Teen films are typically set in suburban southern California and act out male fantasies. The plot usually revolves around the male characters' search for sex. One film that tried to rise above the genre was Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). The film, directed by Amy Heckerling, treats the sexual situations more frankly and less as a male fantasy than other films of the genre. Fast Times at Ridgemont High was based on a book written by freelance journalist Cameron Crowe, who posed as a teenager to return to high school for a year to compare it to his own high school experiences. He found few differences except that most teenagers now had jobs. The mall had become the gathering place for teenagers since that was where they worked and played.

A number of adolescent films in the 1980s were set in the Chicago area. In large part this is due to John Hughes, a native of the Chicago area who has devoted much of his career to depicting the tribulations of suburban teenagers on film. Among his many films are The Breakfast Club (1985) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1987}, which Variety described as "airheads without a cause." [2] In his peak years, Hughes had a great deal of success creating situations in his films that were compelling to adolescent audiences. [3]

Risky Business (1983), also set in the Chicago area, offers an interesting contrast to The Graduate. That Joel Goodsen (Tom Cruise) is younger than Benjamin Braddock indicates how the demographics of movie audiences changed between the 1960s and the 1980s. More significantly, however, is that where Benjamin Braddock rejected the materialism of his parents, Joel Goodsen embraces it. Where Benjamin wanted to find something more in his life, Joel concludes that hedonism is an end in itself. Unlike Benjamin, Joel is not troubled by the lack of communication with his parents, nor is he troubled by the emptiness and tawdriness of his sexual initiation, even after he realizes that Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) set him up to be robbed by her pimp, Guido (Joe Pantoliano). He is willing to overlook this because with her he has experienced sexual gratification. Everyone in Risky Business gets what they want in the end, because their expectations are uncomplicated. The viewer senses that Joel Goodsen's values are the sort that Benjamin Braddock had rejected in The Graduate.

Some of the bleakest suburban films have focused on adolescents, often explicitly referencing suburbia in the title, such as Suburbia (1983), directed by Penelope Spheeris, and subUrbia (1997), written by Eric Bogosian and directed by Richard Linklater. Both of these films focus on aimless young people with little prospect for a better future. In Over the Edge (1979) teenagers reject the values of their parents, who are so preoccupied with their planned community that they do not see the problems within their own families. The young characters in River's Edge (1985) are thoroughly alienated with no guidance from the adult world. In fact, the youths and adults in these movies have an adversarial relationship. Matt (Keanu Reeves) hates the man his mother is dating and let's him have it with the line "All you do is eat my food and fuck my mother! Motherfucker! Food Eater!"