Killing Our Idols: 10 Movies Hipsters Need to Get Over

[Editor's note: Flavorwire is counting down our most popular features of 2010. This post comes in at position number 2It was originally published July 1, 2010.] There are great films, there are horrible films, and there are hipster films. These aren’t movies about hipsters — your (500) Days of Summer — or movies calculated to appeal to them (Garden State) that end up finding their true audience in middle America. These are the flicks (often from the ’80s or ’90s) that people of the well-educated, alternative-leaning, cosmopolitan, 20-something demographic actively embrace… and often quote ad nauseam. We’re not saying we don’t enjoy these movies — some of them are our very own sacred cows, and it hurts us deeply to sacrifice them. We’re just saying they’ve become as overplayed as Animal Collective’s “My Girls,” and we’re sick to death of hearing about them.

Say Anything…

Hipsters and John Cusack go together like peas and carrots. From Better Off Dead (which, like, don’t mess with, okay?) to High Fidelity to Hot Tub Time Machine, he’s emo narcissism and nostalgic irony all rolled into one. While we enjoyed Say Anything…, the first time around, the fact that it’s inspired two indie bands and a million T-shirts means it’s seriously overplayed. And ladies: I think we know what it means to date a guy who sees Lloyd Dobler as some kind of perma-teen role model. If we see one more dude hoist a boom box over his head…

Top image via Mez Love on Flickr

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[...] up, Ten Movies Hipsters Need to Get Over.  I disagree with some of them (really, is Wet Hot American Summer that talked about?), but since [...]

[...] it’s with a touch of dogged reluctance that we take a look at Flavorwire’s listicle of 10 Movies Hipsters Need to Get Over, by which they really mean: 10 Hipster Movies Everyone Else Needs to Get Over. Anyways, it’s [...]

Yay, you have a "view as single page" link!

TWO WORDS: "DONNIE DARKO" SUCK AAAAL THAAAT YYEYEYEYE!!!

Personally, I think you need to get over hipsters getting over The Big Lebowski, Fear and Loathing, and Clockwork. These are all well directed films. I myself am not a hipster, but these 3 are very good movies. They deserve the recognition that they get. The Dude abides.

Why make this article but not provide any reasons as to WHY they should get over it. This entire article is more stupid, unfounded Woman silly-talk.

Pfffft, hipsters! Amirite? God, I hate hipsters. (Secretly wishes I was a one)

one word hipsters need to get over.

This person effectively trolled 83 hipsters. The best part is she gets paid with every hit that butthurt hipsters give her. Keep on trollin.

When the hell did Wet Hot American Summer become some sort of iconic hip thing? Last I remember it was a straight to Comedy Central knock off of Meatballs that nobody has mentioned since it first aired.

oh eat my balls. this is a retarded list. i find hipsters as irritating as anyone (i used to live in Harlem and visit Williamsburg for shows and wanted nothing more than to unleash my metal axe on their necks), but this is just a list of mostly really good movies. you can't take them away from me/us by stupidly labeling them as "hipster" movies. hipsters can like them if they want, even more than they deserve, and i won't begrudge them. but i do begrudge you. i sure hope you didn't get paid for this crap.

i think the title should have been 10 movies we will never get over... or should for that matter!

You just described The Royal Tenebaums as "generally inaccessible". Really? Inaccessible? I'm not entirely sure you ought to be in the business of reviewing films if you're finding The Royal Tenebaums "inaccessible". Its got pretty basic themes, lady.

you know us hipsters love irony, right? I googled "movies hipsters love" to find ideas for movies to watch...and came across your page. thanks for the recommendations.

moviesssss 5 pts

rigghhhttt, that 's like exactly what i did. Thanks to u movie night was AWESOME

Hipster writes article about how hipsters are totally lame because they like the same stuff other hipsters do. Ironic critical mass achieved.

I would like to know where Donnie Darko was ... ie why the hell it wasnt on the list!! definitely a hipster film that gets over referenced and over quoted. Its an amazing movie.. so maybe thats why its no here, because its not a movie that hipsters should get over.. but it does deserve some sort of recognition here!!

What a poor article - some of these are great movies that stand up over time. A Clockwork Orange is fantastic. Please fire this writer.

You get paid to write? WOW. I want in!! This is crap. ps The name Judy Berman sounds like my mom.

