The Breakfast Club (1985)
In the 1980s, the late director and producer John Hughes had a succession of hits about middle-class high school life, including Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Some Kind of Wonderful. The Breakfast Club, which Hughes also wrote, was set in a Saturday detention, bringing together five types from different school cliques (athlete, brain, criminal, princess, basket case). Shermer was based on Hughes’s own high school – in Northbrook (formerly Shermerville), Illinois – and was the setting for several of his films Photograph: Rex Features
BBC TV (1978-2008)
Bringing social realism to kids’ TV, Phil Redmond’s controversial school drama ran for 30 years, with characters such as Tucker Jenkins, Trisha Yates, Benny, Zammo, Jackie and Roland becoming staples of playground conversations. The show was known for gritty, topical issues, reaching a peak in the mid-80s with Zammo’s heroin addiction story line sparking cast hit single “Just Say No”. It was filmed originally in Kingsbury and Willesden in north-west London and, in the 80s, Anthony Minghella was script editor for several series Photograph: BBC
Grease (1978)
Home to Danny, Sandy, the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies, Rydell is the fictional setting for Randal Kleiser’s enduring musical Grease. Like most American movie high schools, it seems entirely populated by 30-year-old students, but its blend of delinquency, lunacy and old-fashioned apple pie values have enchanted generations. Prom nights visited by American Bandstand, fun fairs, drive-ins, running tracks, car racing and no homework encapsulate the 50s American dream. And who can forget songs such as “You’re the One That I Want” and “Summer Nights”? Photograph: Public Domain
Harry Potter (2001-11)
No academic institution has ever dominated the big screen like Hogwarts. St Trinian’s can boast seven screen outings, but Harry Potter’s Hogwarts was the setting for eight films; a bastion of wizardry and Britishness, based clearly on public school lines but phenomenally popular the world over. Houses include Slytherin and Gryffindor; classes feature transfiguration, defence against the dark arts and muggle studies; teachers comprise Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall; it is reached by the Hogwarts Express Photograph: PA
Election (1999)
A fictional school in Omaha, Nebraska is the setting for Alexander Payne’s masterly comedy, based on Tom Perrotta’s novel of the same name. Shot in bleak greens and greys, its corridors entrap and subdue likable teacher Jim McAllister, played with aplomb by Matthew Broderick. Scheming her way to the top is Reese Witherspoon’s Tracy Flick, who sabotages opponents in the race for student body president. “Tracy Flick” has since become a disparaging term in American politics, used against Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin Photograph: sportsphoto/Allstar
If... (1968)
Lindsay Anderson shot most of the school scenes of If... at the very place where he was once a senior prefect, although David Sherwin, who wrote the script, attended Tonbridge. Headmaster David Ashcroft gave Anderson permission to shoot during term time, despite other schools such as Charterhouse and Cranleigh having turned down the film on learning of its rebellious content. Malcolm McDowell played his character, Mick Travis, who battles the authority of Rowntree, the head whip, in a further two Anderson films – O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital Photograph: Public Domain
Entre les Murs (The Class, 2008)
Although the school in Laurent Cantet’s Palme d’Or winner remains unnamed during the film, it was shot at a typical-looking lycée in the multicultural 20th arrondissement of Paris. The action is concentrated entirely within the school walls, an examination of institutions, rules and the influence of environment and education - on both children and educators. The film, which earned France its first winner at Cannes for 21 years, is in a proud tradition of French schools in cinema, going back to the grandaddy of the entire genre, Jean Vigo’s Zero de Conduite Photograph: Rex Features
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Perhaps his later school film Dead Poets Society is more famous, but Australian director Peter Weir established himself as a distinctive power in 70s film-making with a hauntingly beautiful mystery. It’s set on Valentine’s Day 1900, when several members of the strict girls’ college run by Mrs Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) go missing on a trip to a local landmark, never to be found. The film’s theme tune, evoking a timeless spirituality, became a hit single. Martindale Hall in Mintaro, south Australia, filled in for the school and is now a boutique hotel Photograph: Cinetext/Allstar
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
In 1930s Edinburgh, a class of girls is assigned to Miss Brodie, who describes herself as being in her prime. She takes a shine to four girls in particular: Sandy, Jenny, Monica and Mary McGregor. They become the Brodie set and will become “the crème de la crème”. Maggie Smith won an Oscar for her performance in Ronald Neame’s film, which also starred Celia Johnson as the stern headmistress Emmeline Mackay, with whom Miss Brodie’s unorthodox teaching methods – espousing art, love affairs and fascist leaders – did not sit well Photograph: Rex Features
Elephant (2003)
A Palme d’Or winner in 2003, Watt is the fictional setting for Gus van Sant’s clinical dramatisation of a high school massacre, probably inspired by 1999’s Columbine murders. The same director has also made “inspirational educator” movies such as Good Will Hunting, but Elephant follows two bullied students, Alex and Eric, as they shoot fellow pupils and teachers. Van Sant’s film, set in his native Portland, was later blamed for 2005’s Red Lake Senior High school massacre in Minnesota, when its perpetrator was revealed to have watched Elephant before carrying out his attack Photograph: Public Domain
