ListNook

Wrench78 Mar 30, 2026 +59

They are still made but for the most part are streaming only. Those movies don't make the screen.

59

No-Owl-6246 Mar 30, 2026 +11

Saw Project Hail Mary in IMAX this weekend and it made me realize that the only way movies can get me in the theater anymore is if it’s something that genuinely gains from being seen on the biggest screen with the best sound quality. Otherwise, it’s not worth the 3 hour time commitment (traveling to and from the theater, parking) and lack of control for me to go to the movies. I’d rather watch at home where I can pause if I need to go to the bathroom, eat whatever food I want, watch with subtitles, and stop the movie to continue on later if something comes up. It genuinely felt “uncomfortable” having my phone buzzing in my pocket and not being able to check it.

11

tomandshell Mar 31, 2026 +4

This is what I hate about watching a movie at home. Something always breaks the flow and interrupts. Directors are telling a story and trying to sustain tension and momentum while people pause to wander around the house. People are addicted to their phones and don’t have an attention span healthy enough to allow them to put it away and focus on a movie for 90-120 minutes without stopping it ten times.

4

gdirrty216 Mar 30, 2026 +6

I love going to the movies, I just don’t understand how they can charge such high amounts for empty theaters. My wife and I wanted to take our kids to a Friday night movie when an event we had planned got cancelled, so we looked at Zootopia 2 as an option, but adult tickets were like $18ea and the kids were $15ea plus fees. Mind you this is like a month and a half or two months post release date, so when I look at the theater seating 20 min before showtime it was 70% empty on a Friday night. There was just no way I was paying $70+, plus drinks and popcorn. It would have literally been a $100 night, and the theater was empty. There should be some level of dynamic pricing, where last minute tickets are effectively a loss leader just to get you in the door and buying popcorn.

6

Admirable_Pop_7292 Mar 30, 2026 +4

Empty theaters is why. Personally I love catching movies in theaters that are empty

4

Alternative_Ask8636 Mar 30, 2026 +1

my local theatre has 5 dollar tuesdays, I just go for the entire day for 15 bucks (if I pay for three movies, I feel I can sneak into a 4th inbetween for free). Place is owned by the town (I think it’s something about giving kids jobs since everyone there is like 16-18). That being said its dirty and the screens look worse than my tv, but man I love the vibe.

1

gdirrty216 Mar 30, 2026 +1

So would I. But I am not paying $18-20 for a ticket to do so. I travel frequently and have many nights by myself and enjoy going to movies alone, but the idea of spending that kind of money is outrageous.

1

Technical-Revenue361 Mar 30, 2026 +5

The streaming thing is part of it but I think studios also got way more risk-averse after the 2000s. Back in 80s you could make a decent budget teen movie without needing to appeal to global markets, now everything needs to work in China and everywhere else Plus social media killed a lot of the authentic teen experience those movies captured - hard to make Ferris Bueller when everyone would just post about it on Instagram

5

Wrench78 Mar 30, 2026 +2

I think part of it is different times for sure. I don't think teen dramas with adults playing children would go well with todays audience.

2

Basic_Seat_8349 Mar 30, 2026 +2

I don't think it's even being "more risk-averse". It's just the risk is much bigger now. As you say, back in the day, you could make those movies with a reasonable expectation of at least breaking even, especially with VHS/DVD sales/rentals. Now, these movies are hard sells at the box office and don't provide that much on streaming. So, instead of being low risk, they're now high risk.

2

Admirable_Pop_7292 Mar 30, 2026 +1

Rentals is another major movie revenue stream that doesn’t exist anymore for the most part.

1

NAINOA- Mar 30, 2026 +20

They’ve gone the same place most live action comedy movies have gone. In the past they were never box office moneymakers, and relied on making a lot of their budget back on home-video release. With the gradual decline of DVD sales has also come the decline of live action comedy movies.

20

RemLezarCreated Mar 30, 2026 +67

Snack Shack and Bottoms are both pretty recent. Booksmart is a bit older but still not too long ago. I'm sure there are others.

67

GuiltyLawyer Mar 30, 2026 +13

Good Boys was like 2019 or 2020 and should not be overlooked.

13

ahorrribledrummer Mar 30, 2026 +2

Snack Shack was stellar.

2

J0E_SpRaY Mar 30, 2026 +2

Gets a little saccharine and formulaic at the end unfortunately, but it’s still executed well.

2

dafones Mar 30, 2026 +5

Bottoms cracks me up so much.

5

Upper_Luck1348 Mar 30, 2026 +2

bottoms is legit hilarious

2

HortonHearsTheWho Mar 30, 2026 +50

Do suburban teens still have fun? (I’m being sarcastic but also legitimately worried)

50

reamkore Mar 30, 2026 +14

They don’t have house parties but that’s what I did for fun. I’m sure they think watching streamers play video games is fun.

