Fast Times At Ridgemont High Reviews

Fast Times is a brilliant, funny and often challenging examination of teenage life in the early 1980s.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10

Teen movie is full of sex, drugs, and misbehavior.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A cult classic.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

Director Amy Heckerling has failed to provide the raunch or poignancy that would interest young moviegoers, all of whom have seen American Graffiti and its 467 imitators. Ridgemont High? A nice place to visit, but who would want to transfer there?

Full Review

Fast Times will always be remembered for one thing: showing respect for and insight into the members of its core audience, something that was as rare in the 1980s as it is today.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Great fun if not quite the great teen pic some believe it to be.

Full Review

The nice thing is that Crowe and director Amy Heckerling have provided something pleasant to observe in all of these characters though they really are sadly lacking in anything gripping.

Full Review

A brashly funny yet sensitive comedy that has become a cult favorite.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Was never all it was cracked up to be.

Full Review

Director Amy Heckerling almost encourages the film's shapelessness, letting the individual moments speak for themselves, rather than molding a cohesive whole.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Lacks the frenzied energy which allowed Porky's to beat all competitors in its field.

Full Review

[Penn] sets the tone of fun for the whole movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

This R-rated comedy captured the natural humor of high school life, while also addressing serious topics.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Sean Penn's calling never left Mr. Hand's classroom.

| Original Score: 5/5

overrated

| Original Score: 1/5

The great high-school comedy that spawned a thousand rip-offs.

| Original Score: 4.5/5

The comedy captured the brutal realism of post-sexual-revolution high school life and has been imitated often, rarely equaled, and surpassed only once.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

The filmmakers' attempts to capture the "real" high school experience run hot and cold, while the comedy quotient just doesn't cut it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

How could they do this to Jennifer Jason Leigh? How could they put such a fresh and cheerful person into such a scuz-pit of a movie?

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4

Pretty dated now, but it's early Penn.

| Original Score: 3/5