Random Most Controversial Teen Movies (13 items)

• 

  (#1) Thirteen

  • Holly Hunter, Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, Jeremy Sisto, Kip Pardue, Sarah Clarke, D.W. Moffett, Vanessa Hudgens, Jenicka Carey, Ulysses Estrada

  Thirteen is an intense film about the effects of peer pressure on a 13-year-old girl named Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood). She begins as a quiet honors student in middle school, silently struggling with feelings of abandonment due to her recovering-alcoholic mother focusing more on her fellow ex-addict boyfriend, the stress of which leads Tracy to self-harm. After being made fun of by popular girl Evie (Nikki Reed) for having “Cabbage Patch” clothes, she decides it’s time to shed her little-girl persona and gets trendier clothes to fit in, attempting to befriend Evie.

  Tracy steals money to impress Evie, and this willingness to engage in theft secures Evie's friendship. She in turn introduces Tracy to a world of sex, crime, and drugs. This exposure sparks a change in Tracy - she begins wearing more revealing clothing, drinking, doing drugs, and engaging in sexual behavior. This puts a deeper strain on Tracy’s life and relationships, even causing her mother to try sending Tracy to live with her father to break up her and Evie’s friendship. When Evie eventually turns on Tracy, the toxicity of their friendship finally becomes apparent to Tracy. After a huge blow-out with Evie, Tracy, Tracy’s mom, and Evie’s current guardian, the extent of Tracy’s self-harm is exposed. The movie ends with an unnerving shot of Tracy spinning and screaming on a merry-go-round at the park.

  The film garnered mixed reviews upon its 2003 release, with critics claiming that it glorified self-harm and was exploitative of young girls, while others considered it a raw, unfiltered look into the life of Valley Girls and the early sexualization they endure from society at large. The two young actors were both 14 years old during filming, and despite growing very close during their time together, they didn’t speak for many years until finally reconnecting in their early 20s. About this, Reed recalled:

  We were too young to realize this at the time, but there were a lot of people that were kind of pitting us against each other and making it a competitive atmosphere. Which, now, in hindsight, I’m like, “Of course, because isn’t that the recipe for how [to] treat all young women in this industry?”
• 

  (#13) River's Edge

  • Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Ione Skye, Roxana Zal, Daniel Roebuck, Tom Bower, Constance Forslund, Leo Rossi, Jim Metzler

  Deemed by some as the darkest teen film of all time, River’s Edge follows a group of teens Layne, Matt, Clarissa, Maggie, Tony, and John. While hanging out, John tells the group that he killed his girlfriend, Jamie. Clarissa and Maggie assume he’s joking, but John takes Layne and Matt to the river where Jamie’s body is. The sight deeply disturbs Matt, but Layne seems more concerned with covering up his friend’s crime. 

  Later that night, the whole group gets back together to see Jamie’s body, the two girls seeing that it is indeed not a joke. Layne then pushes Jamie’s body into the river and arranges for John to hide out at his friend Feck’s house while Matt shows the police Jamie’s remains.

  When Layne, Clarissa, and Matt go to Tony’s house, they’re chased away by his father, who is armed with a shotgun. After an argument with Layne that gets them kicked out of his car, Matt and Clarissa talk about their conflicting feelings about Jamie's murder while John and Feck drink beer at the river’s edge along with Feck’s blow-up doll, Ellie. Feck reveals that he murdered his own girlfriend years ago, provoking John into bragging about how he strangled Jamie, displaying a delight that scares Feck. 

  As the sun rises, Feck shoots a sleeping John in the head and returns home. Police later break down Feck’s door and arrest him as the teens return to the river and find John’s body. The film ends with Matt, Clarissa, Tony, and Maggie attending Jamie’s funeral and crying as they see her for the last time.

  Based on a real-life case from 1981, River’s Edge provoked controversy, along with good box office numbers. Many have remarked that it’s hard to know which characters to empathize with - the teens show indifference towards the senseless death of Jamie, and John himself had no real purpose for killing her, sympathetic or otherwise. It seems that Feck, while also a murderer, had the most conscience in the film, as he kills John for what he did. 

