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Rock 'n' Roll High School

Rock 'n' Roll High School

Comedy · Music · 1979

A group of rock-music-loving students, with the help of the Ramones, take over their school to combat its newly installed oppressive administration.

Movie details

Rock 'n' Roll High School

“Will your school be NEXT?”

1979 Comedy · Music 1h 33m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.6 / 10

11.5K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

82 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

70 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.3 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

A group of rock-music-loving students, with the help of the Ramones, take over their school to combat its newly installed oppressive administration.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Rock 'n' Roll High School?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Allan Arkush

Written by

Richard Whitley · Russ Dvonch · Joseph McBride · Allan Arkush

P. J. Soles

P. J. Soles

Riff Randell

Vincent Van Patten

Vincent Van Patten

Tom Roberts

Clint Howard

Clint Howard

Eaglebauer

Dey Young

Dey Young

Kate Rambeau

Mary Woronov

Mary Woronov

Miss Togar

Paul Bartel

Paul Bartel

Mr. McGree

Dick Miller

Dick Miller

Police Chief

Court is in session

Put Rock 'n' Roll High School on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.