinema, which are still two of her favorite things, along with dessert and musical theater. She believes in magic.

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