  The combination of black comedy, intense violence, and teenage apathy certainly make it a film that will continue to divide viewers for years to come.
• 

  (#11) Megan is Missing

  • April Stewart, Tammy Klein, Jennifer DiBella, Amber Perkins, Peter Renaud, Lauren Leah Mitchell, Andrew Doebbler, Paula Allen, Nikki Christie, Dean Waite, John Frazier, Marcus Dreeke, Yvette Bartosik, Josh Samson, John Maalis, Jon Simonelli, Rudy Galvan, Jay Gragnani, Craig Stoa, Earl Ledebur, Ali Sadiq, Jael Elizabeth Steinmeyer, Carolina Sabate, Brittany Hingle, Rachel Quinn, Kara Wang, Trigve Hagen, Tia Streaty, Caleb Wells

  Revived by horror lovers on TikTok, Megan Is Missing tells its story in a found-footage format, using a mixture of home movies, web-chat videos, and news reports chronicling the disappearance of 14-year-old best friends Megan Stewart and Amy Herman. Megan is a popular honors student with a difficult relationship with her mother due to her drug addiction, while Amy holds onto her childhood with her collection of stuffed animals and is the target of bullying. 

  In an attempt to better fit in, Megan invites Amy to a rave party, but the night ends in discomfort as Amy is assaulted after refusing sex with a man at the party, only to find Megan performing oral sex on the party’s host in exchange for drugs.

  Megan is given the social media handle for a supposedly 17-year-old boy named Josh, who claims his webcam is broken, keeping him hidden from sight. Megan becomes infatuated with him despite obvious red flags and inconsistencies. After not showing up when they planned to meet at a party, Josh convinces her to meet again, only this time it’s behind a diner. Next, we see news reports about Megan’s disappearance and footage of her being grabbed by a man on the security cameras of the diner. 

  Amy talks online with Josh, and when it’s clear she suspects him, he threatens her, and graphic pictures of Megan being horrifically tortured start appearing on fetish forums. Amy is later kidnapped as well while recording a video diary, and investigators later find her camera in the trash. Within the footage, Josh is unlocking the door to a BDSM chamber where Amy is chained to the wall and begging for her teddy bear. After assaulting her and forcing her to eat from a dog bowl, Josh tells her he will release her if she gets into a large plastic barrel, but within it, she finds Megan’s decaying body. Josh forces Amy inside with Megan’s body, and she begs for her life as he buries the barrel in the woods and walks away.

  Officially banned in New Zealand, Megan is Missing was marketed as an educational film to bring attention to child online safety, but many found the over-sexualization of the young girls to be objectionable and the graphic content to be too disturbing. While director Michael Goi’s intentions were to educate and save lives, many maintain that it's little more than exploitative torture porn.
• 

  (#8) Heathers

  • Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walker, Penelope Milford, Glenn Shadix, Lance Fenton, Patrick Laborteaux, Jeremy Applegate, Jon Matthews, Carrie Lynn

  Heathers has it all - teen heartthrobs, high school love, comedy, murder, and suicide. The film tells the story of Veronica (Winona Ryder) and her three friends, all named Heather, who make up the most popular and feared clique in their school. Veronica is sick of them abusing their power, and when a new student, the handsome and rebellious JD, pulls a gun and fires blanks to scare some bullies, Veronica becomes fascinated by him.

  Drama occurs between Veronica and Heather Chandler at a frat party, and the latter vows to ruin Veronica’s reputation, causing Veronica and JD to plot revenge with a fake hangover remedy to make Chandler sick. JD jokingly pours drain cleaner into a cup, and Veronica mistakenly gives this to Chandler instead of the milk-and-orange-juice mixture she made. JD notices this but says nothing. Chandler drinks it and dies, and JD convinces Veronica to forge a note in Chandler’s handwriting to cover it up. 

  JD’s behavior becomes progressively more violent when he stages a suicide pact between two boys who spread vicious rumors about Veronica but uses real bullets to kill them instead of the promised tranquilizers. The couple escapes the police, but Veronica, fully terrified by JD’s behavior, breaks up with him. These events set off a chain of perceived suicide attempts at the school, all while JD plots to blow up the pep rally and kill everyone inside while making it look like a mass suicide. Veronica thwarts his plan, but he straps a bomb to his chest and detonates it after delivering his own eulogy.

