Private School (1983)

Sometimes, you just have to ask, who is this movie for? That’s the question for 1983’s Private School, sometimes titled Private School for Girls. Phoebe Cates was red hot coming off of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and got top billing here. It’s also got a young Matthew Modine and Betsy Russell. It’s the teen sex comedy version of a rom-com. Ms. Cates is navigating being intimate with Mr. Modine for the first time, while Ms. Russell is intent on stealing him away. All the time, there’s a lot of hijinks as the boys are trying to get into the girls’ dorm to see them naked. 2026 audiences might be shocked by the sheer amount of nudity here, since in 1983 naked women were a big selling point. It brings us back to our original question: who is this movie for? It’s clearly marketed at high school boys including putting ads for it in comic books, but it’s rated R meaning they weren’t supposed to get in to see it. They were since theaters didn’t always police IDs very well at the time. What’s striking is how much the movie feels like a very long music video at times. It makes sense since this was two years into MTV and its cultural footprint cannot be properly explained if you weren’t there. Songs by Rick Springfield, Bow Wow Wow, and Ms. Cates play almost constantly. What does Private School want to be? Is it a movie about young love and understanding what it means to have an adult relationship? Is it a movie about zany students using schemes to see naked young women in the vein of Porky’s/Animal House? It tries to be both, and there’s two competing movies here. It’s a relic of a type of movie that does not exist in 2026. View it as a time capsule of using nudity as the top draw to get people in theaters before HBO and Game of Thrones made it casual at home.