Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) poster
1982 · comedy · drama

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Directed by Amy Heckerling1h 30m1982
ElsewhereIMDb7.1124kRT78%Metacritic61TMDB6.81k
  • warm
  • gentle
  • intimate
Movie DNA

Warm, kinetic, gentle comedy / drama, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

A group of Southern-California high school students ignore their studies in favor of indulging in their teenage distractions.

Our read · Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) reads as a warm, kinetic, grounded comedy · drama entry — gentle in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
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The shape of Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want honest eighties teen chaos with Spicoli comedy and real sting underneath.

ends warmit stays with yousteady all the waygrips by minute 5attention 3/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upnuditydrug use

Skip it tonightYou cannot handle teen sex talk, nudity, or an abortion subplot with parents nearby.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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