  The film was largely misunderstood to be about teen suicide, but director Michael Lehmann states it’s instead a satire of teen life. Even Lisanne Falk, who plays Heather McNamara, reminds viewers that no actual suicides take place and that they're all murders, saying, “Heathers is actually a revenge fantasy.” Despite this insistence - even during the first screenings in 1988 - many viewers and critics claimed the film was mocking the sensitive, very real issue of teen suicide.
• 

  (#2) Bully

  • Brad Renfro, Rachel Miner, Nick Stahl, Bijou Phillips, Michael Pitt, Kelli Garner, Daniel Franzese, Leo Fitzpatrick

  The story of the 2001 film Bully is not an easy one, as it features themes of assault, abuse, and murder. Following the story of South Florida high school dropouts Ali, Lisa, Bobby, and Marty, who become friends and quickly engage in sexual contact with one another, both consensually and non-consensually. Bobby is the bully of the group, assaulting both Ali and Lisa throughout the film, as well as emotionally and physically abusing Marty since they were very young.

  Finally sick of the abuse, Lisa proposes they murder Bobby, calling on the aid of a few other teens. When they fail to follow through with their initial plan, they turn to a supposed “hitman,” a friend of Ali’s named Derek. The group initiates a new plan in a remote canal, luring Bobby with the promise of sex, and Donny begins the act by stabbing Bobby in the neck. While the others run away in horror, Marty eviscerates Bobby, and after Derek strikes him with a baseball bat for good measure, they dump the body in the swamp.

  Overcome with guilt and trauma from witnessing the murder, Lisa and her cousin admit what they’ve done to some friends, and Ali phones in an anonymous tip to the media about Bobby’s death. They are all eventually arrested or turn themselves in and appear in court, where Marty and Donny start an argument that implicates them all, securing their guilt in front of an onlooking courtroom. Several of them receive life sentences, and most notably, Marty is sentenced to death. 

  Based on an actual murder case from 1993, the film is brutal, rife with gratuitous nudity and graphic sex scenes. While its director, Larry Clark, was attempting to tell a raw story of kids getting in way over their heads, he reflects that he clearly exploited these young actors by showing their bodies and presenting them as air-headed kids only interested in sex and violence.
• 

  (#10) Mysterious Skin

  • Michelle Trachtenberg, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elisabeth Shue, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Richard Riehle, Brady Corbet, David Lee Smith, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Billy Drago, Chris Mulkey, Bill Sage, Chase Ellison, Jeffrey Licon, Lisa Long, Larry Marko

  Mysterious Skin tells the story of 8-year-old Little League teammates Neil and Brian and the sexual abuse they both suffered at the hands of their coach. While Neil remembers the events and leaves town after summer, Brian only remembers being in the crawl space of his house with a bloody nose and no memories of anything else. Perceiving his coach's actions as love, Neil becomes attracted to middle-aged men and begins performing sex acts for money at age 15, continuing this when he moves to New York City. After an emotional experience with a client who dies of AIDS, Neil stops selling himself and gets a job at a sandwich shop.

  Meanwhile, Brian struggles with chronic nosebleeds, bedwetting, and blackouts since regaining consciousness in the crawl space, even having dreams of being touched by an alien-looking hand. This leads him to believe he was abducted by aliens for a time, but after seeing a photo of his Little League, he recognizes Neil as the boy that appeared in his dreams. 

  After Neil is assaulted and beaten by a client, he returns to his hometown to spend Christmas with his mother, where he and Brian meet again for the first time since their childhood. The two break into the house the Little League coach had previously rented, and Neil tells Brian how the older man had abused them and forced them to perform sex acts on one another. Brian cries in Neil’s lap, finally understanding the truth as carolers sing “Silent Night.”

  The film drew much controversy for its focus on child abuse and pedophilia, with an Australian legislator calling for a ban and a spokesman for the Australian Family Association claiming the film could be used for the satisfaction of pedophiles or to even help groom children they were planning to abuse. Others suggested the film, told from the perspective of those abused, could show abusers the damage they do and make them feel repentant. Regardless, the film fought against an NC-17 rating and lost, ultimately releasing in theaters without a rating.

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking