Stoner Movies, Ranked by Metascore

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – April 20, 2020

How high do the scores go? In the gallery above, we rank 60* stoner films from cinema history—including the most infamous examples of the genre as well as more obscure titles. (The very concept of "stoner film" is surprisingly malleable, and while we tried to include films that are oft-mentioned as belonging to the genre, you'll likely disagree with a few inclusions or omissions. Also note that we intentionally omitted documentaries in order to keep the list from being unbearably long.)

All of the movies are ranked by Metascore, indicating how much critics liked each film, beginning with the worst-reviewed and building up to the most-acclaimed.

* Our original goal of 420 proved to be too ambitious.

19 of 62 photo by 20th Century Fox

42 #42 (tie): PCU

This 1994 college comedy finds a high school senior (Chris Young) visiting a college for the weekend and getting involved in an ongoing war over whether or not to ban fraternities. Jeremy Piven, David Spade, Megan Ward, and Jon Favreau also star.

“The whole point of this anemic venture is to get down and party, but it comes across as a pale passe carbon of "Animal House" that's not half as much fun.” —Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

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