Dazed and Confused

Dazed and Confused (1993) — watch online on iFILM. Richard Linklater's comedy-drama follows a loose pack of Texas teenagers through the last afternoon of school in May 1976. Jason London plays Randall Floyd, star running back, handed a "no drugs" pledge by his football coach and asked to sign before summer. He hasn't decided yet.

Meanwhile the seniors are chasing freshman boys across the parking lot with wooden paddles, and the girls aren't getting off easy either. Matthew McConaughey turns up as Wooderson — already in his twenties, still hanging around high schoolers, still convinced the best part of life is happening right now. Milla Jovovich, Ben Affleck, Rory Cochrane, Adam Goldberg, and Anthony Rapp fill out an ensemble that Linklater cast mostly from unknowns who went on to define a generation of American film. Nobody graduates to anything in particular. That's the point.

Linklater wasn't after nostalgia — he was after the exact texture of an afternoon that doesn't know it's ending. The film barely scraped its budget back at the box office, then spent the next twenty years becoming required viewing via word of mouth and late-night cable. Watch Dazed and Confused (1993) online on iFILM.