14

HortonHearsTheWho Mar 30, 2026 +10

We went to punk shows, do they still have those?

10

jpljr77 Mar 30, 2026 +11

They do! My daughter has fallen into a crowd that organizes punk shows at various places, like churches/civic venues or even houses with enough space. At least once a month.

11

mosi_moose Mar 30, 2026 +3

F*** yeah!

3

didmybesttoday Mar 30, 2026 +4

i went to a punk show last night!

4

HortonHearsTheWho Mar 30, 2026

Love. Anybody we’d know?

0

didmybesttoday Mar 30, 2026 +2

I went and saw HR who was the singer of bad brains. He plays mostly reggae with this band, but the openers were Fang and they were punk as f***.

2

HortonHearsTheWho Mar 30, 2026 +2

Damn, hella old school. We’re old too. We saw Bad Religion last year for the first time in 20+ years.

2

SaxifrageRussel Mar 30, 2026 +2

A punk bar just opened by me UES in NY

2

Defacto_Champ Mar 30, 2026 -9

They are addicted to social media and are glued to their phones 24/7. The unfortunate part is that social media is destroying teenagers and plenty of other adults mental health.

-9

jpljr77 Mar 30, 2026 +11

Everything is overblown always. Of course teens these days still have fun. At least in my area (DC suburbs) kids go to house parties (that get broken up by cops), hang out at the mall, go to music shows (I don't just mean the big ones, medium and small shows still happen), go out to dinner with friends at horrible places like Chili's, etc. Are they on their phones too much? Yes, obviously. Do they literally do nothing but that? LOL, no. Source: Two active teenagers with another hitting the age group soon. EDIT: One thing I will note, apropos of the sub we're in, is that they DO NOT still go to the movies. That one is true. At least not mine, fwiw.

11

Defacto_Champ Mar 30, 2026 -2

There’s a recently published book that I read on the topic how social media is literally rewiring people’s brains. It’s really well written and extremely eye opening. It’s called “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt. And the central thesis of the book is spot on “ kids are over supervised and under exposed in the physical world, and kids are under-supervised and over-exposed in the digital world”

-2

EternalAngst23 Mar 30, 2026 +5

I feel like this is an overly simplistic explanation. It’s not just social media. Everything these days is so much more expensive than it used to be. Concert tickets are expensive. Eating out is expensive. Alcohol is expensive. All the things previous generations did for fun have simply become financially unpalatable. And when you consider that Gen Z is facing some of the worst socioeconomic prospects since the great depression, it’s no wonder that young people aren’t as optimistic or carefree as their predecessors.

5

Defacto_Champ Mar 30, 2026 -9

I don’t disagree that cost increases isn’t an issue but it’s disingenuous to say that when kids are glued to their $1000 plus phone with service that costs $50-$100 bucks a month.

-9

EternalAngst23 Mar 30, 2026 +6

Why should young people be expected to forego modern technology just to afford the most basic of amusements? Smartphones aren’t reserved for old people, you know. They’re a ubiquitous device that have come to replace the functions of many separate (and obsolete) technologies. How many people do you know who use a landline, or a fax machine? How many use physical encyclopaedias? How many use electronic typewriters or cassette players? Smartphones are no longer a luxury; they are an essential part of modern living. Ownership of a smartphone has nothing to do with the dire economic circumstances we find ourselves in. If you want young people to have hope for the future, give them a reason to hope. Don’t strip away their technological inheritance.

6

-asap-j- Mar 30, 2026 +3

I don't think it's disingenuous at all. You have to think about things from a practical perspective. In 2026, having a smartphone is essential to being a part of society, like it or not. Their classes will rely on technology, socializing with their friends, communication with parents about where they are and need to be and what they're doing, etc. A family making the investment into a phone is a far more consequential choice than giving your kid $30 to go see a movie with popcorn and soda every weekend. But I understand that you're also thinking about kids with families that can afford to give them an iPhone 17 Pro and have a 3500 sqft house and infinity pool. But that isn't the only demographic with smartphones anymore.

3

fezfrascati Mar 30, 2026 +4

The film Didi fits the definition of suburban teen movie. It takes place in 2008, and it's a fascinating watch because you can see the early rise of social media. The movie starts with the main characters on MySpace and AIM, and by the end of it they're moving to Facebook.

4

Ena_erson Mar 30, 2026

No they're not. They do almost all the same shit we did. We should learn from the mistakes of boomers, not just repeat them.

0

Defacto_Champ Mar 30, 2026

lol go look at all of the peer reviewed studies about how detrimental social media is becoming/is especially among kids and teens It’s completely naive to ignore the issue.

0

Federico216 Mar 30, 2026

Yeah younger generations getting zombified by smartphones and social media is not really up for debate. It's already happened and the first signs are very noticable and measurable. It's not a question of whether it's true, but how debilitating the long term effects will be for society. And it's not their fault, blaming them is useless when this shit was rigged from the start. These apps and devices are created in labs by experts to maximize addictiveness. They never stood a chance. A machine worth trillions essentially weaponized their own brain chemistry against them for profit since they were impressionable kids.

0

Ena_erson Mar 30, 2026 -2

It's absolutely up for debate. It's an internet narrative that you've chosen to blindly believe without a shred of actual evidence. It's deeply ironic that you're criticizing social media without recognizing what it's done to your own ability to critically think. >It's already happened and the first signs are very noticable and measurable. Show me actual proof of where that's being noticed and measured. You're gonna tell me to google it myself, which will be you admitting that proof doesn't exist.

-2

Ena_erson Mar 30, 2026

There are literally zero "peer reviewed studies" suggesting that teenagers are "glued to their phones 24/7" and aren't going out and doing stuff just like my generation did, which is very clearly the specific point I was rebutting. The fact that social media can be harmful is not something I disagree with, but it also has nothing whatsoever to do with the point I'm making.

0

King_Mort Mar 30, 2026 +10

Teens don't go to teen movies as much. That 2000s wave of superbad, mean girls, easy a, Napoleon dynamite, etc was the last, that I can remember, that did well.

10

RainyDayz876 Mar 30, 2026 +2

Napoleon Dynamite was awesome.

2

Stevenwave Mar 30, 2026 +20

Mid-budget stuff has taken a nosedive across the board.

20

STFUNeckbeard Mar 30, 2026 +8

Well they were mostly based on the fact there was no internet or smart phones at the time, so the movies were based on bored teens coming up with wacky hijinks to kill time, and all teens could relate to that. Not as many whacky hijinks nowadays

8

facetiously Mar 30, 2026 +10

The same thing that happened to fun suburban teens. The world has passed them by.

10

Dan_Rydell Mar 30, 2026 +6

Young people stopped going to the movies or buying DVDs.

6

Thelittleshepherd Mar 30, 2026 +2

They really stopped watching cable TV.

2

Dan_Rydell Mar 30, 2026 +1

That too, although I have no idea what the financials look like for licensing a movie to Comedy Central in 1998 versus licensing it to Netflix now.

1

Ena_erson Mar 30, 2026 +1

If you didn't grow up going to the movies then it probably does feel baffling to imagine traveling to a second location and paying a bunch of money out of pocket simply to have a worse experience watching a movie. Most of the theaters in the US are dogshit. If they were nicer and actually gave you an incentive for attending then maybe they'd reverse that trend.

1

Dan_Rydell Mar 30, 2026 +2

I’ve never been to a theater, in the US or otherwise, that wasn’t a significantly better experience than watching at home but to each their own.

2

Ena_erson Mar 30, 2026 +1

I've only been to one theater in my entire life that had more comfortable seating than my living room, which wasn't routinely dirty, which charged a reasonable price, which had patrons that didn't disrupt the film, and which had staff that promptly responded to any issues. If all you care about is a bigger screen and louder speakers then I'm sure every theater fits the bill, but some of us care about actual comfort as well.

1

Elfich47 Mar 30, 2026 +3

the ROI isn’t there. previously movies would get a pay out in the theater, and then a second payout when VHS/DVD hit the market. and between the two of them the movie would be profitable. now a days with streaming, no one has figured out how to make movies profitable (or profitable on paper). so all of the mid-tier movies that depended on the home movie market to make the movie profitable aren't being produced because they lose money.

3

Reality_Defiant Mar 30, 2026 +3

I'd say because it's not actually....fun...to be a suburban teen in many ways anymore? It's not fun to be any age anymore. What would a teen movie show, people staring at their phones and texting each other while they sit silently, right next to each other? Kids trying illicit drugs that now can kill them the second the ingest them? Kids making Tik Toks of dangerous challenges? I mean really, every public "fun" thing to do is gone, the movies today suck, everything is overly dangerous. Read the environment. JMO.

3

halfdeadmoon Mar 31, 2026 +1

This is an insufficient reason. Nobody has a life like Ferris Bueller but movies still got made. The answer is streaming.

1

Reality_Defiant Apr 1, 2026 +1

Well, then I suggest you make, write or finance a teen movie that shows I am wrong. Ferris was the only unrealistic character in the movie, that was the whole point.

