Criteria:  Movie must have at least one actual use of marijuana by a human.  This disqualifies a lot of borderline movies such as Dude, Where’s My Car?  and Eurotrip (Where they only eat fake pot brownies…even while in Amsterdam–WTF?). 

The ratings are based on my own peculiar balancing of weighing the overall quality of the movie with how much it is truly a stoner movie.

20.  Still Smokin’ (1983)

I’m not going to apologize.  As far as I’m concerned, stoner movies start and stop at Cheech & Chong; that’s why you will find them at the beginning, end, and middle of my list.  This is the one where they go to Amsterdam.

19.  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Why so low on the list for fear and loathing?  It’s more of an all out chaos and full-on drug movie rather than just a stoner a movie.  But it needs to be on the list somewhere so here it is.

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18.  American Beauty (1999)

Carolyn Burnham: “Well, I see you’re smoking pot now. I think using psychotropic drugs is a very positive example to set for our daughter. “
Lester Burnham: “You’re one to talk, you bloodless, money-grubbing freak.”

17.  True Romance (1993)

Brad Pitt’s small but brilliantly understated performance assures this movie a place on my list.

16.  Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)

This movie is borderline retarded sometimes, but overall a fun, little stoner romp.

15.  Lords of Dogtown (2005)

This barely qualifies to be on the list since the main characters have nothing to do with pot.  It’s only seen being used by the surfers near the beginning of the movie.  Still, the movie is one of my favorites and the spirit of the movie is liberating in a way that any stoner should enjoy.

14.  Nice Dreams (1981)

This Cheech & Chong film has Timothy Leary and Pee-Wee Herman. What more do you want?

13.  River’s Edge (1986)

Stoner movies aren’t always comedies.  This is the darkest movie on my list but I feel it deserves a place in the top twenty since it’s a great flick and the use of marijuana is integral to the story in a variety of ways.  Crispin Glover is a standout.

12. Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006)

I know I don’t have to convert the Jack Black fans, but for stoners who haven’t yet given this film a try, let me just give away a little spoiler: They make a bong out of Satan’s horn.  How fucking cool is that?

11.  Easy Money (1983) 

True, most of the pot references are in the first 15 minutes of the movie since Rodney Dangerfield has to quit all his vices for a year to gain his $10 million inheritance.  Joe Pesci and Dangerfield have awesome chemistry and make this film an underrated classic.

10.  Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

This movie is mother fuckin’ awesome.

9.  Clueless (1995)

Showing that hot, platform-wearing high school girls can smoke pot too–at least on weekends. 

Link to video with the pot-smoking part (since embedding is disabled.)

8.  Knocked-up (2007)

A Judd Apataw (TM) movie.   You know what to expect from Judd Apataw by now, right? 

7.  Pineapple Express (2008)

First movie named after an (albeit fictional) strain of weed–priceless.  Some of the action sequences towards the end of the movie don’t really work for me, but still a funny movie.

6.  Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (1980)

Though not quite as genius as Up in Smoke, it’s still one of the finest examples of how to make a stoner movie.  The only annoying thing for me is that Cheech Marin doesn’t play Cheech the whole movie–he’s also the character “Dwayne ‘Red’ Mendoza.”  There is no reason he couldn’t have just been Cheech the entire film.

5.  Dazed and Confused (1993)

Richard Linklater presents the last day of high school for a group of kids in 1976–good times for all.

4. Friday (1995)

“I know you don’t smoke weed
, I know this; but I’m gonna get you high today, ’cause it’s Friday; you ain’t got no job… and you ain’t got shit to do.”

Every day should be Friday.  Seriously.

3.  Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

This movie rounds out the top 3 mainly due to Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli.  Jeff Spicoli is the original surfer/stoner, and has become the archetype for white stoners in movies ever since.

2.  The Big Lebowski (1998)

“I have not invented a ‘new style,’ composite, modified or otherwise that is set within distinct form as apart from “this” method or “that” method. On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds. Remember that Being-the-Dude is merely a name used, a mirror in which to see “ourselves”. . . Being-the-Dude is not an organized institution that one can be a member of. Either you understand or you don’t, and that is that. There is no mystery about my style. My movements are simple, direct and non-classical. The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. Every movement in Being-the-Dude is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it. I always believe that the easy way is the right way. Being-the-Dude is simply the direct expression of one’s feelings with the minimum of movements and energy. The closer to the true way of Being-the-Dude, the less wastage of expression there is. Finally, a Being-the-Dude man who says Being-the-Dude is exclusively Being-the-Dude is simply not with it. He is still hung up on his self-closing resistance, in this case anchored down to reactionary pattern, and naturally is still bound by another modified pattern and can move within its limits. He has not digested the simple fact that truth exists outside all molds; pattern and awareness is never exclusive. Again let me remind you Being-the-Dude is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one’s back.”

(This is actually a Bruce Lee quote–except he uses “Jeet Kune Do” instead of “Being-the-Dude” but otherwise it is identical.  See original here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeet_Kune_Do.)

1.  Up in Smoke (1978)

The is the first and the best.  Classic through and through.   (As a side note, the director, Lou Adler, was also a producer of the Monterey Pop Festival; the first American performance of the Jimi Hendrix Experience was among the many highlights.)

Honorable mentions:  Clerks, How High, Grandma’s Boy, Rolling Kansas, Happy Face, and Scooby Doo (this live action film has endless hints that it’s a stoner movie, but is brilliantly masked as a “family movie.”)

Peace out; I got weed to see and people to smoke.

xoxoxo,

Izabael

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