5 High School Revenge Movies To Watch Where Hell Is A Teenage Girl

They walk down the school corridor in slow motion, perfect outfits, hair blowing in the breeze. No one crosses them because crossing them would mean certain death—or worse, death of social status. everyone hates them Everyone wants to be her.

The Heathers, The Plastics, you name it: every generation has a movie dedicated to the beautiful, mean girls of high school. They pack more bite than cozy rom-coms or nostalgic coming-of-age movies, and often the girls are out for blood, whether through social sabotage or literal murder.

This subgenre is having a hilariously fun time with teenage girlhood conventions, especially when it comes to design choices. These films are united in iconic ways and with specific visual palettes that play with the popular aesthetic conventions of their respective time periods. They add edge and toughness to elements often associated with little girlhood, be it a bold lipstick, pink mini skirts or red hair ties.

But even more central than the different visual motifs are the female relationships at the heart of these films. The most disastrous and disarming relationships these girls have are with each other, and those relationships are at once their salvation and their ultimate downfall. And that thread sews together the more over-the-top elements with grounded relationship skills — demon-possessed boy-eating best friends aren’t exactly common, but toxic best friends beating others down in order to climb over them are.

With his pastel colored costumes and devious lead duo Netflix’s take revenge is a worthy introduction to the genre. In honor of these black comedies that aren’t afraid to show the dark side of high school popularity, we’ve selected some of the classics from the canon of reckless teenage girls.

Heather (1988)

Winona Ryder as Veronica, dressed in funeral black, sits in a pew next to a grinning JD

The film that started it all was actually a box office bomb. But even though he doesn’t even get half of his budget back, heather became a cult classic. Writer Daniel Waters intended the film to satirize how the media sensationalized teenage suicides and to be a darker counterpart to the often saccharine depictions of high school life in the 1980s. (Hello, John Hughes.) And while that may have been controversial— Winona Ryder’s agent asked her not to take the role – it sparked for the audience at home.

Heathers follows Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder), the fourth member of a ruthless gang of mean girls known as the Heathers (since the other three are all named Heather). She’s reluctant to pursue them because she knows that siding with the Heathers and helping them forge hall passes and apologies is better than being their target. But she’s attracted to rebellious new student JD (Christian Slater), and after the leader of the Heathers turns on Veronica, she and JD hatch a plan. What should have been a harmless prank turns into murder, and soon Veronica finds herself covering up a number of corpses, disguising them as suicides. JD’s plans grow darker, the remaining two Heathers deal with a power vacuum, and Veronica tries to fix everything that went wrong.

While heather While absolutely laying the groundwork for this type of film, it’s also notable for being the only example on our l ist in which a male character plays a significant role in the gang’s demise. Still, the focus is back on Veronica, who claws her way out of the popular clique and then JD’s misanthropic influences, eventually reaching out to her former girlfriend Martha and the more likable Heather.

heather can be streamed on Tubi and Prime video.

The Craft (1996)

a group of four girls around a fiery summoning circle

Technically, The craft is a supernatural horror film, not a dark comedy, and technically it’s not about popular girls, it’s about mean girls (don’t worry – we’ll get to that in a moment mean girls soon). But she’s worth including on this list because the hell is a teenage girl part literally comes into play and because of the focus on the inner dynamics of the friend group in question. Also, it’s not particularly scary.

The craft follows a group of teenage witches who unleash powerful magic to exact revenge on those who have wronged them and get what they want from life. This magic eventually causes her group of friends to shatter and splinter, eating themselves alive. Like many of the other examples on this list, this involves a group of four girls – three who already know each other and a new intruder who disrupts the already established dynamic

As for the iconic and specific visual palette? It’s Catholic school uniforms mixed with traditional Goth elements. Since heather ushered in this genre with a counterculture alternative to popular teen movies of the 1980s, it’s good to have an entry that actually embraces the counterculture aesthetic.

The craft is available for streaming Outstanding plus.

Jawbreaker (1999)

three young girls in bright colors are standing next to an open trunk; two of them gag; the one in the middle, wearing bright red, seems composed and almost bored

jawbreaker is what would happen heather if the other Heathers accidentally killed their queen bee and tried to cover it up. After a prank gone horribly wrong, the popular girls at Reagan High struggle to hide their involvement in Liz Purr’s death. Rose McGowan plays cutthroat mean girl Courtney Shayne, a nasty slut who gets stupid Fern (Judy Greer) to shut up about manslaughter by giving her an extreme makeover – even changing her name to Vylette – and introduces her to the popular group. Meanwhile, Julie (Rebecca Gayheart), the most likeable of the gang, falls out of favor with them.

With its bright Y2K color accents, jawbreakerThe visual palette of is bold and over the top, complementing the outlandish actions Courtney takes to maintain her status as the school’s most popular girl (and blame someone else for Liz’s death). Meanwhile, Julie hatches a plan to expose Courtney’s involvement in the whole school’s prom night. (Big school dances are another recurring theme in these films — after all, a queen must have her official plastic crown.)

jawbreaker is available for rent Prime video and youtube.

Mean Girls (2004)

No one dies in mean girls — but that doesn’t make it any less cutthroat. New girl Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) finds herself in the school’s most popular clique – The Plastics, ruled by Regina George (Rachel McAdams). Cady’s new friend Janis (Lizzy Caplan) sees this as an opportunity to take Regina down once and for all, and they hatch a plan for Cady to infiltrate the group and destroy Regina. But the more time Cady spends with Regina, the more she turns into a demonstrably mean girl.

Even without a body count my girls intricate plans for revenge, focus on social status, and vicious verbal insults (as well as Regina being hit by a bus) fit into that list. And the filmmakers are definitely paying homage to the greats who came before, with nods like the ’80s plaid rock that Regina disses (a style pioneered during the heather era) to the scene where she hands out photocopied pages of the Burn Book in the empty hallways of the school (a similar scene takes place in jawbreaker).

mean girls can be streamed on Netflix.

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Many of these films flirted with Sapphic subtext, whether it was Fern’s obsession with Liz Purr or Cady’s fixation with Regina George. but Jennifer’s body embraces the inherent homoeroticism of being in love with the most popular and beautiful girl in school—or, in this case, having the hottest girl in love with you.

Hardworking Needy (Amanda Seyfried) and popular Jennifer (Megan Fox) may not have much in common on the surface, but they’re best friends. One night after sneaking into a local dive bar, a seedy indie band kidnap Jennifer and use her as a victim in a demonic ritual – but it doesn’t quite work and Jennifer wakes up hungry for meat.

As Jennifer moves around murdering and eating boys, her power grows – and the already toxic friendship between her and Needy begins to unravel. There is no central clique jennifer body, but the focus on Needy and Jennifer’s intense friendship is enough to sustain it. Needy is the only person Jennifer resists her murderous urges for, but also the one whose life she would most want to destroy.

Jennifer’s body is available for streaming Prime video.