Director: Richard Linklater
Written by: Richard Linklater
Cast: Jason London, Wiley Wiggins, Matthew McConaughey, Rory Cochrane

Year / Country: 1993, USA
Running Time: 103 mins.

Richard Linklater’s masterpiece about the last day of an Austin high school in 1976. ‘A time they would never forget’, the tagline states, ‘if only they could remember.’ Indeed, these are the days of aimlessly hanging around, getting wasted, performing vandalism, having sexual experiences, falling in love, and being genuinely confused about what to do next in life. The pointlessness is the point.

The whole movie plays like a seamless stream of magical summer moments experienced by kids who have just graduated and a group of freshmen, who also intermingle as the former perform hazing rituals on the latter, but also take some of them out to party and smoke weed. There is no plot or central conflict, it is just a collection of interconnected happenings and it all feels super real and not scripted at all. That is mainly because Linklater allowed the actors to bring their own experiences to their roles.

The casting is impeccable. With their authentic performances, these young actors really bring this era to life. They are also helped by the excellent production design and soundtrack, featuring songs by a.o. Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. Licensing these songs raised the budget considerably, but it definitely adds to the authenticity. Many of the young adults are played by actors who would later become stars, most notably Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich and Matthew McConaughey (for McConaughey it was his breakout role).

Linklater and his crew have created the perfect time capsule. It is like the American Gravity for the next generation. Any time you feel like experiencing this era, but also relive your own confusing high school days, put on Dazed and Confused, and it takes you right there.

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Biography: Richard Linklater (1960, Houston) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. Suburban culture and the passage of time are big themes in many of his movies, some of which are set during one 24-hours period, including his successful ‘Before’-trilogy with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. He is married to Christina Harrison and they have three children, including Lorelei who played a large part in Linklater’s much praised movie Boyhood.

Filmography (a selection): It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988, short), Slacker (1990), Dazed and Confused (1993), Before Sunrise (1995), The Newton Boys (1998), Waking Life (2001), Tape (2001), School of Rock (2003), Before Sunset (2004), Fast Food Nation (2006), A Scanner Darkly (2006), Me and Orson Welles (2008), Before Midnight (2013), Boyhood (2014), Everybody Wants Some (2016), Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (2022)