Stoner Movies, Ranked by Metascore
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.
Dave Chappelle heads the cast of this 1998 comedy from director Tamra Davis (CB4, Billy Madison) about a hazy plan by three roommates to steal and sell medical marijuana to raise money to bail out their friend. Is it the kind of movie that features a character named Mary Jane Potman and cameos from famed tokers Tommy Chong, Snoop Dogg, and Willie Nelson? Oh yes, it is.
“The humor in this movie is basically anthropological notes on doper culture and behavior: junk-food frenzies, smoking rituals and hardware, non sequitur conversation, and short-term memory loss. In other words, stuff that passed into the realm of cliché back in the time of the Johnson administration.” —Russell Smith, The Austin Chronicle