Film

Class

Name: Class
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 1983
Cast: Jacqueline Bisset, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Cliff Robertson, Stuart Margolin

Other titles called Class: the 2016 series (BBC Three).

Coming-of-age

Class is a 1983 sex comedy about prep-school masculinity, friendship, and the mortifications that follow when a naive Midwestern boy sleeps with his roommate's mother. It's earnest and horny in equal measure, shot through with genuine affection for its characters. Made for anyone who remembers being seventeen and convinced the world was both infinitely sophisticated and utterly comprehensible.

TMDb rating

3.0

If you liked this

Fast Times at Ridgemont High1982

The definitive 1980s teen comedy, sharper and more generous than Class. It catches the exact texture of high-school desire, embarrassment and friendship without ever becoming cruel. Eminently rewatchable.

But The pace is looser than modern comedies; it meanders. Some of the sexual politics read as dated, though the film itself is often aware of that.

The Sure Thing1985

Cusack and Daphne Zuniga on a cross-country road trip built on misunderstanding and genuine warmth. Smarter than it has any right to be, funny without punching down, and genuinely romantic in a way that feels earned.

But It's fundamentally a mainstream 1980s comedy. If you find that era's sensibility grating, this won't convert you.

About a Boy2002

Cusack's spiritual cousin to his Class role—a man-child learning what it means to actually connect with another person. Funny, humane, and surprisingly moving without ever losing its comic rhythm.

But It's more sincere than Class, less interested in the mess and more in the redemption. Some find that emotionally neat.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Class

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Carnal Knowledge1971

Both chart the collision between male desire and actual human consequence; Class finds comedy in the wreckage, Carnal Knowledge finds ruin.

Nichols's acid dissection of male sexuality and friendship across three decades. It looks at the exact impulses Class treats comedically and renders them as corrosive, regretful, sometimes tragic. The same story told by someone who's seen where it leads.

But It's bleak and uncomfortable. There's no comfort here, and the portrait of desire it offers is deliberately unflattering. Not a date movie.

Diner1982

Another ensemble of young men in transition, but set in Baltimore and built entirely on conversation and character. It has Class's affection for its people without Class's plot urgencies. Endlessly quotable.

But Almost nothing happens. If you need propulsive narrative, you'll get impatient.

The Breakfast Club1985

Hughes's most empathetic film. Five stereotypes trapped in Saturday detention; by the end, they're people. It takes its teenagers seriously in a way that deepens everything, including the comedy.

But The moralizing about authority can feel heavy-handed. The film wears its heart so openly that some find it manipulative.

St. Elmo's Fire1985

Same DNA as Class—young people figuring out adulthood, ensemble cast in crisis, Reagan-era excess worn like a uniform. More melodramatic, but that's part of its weird charm.

But It's genuinely uneven, sometimes silly, and the emotional stakes feel manufactured next to its better moments.

Revenge of the Nerds1984

Similar terrain: campus life, outsiders trying to belong, an ensemble learning who they actually are. It's broader and less psychologically honest than Class, but genuinely funny and surprisingly kind.

But The broad comedy can feel dated. Some of the humor relies on humiliating the beautiful people in ways that now read differently.

Sixteen Candles1984

Hughes at his lightest; a girl trying to survive her sixteenth birthday while her family forgets it. Sincere, funny, and full of characters who feel like actual teenagers rather than types.

But Some of the racial stereotyping and sexual humor hasn't aged well. The ending feels tacked on if you're watching with fresh eyes.

Encino Man1992

Lighter and broader than Class, but built on the same premise: a misfit gets adopted into the social ecosystem and everyone changes. Cusack and Pauly Shore somehow make it work.

But It's pretty dumb, and deliberately so. If you need substance, you won't find it.

My Beautiful Laundrette1985

Both explore what friendship means when desire and class anxiety enter the room; this one takes it seriously.

Hanif Abdulrehman's debut: two working-class men in 1980s London, one trying to climb, one trying to survive, both tangled up in each other. It has Class's warmth and its interest in how friendship survives attraction and ambition, but it's shot through with real economic desperation and political anger.

But It's English, slow, and sexually frank in ways that go beyond Class's comedy. The social context is dense; you need to pay attention.

Tootsie1982

Both use comedy to explore identity and what we pretend to be; Tootsie suggests that pretending can be transformative in ways Class's characters never quite grasp.

Pollack's masterpiece about performance, desire, and what happens when you're forced to see the world from outside your own perspective. Dustin Hoffman pretending to be a woman doesn't mean what the setup suggests; by the end, he's actually learned something. It's funny and almost unbearably smart.

But The gender politics are complicated and contested. Some find its treatment of femininity as a costume reductive; others think that's exactly the point.