1

Intelligent_Part101 Mar 30, 2026 +3

Globalism (Chinese market, mostly) helped to kill off movies that depend on a shared cultural understanding to appreciate the story. If you want to make big bucks in the international market, you have a bigger chance of a hit if you keep it lowest common denominator like action movies (comic book heroes). It's not the only reason. Other comments give good reasons as well that are synergistic.

3

Sufficient-Natural47 Mar 30, 2026 +5

It’s almost 20 years old; but I’ll always go back to Superbad if the conditions are just right.

5

kingdick900 Mar 30, 2026 +9

Because teens today aren't as fun anymore lmfao 🤣🤣🤣

9

DogDaysAreOver Mar 30, 2026 +2

Growing up I went to the movies every week (80s and 90s). IDK if teenagers are going to the movies as much as when these movies were made. Your examples would definitely be for a younger audience.

2

nekot311 Mar 30, 2026 +2

Watch American Vandal

2

Annual-Ad-9442 Mar 30, 2026 +2

they exist but the tone is changed for whatever decade they represent. American Pie is a 90s suburban teen movie but its all 90s

2

mosi_moose Mar 30, 2026 +2

Super Bad was stellar.

2

THEreal_doc_friendly Mar 30, 2026 +4

Well that’s just not true. They continued into the 90s and 2000s, and are still being made today but nowhere near as popular. Many of them are also produced as shows instead of movies like Cobra Kai, Never Have I Ever, and Sex-Education. There were always problematic characters in some teen movies like Porky’s for example but they progressively got more problematic in the 2000s grouping horny teen boys and ones that violate consent in same pool. Social progression caused Hollywood to overhaul teen movie themes and I think it caused Hollywood to care less about the quality of teen movies almost like they were bitter they had to clean up their act. Some are still made with love and have great teen adventures. Here’s a list of some fun movies post-80s. 10 Things I Hate About You, Can’t Hardly Wait, Mean Girls, Bring it On, Wet Hot American Summer, She’s the Man, John Tucker Must Die, Step Up, 17 Again, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Superbad, Charlie Bartlett, Dope, Easy A, The Duff, Booksmart, The Edge of Seventeen, Bottoms, and plenty more. These are just some of my favs.

4

THEreal_doc_friendly Mar 30, 2026 +2

Another note: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Step Up and Dope are technically not suburban fun but they’re still fun good teen movies.

2

Gabarne Mar 31, 2026 +1

I miss Step Up. The stories was always forgettable but the dancing/music was phenomenal.

1

SurviveDaddy Mar 30, 2026 +8

Because teenagers today find things "problematic." F****** nerds.

8

Thelittleshepherd Mar 30, 2026 +7

Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!

7

NumerousLeague5765 Mar 30, 2026 +2

Excuse me. 😠 I find the way you're generalizing teens to be problematic.

2

SurviveDaddy Mar 30, 2026

[…..](https://m.imdb.com/it/news/ni65397143/)

0

DontTedOnMe Mar 30, 2026 +2

You know what we need? A shot-for-shot remake of *Big Fat Liar.*

2

seifd Mar 31, 2026 +1

Hughes died.

1

SpoonFullOfSugar1111 Mar 31, 2026 +1

All of those 80s/90s teen stars grew up to be awkward adults. All of them. Go down the list...

1

NyriasNeo Mar 31, 2026 +1

"Why aren't movies like those made anymore?" Because not enough people pay to see them.

1

Wheredoesthetoastgo2 Mar 30, 2026 +1

It has been a while since there has been a teen sex panic movie or something of that calibre. I guess we grew out of the idea that we have to lose our virginities before prom.

1

SaxifrageRussel Mar 30, 2026 +2

High schoolers don’t drink, have sex, or drive anymore

2

Slammajadingdong69 Mar 30, 2026

Breakfast Club was fun??

0

seifd Mar 31, 2026 +1

Parts of it were, like when they were all dancing in the library.

1

Chance-Victor-9761 Mar 30, 2026

Try watching the fun Korean teen high school shows, Netflix has a few.

0

sludgezone Mar 30, 2026

8th Grade and Y2K

0

Lateapexer Mar 30, 2026

Kids today consume media differently. Plus they can’t afford to go see them. Teen films are box office disasters

0

Queen_of_London Mar 30, 2026 -1

The Breakfast Club had some dark parts, despite overall feeling fun. It talked about physical abuse, neglect, classism, and emotional abuse in various forms. That's one of the reasons it was so popular. I have the impression that, for long-form content, ie longer than TikTok, TV series are the preferred medium for teenagers now. (Mostly accessed via streaming, but you know what I mean). A lot of those are fun and have a good mix of light and dark.

-1

Whatever happened to fun suburban teen movies?

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