The most famous and probably well known youth culture movie is Rebel Without a Cause (1955). In the movie, Jim, a rebellious teenager played by James Dean, tries to fit in at a new school and stay out of trouble. At home, he is dealing with issues he has with his parents, as are his two friends in the movie.

Youth culture films often depict issues teens are facing. The genre is able to renew itself as youth culture itself continues to grow and develop and different generations of teens face different issues and engage in different activities. For example, In Rebel, the teens smoke and drag race and fight to rebel. In the more recent youth culture film, KIDS (1995), teens have careless, unprotected sex, do drugs, and break into places as their form of rebelling.

Other recent youth culture films include Foxfire (1996), American History X (1998), SLC Punk (1999), and The Virgin Suicides (1999).

One of the interesting parts of youth culture film is the difference in how females and males are portrayed in youth culture films. There wasn't a real emergence of female youth culture films until the mid '90s. For more information about that and youth culture films in general, click on the "Research Paper" link.

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