By the numbers: All the 80's crap I get, who the hell considers that serious cinema anyway, it's just fun to watch sometimes; Me You and Everyone We Know is a beautiful movie, but admittedly too indie-awkward for its own good; Waking Life is just a shittier, viz. way more pompous/contrived version of Slacker, which is Linklater's true genius work, and doesn't deserve to be disparaged here; I understand the Clockwork Orange criticism in that its cultural integration has become nauseatingly insider, it isn't Kubrick's best, but it is still Kubrick and therefore atmospherically brilliant and maybe lighten up a little bit whoever wrote this critique; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is made on Depp's performance, but let's face it, its a drug movie and never really goes beyond being an amusement park ride for college kids who think they are pushing the cosmic envelope by spending their parents cash on magic fungi instead of hitting the books like the guy that's going to be their boss in a couple of years is doing; i never liked Rushmore particularly and I think Wes Anderson is another film-maker whose work generally falls into the category of too indie for its own good; Coffee and Cigarettes does have deeper themes of collective unconscious resonance, the glue that binds us all together, on top of that, its impeccably acted and deserves to be talked about, a lot, so eat it sourpuss; I won't say anything about Reality Bites since I've never watched it all the way through, but it's probably safe to say that there is more nostalgia than content there; finally, The Big Lebowski, your wrong, whoever wrote this is simply wrong about the Big Lebowski, its a film that manages to be funny and charming while educing the closest thing to a genuine ethical treatment of our contemporary moment in history that exists, the acting is excellent, and the characters, while largely drawn through charicature, are accurate metaphors for the ideological currents at play in modern society and they interact with near flawless machination, it is a farce, but a brilliant farce, which has such great resonance because it teaches a lesson so simple that it seldom occurs to anyone: all you need to do in life to be happy is to peacably abide.

with the exception of Rushmore, which is truly an idiosyncratic work by the only true auteur of the 90s (tarantino? yeah, maybe, if he hasn't compressed his whole career in Pulp Fiction. PTA? Well, he just hasn't got there yet), I agree with you -- people need to get over these films. Some of them were actually okay (ex: Lebowski), but some are really bad (Clockwork Orange). Anyways, on to new a wiser things.

Yeah, except that Middle America is where all of it originally comes from or is marketed for, and why we may never hear the end of it. And we still don't even know what Middle America is, or America for that matter.

Hmm think was written as a note to self. Poor article.

Some good general points were made about idiocy in idolizing films, but the mistake was giving specific examples...

I'll leave the criticisms about your list choices to the others who know better than I about such things. Instead, let me point out that you listed 11 movies in your "10 movies" article.

Yeah, well... that's just like, your opinion, man.

This is one of the very worst in this ever popular list craze that has taken over the internet.

lots of people call me a hipster, and i've only seen 3 of these movies in my entire life. i'm sorry, but i definitely thing the breakfast club and the goonies should be on this list.

well at least there is nothing hip about this blog. got that part right.

This list is bogus without the crapfest known as "Juno". Most of these are well made flicks, with few exceptions.

Ripping on cult movies in the form of an Internet Top 10 list, each separated on its own page to maximize readership clicks. Hello irony, I'm Sparkus.

You really could have replaced the word hipster with the word stoner and had the same stupid article. And why is liking good movies an abhorrent action limited only to hipsters?

Ummm... I'm not a hipster (and no, I'm not in denial) and I love 8 out 10 of these because they are great influential films. So...I'm glad I'm not a hipster so I can still like them????....

yeah this list is pointless! No, I will not dive into an artsy fartsy rant cause I know people who love some of these movies and are far from hip, current, or even cultural.

Come on Flavorwire, you are killing me with this article, #1. Say Anything (Say Wha?) #2. Wet Hot American Summer (Never saw this) #3. Big Lebowski (Agreed) #4. Reality Bites (Liked, but I think the last time I quoted something from that one was like 1996.) #5. Coffee and Cigarettes (Don't touch a Bill Murray film) #6. Ferris Bueller (Talk to the jocks about overquoting from this) #7. Rushmore (see #5) #8. Fear and Loathing (blah, blah, blah) #9. Clockwork Orange (I'm almost rendered speechless you Moloko Droogie for making this awful list) #10. OK you lost me after #9, I have no commentary for #10 & #11) Do people really quote from these films with the exeption of Ferris and Lebowski??

Psst, there's no such thing as hipsters. It's a term made up by various websites to spark comments and then achieve more page views and maybe eventually garner a low 5-figure book deal for a paperback shelved in the humor section next to books of golf jokes and stuff by Jeff Foxworthy. There are young people in the world, yes, I've seen them. More are made all the time. There are slightly older people with some shared cultural references. And there are indeed artists in this world, musicians, and film makers, etc., I've seen evidence, and they tend to settle near each other for various reasons--shared resources, work necessity. All of them, young, old and the like, are cooler than me, and probably you, but they are not one thing. In all seriousness, I wish you'd stop pieces like this. It's just so cheap and easy.

