Colin Clemens, Hannah Bailey, Jake Tusing
"American Teen" follows the lives of five teenagers--a jock, a popular girl, a heartthrob, an artsy girl and a geek--in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. We see the ...( read more
)
DVD Release Date: December 21, 2008
Get It:
Stats: 1,906 reviews
Flixster Reviews (1,906)
-
May 5, 2009According to this documentary, high school soap operas and teen movies have had it right from the start. This isn't a gritty expose of some secret way of life. It's just American high school as we've all come to expect it. Cool alternative girl, geek, jock and the princess are ou...( read more)
-
January 4, 2009"American Teen" is a self-professed documentary that comes off as little more than a slightly ambitious episode of The Real World. For what it's worth, however, the stories presented here are at times touching, and there is a sense of authenticity that we get from the students th...( read more)
-
September 7, 2008Cute cute cute documentary. So what if it might have been staged (as many arguments pose)? It still felt like the best teen movie ever--because they were real teenagers. Hollywood has nothing on how true that feels.
-
August 18, 2008I don't care how staged and scripted this doc is, how many dumb critics/audience members think it's all a big cliche, or how reminiscent the stories are to episodes of Laguna Beach or The Hills, this is a 100% accurate description of high school life. It covers people from every...( read more)
-
January 14, 2009American Teen is a movie that sets very high standards for itself, but I don't think it ever really achieves them. Though it provides five interesting teenage stories, it never really arrives at a conclusion. Some of the events also felt staged to me. It was like an epi...( read more)
-
November 19, 2009A documentary that surprised the crap out of me. It follows 6 students at the same school during their senior year. It actually manages to subvert some cliches and such, ie- the rich, queen bee bitch type has a conscience after pulling a mean prank and the meanest of all the stud...( read more)
-
November 6, 2009This was a great movie showing people what high school is really like no matter how much people want to pull the wool over their eyes. Its funny, its sad and real showing all sides to the high school cliques and social workings.
-
-
October 16, 2009Ne znam zasto, al skroz sam uzivala u ovom dokumentarcu. Nekad mi bas pasu takvi dokumentarci, a jos kad se nadu razmazene americke tinejderice, di ces bolje... Moran priznat da san se i nasla u ulozi "Hannah" :) U svakom slucaju, ovi dokumentarac ili volis ili ne.
-
Critic Reviews
March 6, 2009
Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times
August 8, 2008
Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle
They all have their stories tell, some more complicated than others. full review
August 1, 2008
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
American Teen shows how a documentary can be as moving and suspenseful as the best narrative feature. full review
August 1, 2008
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
American Teen isn't as penetrating or obviously realistic as her On the Ropes, but Burstein (who won best director at Sundance 2008) has achieved an engrossing film. full review
July 31, 2008
Colin Covert, The Minneapolis Star Tribune
The look and feel of American Teen is authentically 21st century, but the rites of passage it documents are timeless. full review
July 25, 2008
A.O. Scott, The New York Times
Fascinating, queasy-making new documentary. The fascination comes from how unguarded these young people seem to be about their own lives, speaking frankly to the camera and allowing it to observe unco... full review
July 23, 2008
Armond White, The New York Press
This is a vile misuse of the intimate, verité and reportorial technique that the Maysles, Pennebaker and other doc pioneers worked so hard to justify. full review
July 21, 2008
David Edelstein, New York Magazine
The movie does get under your skin, but the way it has been put together reminds me of those animal shows where the crew nudges the gazelles in the direction of the lions with multiple cameras standin... full review
Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
All Rotten Tomatoes content is used under license from Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes, Certified Fresh, and the Tomatometer are the trademarks of Incfusion Corporation, d/b/a Rotten Tomatoes, a subsidiary of IGN Entertainment, Inc.
