Top 10 Movies Centered On Suburbia

There are so many suburban-themed movies. We had a hard time paring down our list to 10. Our only rule, apart from liking the pic: Suburbia has to play a meaningful role in the plot. It can't just be the setting.

 

The 10 Best (in no particular order):

 

American Beauty (1999)

Beautiful, understated, utterly depressing view of suburban life and marriage. Keven Spacey as unhappy husband, in mid-life crisis, is sick of his tedious job, loveless marriage (to realtor, Annette Benning) tries to turn his life around. He does, along the way fantasizing (and more) about his daughter's hot sexually precocious under-aged friend; and, in the end, just after figuring things out, learns that redemption in the burbs is awfully hard to come by.

 

Neighbors (1981)

John Belushi as the conventional conservative next-door neighbor. Dan Ackroyd as the wacked freakazoid gun-toting (and shooting), never-leave-you-alone neighbor from hell. (How's that for role reversal?) Nihilistic, hilarious dark comedy based on Jerzey Kosinki's novel.

 

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Johnny Depp literally with 'scissor hands' cuts and carves bushes all over town into elaborate, beautiful, bizarre art. Most shockingly, and unlike most landscapers we know, he charges nothing!

 

Little Children (2006)

Based on the Tom Perrotta novel. Suburban ennui, close-mindedness, confusion. Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly and some non-descript guy (the actor & character) who inexplicably gets both of the babes. Now that's a real suburban fantasy!

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Wes Craven's original and genuinely scary suburban horror film. Way better than the drek sequels. Suburban teens are dying off at the hands of Freddy Krueger, an evil, vengeful already dead guy. Tip to teens: falling asleep will probably not result in a good outcome.

 

The Money Pit (1986)

Tom Hanks, Shelley Long. Funny, underrated slapstick comedy. A cautionary tale, warning to all suburban home owners: Your dream house will turn into a pipe exploding, stairs collapsing, life and finances-ruining nightmare. Otherwise, living in the burbs is a blast.

 

American Graffiti (1973)

California burbs, 1962. High school teens coming of age before real life (college, work, etc.) intrudes. Music, sex, exciting stirrings of rock & roll. Go Wolfman Jack! Fantastic music sound track. George Lucas' first film -- when skilled acting, sensitive story-telling, and subtlety informed his work.

 

Blue Velvet (1986)

David Lynch's skewed view of suburbia and life. Not Technicolor day dreams. Brutal, strange, filled with frightening, depraved characters. (Sounds a lot like a recent block party in our neighborhood.)

 

Ordinary People (1980)

Rich, white Chicago suburbs. Donald Sutherland, Timothy Hutton. And Mary Tyler Moore as one of the scariest, most repressed, quietly child-abusing (through silence & rejection) stay-at-home moms in movie history.

 

Happiness (1998)

Todd Solondz's 2nd film, after Welcome to the Dollhouse. 'Happily' married dad is a shrink; he's also a pedophile, fantasizes about serial killing, and has a thing for his son's pre-teen friend. And Dad is one of the healthier characters. Depravity, dysfunction, unhappiness reign. ...read more rants

 

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not exactly the happiest movies

Happiness? Seriously? I do have to agree with Blue Velvet though.. I'm surprised Heathers didn't make the list.

What about  The 'Burbs

Much as I rail against the suburbs to all who'll listen, can there be a more tired dramatic theme than suburban ennui and the desperate, twisted lives that supposedly live under every normal seeming suburban household?  It's just lazy, and has been since about 1960.

I thought American Beauty was a very insightful film about the fallacy of the suburban American dream (and the fallacy of normalcy).

How can they not list "Poltergeist"?

I would add Donnie Darko. That was a pretty smart reinterpretation of life in the suburbs in 1988 ... and a pretty fascinating, mind-bending film to boot.

"What about  The 'Burbs"

 

Agree, Tom Hanks finest hour!!

