<p>I second Mona Lisa Smiles. Saw it for the first time recently, really enjoyed it.</p>
<p>Splendor in the Grass? (Warren Beatty flunks out of Yale. . .)</p>
<p>Forrest Gump takes place on my favorite campus, and features my favorite coach, Bear Bryant.</p>
<p>All serious, with excellent lead actors:</p>
<p>A Single Man (with Colin Firth) - closeted gay college professor’s day in the l960’s, many sad themes including planning suicide;</p>
<p>The Kinsey Report (with Liam Neeson) - some Indiana U. early 1950’s students blush as the prof lectures on human sexuality. Others have the best research internship, ever;</p>
<p>Quiz Show (with Robert Redford) - based on true story of the son of a Columbia U professor in the l950’s who competes for $ in the new TV game show “Twenty-One”; values conflict; a few scenes depict the dad’s professorial lifestyle.</p>
<p>Butley (with Alan Bates) - repressed gay British professor, 1970s</p>
<p>The Great Debaters (Denzel Washington, Forest Whittaker)- true story, earlier than you requested (1930’s), black college students in Jim Crow Texas prepare to challenge Harvard’s team</p>
<p>Here’s some:
The Good Shepherd (early scenes at Yale)
RPM <a href=“R.P.M. (1970) Anthony Quinn Gary Lockwood political activism - YouTube”>R.P.M. (1970) Anthony Quinn Gary Lockwood political activism - YouTube;
The Strawberry Statement <a href=“The Strawberry Statement Trailer - YouTube”>The Strawberry Statement Trailer - YouTube;
The Sterile Cuckoo (Hamilton) <a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube;
Chariots of Fire (scenes at Cambridge) <a href=“Chariots of Fire - intro - YouTube”>Chariots of Fire - intro - YouTube;
War Between the Tates (Cornell) <a href=“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Between_the_Tates[/url]”>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Between_the_Tates</a>
Kinsey (Indiana) <a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube;
The Great Debaters <a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube;
Oxford Blues <a href=“Oxford Blues Trailer - YouTube”>Oxford Blues Trailer - YouTube;
Mr. Belvedere Goes to College <a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube;
One on One <a href=“Annette O'Toole in One on One (1977) - YouTube”>Annette O'Toole in One on One (1977) - YouTube;
The Male Animal <a href=“Henry Fonda (1942) "The Male Animal" for JANE! - YouTube”>Henry Fonda (1942) "The Male Animal" for JANE! - YouTube;
Teachers Pet <a href=“Doris Day Clark Gable 'Teacher's Pet' 1958 funny clip - YouTube”>Doris Day Clark Gable 'Teacher's Pet' 1958 funny clip - YouTube;
Knute Rockne (Notre Dame) All-American <a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube;
Harvard Man <a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube;
School Daze (Morehouse) <a href=“Spike Lee's: School Daze - YouTube”>Spike Lee's: School Daze - YouTube;
Higher Learning <a href=“Higher Learning - YouTube”>Higher Learning - YouTube;
Wonder Boys <a href=“Wonder Boys - Trailer - HQ - YouTube”>Wonder Boys - Trailer - HQ - YouTube;
<p>And my favorite college B-movie:
College Confidential <a href=“More Mamie Van Doren movie trailers - YouTube”>More Mamie Van Doren movie trailers - YouTube;
<p>Just remembered one from the Coen Brothers: “A Serious Man”</p>
<p>Kudos to zapfino. I was trying to remember “RPM” and just couldn’t.</p>
<p>One more unexpectedly terrific movie: Drumline.</p>
<p>And another obvious one: Proof.</p>
<p>How about horror movies? Scream 2? I Know What You Did Last Summer?</p>
<p>Of course, part of what’s great about The Paper Chase is that it focuses on what’s happening in the classroom, not sports, romance, friendship, substance abuse, etc. (It’s also not about college, but we’ll suppress that for the moment.) As mothek points out, very few of these movies do that. Kinsey, Good Will Hunting, Proof, Mona Lisa Smile, but not many others. Scream 2 actually features a lot of classroom stuff.</p>
<p>Why has there never been a movie of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History?</p>
<p>Why indeed? Maybe that’s a blessing because I think it could be a disaster in the wrong hands. But what a great book.</p>
<p>Alan Pakula owned the rights to the Secret History- but he died in 1998- now Gwyneth Paltrow is interested & it was in production at Miramax. ( but that was in 2002)</p>
<p>I loved A Secret History, and think it would make a good movie. It would need a very good director, though. Based on Heavenly Creatures, Peter Jackson would be a great choice. Ang Lee. The person who directed Pan’s Labyrinth. Someone like that.</p>
<p>BTW, Quiz Show starred Ralph Fiennes. Redford directed it.</p>
<p>1983 The First Time, comedy by a former film student at Sarah Lawrence set at a fictionalized version of SLC. Definitely an “indie” type movie. :)</p>
<p>“Brother Rat” is about VMI.</p>
<p>If you don’t want Animal House, I guess “Revenge of the Nerds” is out of the question.</p>
<p>“A Yank at Oxford” (1938) with Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh.</p>
<p>‘The Sterile Cookoo,’ a real tear jerker. Alfred Hitcock’s ‘Rope,’ while not set on campus is about two obnoxious students. ‘Heart of Dixie’ with Ally Sheedy, about the integration of the U of Alabama.</p>
<p>Is ‘Dead Poets Society’ about prep school or college?</p>
<p>History Boys is about a group of working class British Upper Level boys trying to get high enough scores on their A Levels to get into Cambridge or Oxford (can’t remember which). The headmaster of their decidedly lower tier public (read private) school tried to pry them away from their eccentric, gay teacher and put them under the care of a New College Man (who turns out to be a bit of a fraud and gay). Most of the film takes place in the classroom, on field trips, in the homes of some of the boys, and at the colleges (both O and C are really made up of several colleges). </p>
<p>This film does a great job exploring the pressure kids are under during the college acceptance process.</p>
<p>Surely someone out there is going to recommend Animal House!</p>
<p>Also, American Graffiti - though it is not a college movie per se, it certainly deals with a bygone era and the launching of young adults.</p>
<p>The Lords of Discipline is an interesting movie, set at a military college modeled on the Citadel.</p>
<p>“Surely someone out there is going to recommend Animal House!”
Read the OP’s post</p>
<p>Oops…sorry.</p>
<p>LakeW, Dead Poet’s Society is about a prep school.</p>
<p>Another Country (1984) is set a a public (ie, major private) school in Britain, and has a great cast (Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Cary Elwes). It has to do with the adolescence of the spy Guy Burgess, and is set in the 1930s. Good movie. I think it has the feel the OP is looking for.</p>
<p>Dead Poet’s Society is about a prep school. My son watched it this year in his English class and came home amazed that “Wilson” had a life before “House.”</p>
<p>How about Patch Adams? It’s med school, not college, but it’s a great movie.</p>