My friends always call me hipster, mostly because I don't like metal, progressive music, or action movies. I don't get it, because I have a very specific idea of what a hipster is: self-absorbed, shallow, tend to take over your favorite haunts and act like dicks to anyone outside their clique. Then I realized-hipster doesn't mean the same thing now that it did 6 years ago when I started using the word. Now, it seems that hipster categorification is nothing more than a checklist of (overall very popular) things they like: Animal Collective, Big Lebowski, American Apparel, etc. Someone is a hipster because they dress like one, or like some kind of music, etc. Hipster used to be derogatory because it meant you were a shallow, vain, and an idiot. Now it just describes a particular (and dominant) subset of popular culture. Hipster is the new bourgeoise. Tl;dr. I will gladly let people call me a hipster if it means I can watch The Big Lebowski as much as I want.

This list of movie you've compiled strongly evinces your own sad self-loathing hipsterdom and self-referential angony. It is BORING. No one cares about hipsters except rednecks, mooks and, well... hipsters. Grow up and spare the world your pointless diatribes. Write about something worth caring about.

This should be titled "10 Movies People Who Enjoy Good Movies Should Continue Watching."

i love most of these movies... does that make me a hipster? gross.

I think people should just let other people and their likes be.

I don't know a lot about hipsters, but I am surprised to find out we have similar taste in movies. Aside from a couple of them that I haven't seem, these are all really great flicks. Fear and Loathing and Big Lebowski prolly make my all-time top 5.

The movies aren't the problem -- lots of people like them for lots of reasons. The issue is that hipsters are not good film critics.

Who cares about hipsters anymore? Last decade is over, get with the program. Like CC said, twentysomethings don't actually watch or quote these movies much. Judy Berman, you're barking up the wrong tree in the wrong forest: my generation isn't exactly nostalgic, and why would we be? We grew up in a different cultural framework than Gen-Xers.

Idiocracy, it really is becoming the next political party. Duh writer chick... (like) it seems (like) a lot of people have been enjoying these flicks since way before "hipsters" were (like) even born... if there is even (like) a credible group that can be defined as (like)"hipsters". are hipsters just any group the writer doesn't belong to? plus (OMG) this is a tired topic of discussion. (like) good for the group of "non" hipsters over at f-wire who so want to hate all over whatever they themselves don't (like) promote... oh wait it seems like this post is actually blatant promotion of each and every one of these movies... complete with trailer. (like) nice work.

This is really the most ridiculous "story" I've ever read. Insult your readership by telling them that the good movies that they like are not cool anymore. What? Really? Try writing an article that actually reports something, has a point of view (that isn't ironic) instead of making a list of things that already exist. "Journalism" is a dirtier word than hipster and I agree with the commenter who asked what is the difference between this column and a facebook update? Take out the self-congratulatory sarcasm and add a hint of substance in additional to using a thesaurus rather than overuse the h word. Everybody hates hipsters, we get it, but WTF do these movies have to do with them? How many people at FW are reading this with their fake oversized specs that they got at American Apparel. I mean, really?

Re: waking life: "we should rethink the bourgeois lives we’ve been living." A friend of mine watched this all of the time. He was in a frat in college and never heard the word "hipster." He just liked to get high and watch this movie because the animation was trippy. Hipster or not, there are always people who "won't get the irony." This list misses the mark by a long shot.

Also, try checking out some of the restored fims being put out by "The Criterion Collection", "Kino World Cinema", and attending some film festivals. All excellent uses of your time.

This was a total waste of everyone's time and panned a few classic films that aren't "hipster" (whatever the hell that is), just well made movies, with humor or social relevance (read Anthony Burgess' book & note the date and history of the time). Besides, everyone has there own "touchstone" films in their own lives, like "Casablanca", "Apocalypse Now (Redux preferred), "A Touch Of Evil", "Shakes The Clown", Hal Hartley's "Trust" (which begat Adrienne Shelly (RIP)& "Waitress"), "Evil Dead II" & "Army Of Darkness", "Blade Runner"(the recent Director's cut), "Buckaroo Banzai...", "Pulp Fiction", & more recently, "The Dark Knight, "Napolean Dynamite", "Superbad" & "Juno", to name a few from a group a coffee drinkers in a dive diner in about 3 minutes time. Quit waisting our time with these faux "Hipper Than Thou" crap entries in your otherwise usually informative, and at times evocative e-zines. These cynical lists are beneath you and us readers and only prove how "un-hip" your writer is.

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  1. [...] it’s with a touch of dogged reluctance that we take a look at Flavorwire’s listicle of 10 Movies Hipsters Need to Get Over, by which they really mean: 10 Hipster Movies Everyone Else Needs to Get Over. Anyways, it’s [...]

  2. [...] up, Ten Movies Hipsters Need to Get Over.  I disagree with some of them (really, is Wet Hot American Summer that talked about?), but since [...]