I wouldn't consider Happy Days or Blue Velvet suburban movies.  Blue Velvet looks like it was set in a small city like Springfield or Hamilton.  Blue Velvet is one of my favorite movies, but it is also really dark & distrurbing, like Last Exit to Brooklyn. 

 

Edward Scissorhands....I wonder if anyone picked up on the gay subtext of that movie.  Note Edward was also a "hairdresser".  But the art direction was perfect. 

 

My Blue Heaven was a fun suburban movie, too, sort of like Edward Scissorhands with that "outsider in suburbia" theme.

 

American Beauty.  Nice cinematography, great soundtrack...but the beautiful room is empty...I just found the characters too empty and difficult to believe.  Maybe that stylization was the point. 

 

No "Mr Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse"?  I guess thats' The Money Pit, but the original is more signfigant as it came out around the start of the postwar suburban boom (1948), so its Hollywoods comedic take on that era.

 

 

 

 

I hated American Beauty. That movie made me depressed for a week. Live Free or Die Hard.

The Graduate. Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Any 80's movie.

Has anyone seen "SubUrbia" starring Giovanni Ribisi? 

 

It's about a group of kids in their late teens or early 20's that are just kind of stuck because of their environment.  There isn't anything productive for them to do in suburbia, so they hang out and drink behind a convenience store. 

 

The cinematography is probably the best part of the movie.  The opening sequence is of cookie-cutter developments, auto-centric retail, and the like. 

 

I don't think WB ever put it onto DVD, so you may have to try to dig up a VHS if you want to see it.

David Byrne's "True Stories"!!! Imagine a sparsely populated dot on the map amidst farms and cornfields. But then the farmland turns into subdivisons, a shopping mall pops up...and meanwhile the town is trying to celebrate the state's sesquicentennial with a "Celebration of Specialness". But you have to wonder, what really is special about this place, what makes it different than any other slice of suburban sprawl around the country?

 

Now imagine that chilling tale told as a comedy set to the music of The Talking Heads, complete with dance routines!

 

I wish I could convince one of my professors to show this film in one of my urban planning classes...

 

No "Mr Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse"?  I guess thats' The Money Pit, but the original is more signfigant as it came out around the start of the postwar suburban boom (1948), so its Hollywoods comedic take on that era.

 

Beat me to it!

 

Ghost World is another gem of suburban dystopia. The "Wowsville" scene alone.

>I wish I could convince one of my professors to show this film in one of my urban planning classes...

 

I watched that in a film class, I remember there's some scene where it starts out with a couple kids whistling or something as they strut across a house in a subdivision and some monologues where he was walking through a mall that's probably since been demolished.  But I find David Byrne to be a highly irritating and overrated artist and musician so I could only get into it so much. 

Have we not mentioned Roger Corman's "Suburbia" from 1984? Directed by Penelope Spheeris, who would later go onto helm another gem of suburbaniana, "Wayne's World," this Suburbia is about a group of kids living in an (actual) abandoned subdivision. Pretty raw stuff. Rousing punk rock sountrack. It was recently re-released on DVD. Awesome.

 

Hear hear on "True Stories." David Byrne's off-kilter masterpiece is almost more of an exurbian exploration.

 

Which brings to mind, "Election (1999)." You get the whole gamut of claustrophibic shag-carpeted inner-ring suburbia all the way out to freshly milled edge-of-nowhere McMansions. Shot in beautiful "Omahavision."

I can't believe 'The Truman Show' didn't make the list?! ... It's a perfect movie that portrays the falsehood of suburbia.

I was going to mention "Election", too. One of my favorite movies ever. I think it really captures the boredom many feel in suburbia.

I can't believe 'The Truman Show' didn't make the list?! ... It's a perfect movie that portrays the falsehood of suburbia.

It took place in Seaside, FL--which is actually the first new urbanism community, designed by DPZ (Andres Duany).