University: a magical place of learning and adventure where you will learn the skills of procrastination and binge drinking that will be so handy as you face up to your adult life. There's also a degree in there somewhere, but that's pretty much the reward for surviving. To be honest, this is a strangely under-represented subject area in the film-making canon (and I really had to work to keep Road Trip/American Pie 2/Van Wilder off the list), but here goes.
10. School Daze
Spike Lee in fine form with this incisive and at the time groundbreaking look at black kids in college.
9. Legally Blonde
Definitely better than the sequel. Also notable for the fact that this is the only film here that has a female protagonist. That has a lot more to do with Hollywood casting options than it does my own personal preferences.
8. Good Will Hunting
OMG misunderstood genius! So many emotions! Robin Williams with a major beard! So many emotions!
7. Wonder Boys
Skewing more toward the professor end of the spectrum, Wonder Boys is a well observed, low key, comedy/drama sort of film with a freaking incredible cast. Largely ignored when it came out, it still channels the uncertainties of authority exceptionally well.
6. Accepted
Criminally underrated 2006 campus comedy featuring Justin Long and an early entry Jonah Hill. Kids get rejected from college, create fake college to extort money from parents, end up running real fake college when heaps of students rock up, wacky mayhem ensues. Reasonably funny, but with a bit more going on than your average "idiots go to college to have sex with things" premise.
5. The Graduate
While not strictly a university film, as a representative of the sort of medium-grade ennui so many people go through on the tail end of their higher education it's hard to pass by.
4. The Social Network
And then, of course, there are the people who use their time at university to develop hulking corporations that will ensure unabashed success for the rest of their lives. While as biopic it was a slightly built fantasia that wasn't particularly interested in the largely mundane details that have led to Zuckerberg's success, as a film it was, by contrast, really good. In that Dawson's Creek way where everyone talks in the most incredibly complex sentences and delivers a stinging smackdown at the exact moment said stinging smackdown needs to happen. I have noticed this happens a lot less in real life.
3. Revenge of the Nerds
Proving that there really is hope for us all.
2. Old School
This is pretty much why Will Ferrell is now as famous as he is and also remains the only good thing Vince Vaughan has done since Swingers.
1. Animal House
This is as natural an entrant at number one as Citizen Kane tends to be in any grand list of the best films of all time. The template from which all subsequent university comedies have sprouted, Animal House has had the sort of effect on popular culture usually reserved for major wars. Also, you know, Belushi. Who I'm pretty sure was exactly as wasted as he looks in every scene.