Graduates don’t have to miss all the fun; TV has it covered
Stream commencement-themed movies and shows in lieu of attending ceremony.
A commencement ceremony is meant to be a momentous occasion in a young person’s life, but this year it’s going to be different.
If you are a high school or college senior, you most likely, have been robbed of the celebration of a huge life milestone – graduation ceremonies – because of the coronavirus pandemic
Nothing can replace the big event, but there are still ways to celebrate finishing high school, college, graduate or professional school with a bit of pomp. Plenty of TV shows and movies that have captured different versions of the cap-and-gown-clad affair, and with considerably more humor and drama than your actual graduation might have provided. (The school board president reading a long list of names is not, you know, earth-shattering.)
If you were a goody-two-shoes all through high school: ‘Booksmart’
Olivia Wilde’s 2019 directorial debut is a riotously funny romp featuring breakout performances from young stars Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein. The movie follows two highachieving seniors who played it safe for four years to get into great colleges, only to find out their rule-breaking, partying classmates still got accepted into Ivy League schools. The night before graduation, they set out to have one wild ride, and after a few mishaps (an empty party boat and a ride-share driven by the school principal, to name just two) they certainly get one epic night.
Stream it on Hulu.
If you miss the simplicity of the 2000s: ‘Superbad’
Michael Cera and Jonah Hill weren’t household names until they starred in this 2007 comedy, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Another entry in the one-last-great-party-before-high school-is-over genre, the actors play two best friends (named “Seth” and “Evan”) trying to lose their virginity in one drunken night. They also have to reconcile that they’re leaving for separate colleges, and their relationship won’t be the same. Cera and Hill, along with co-stars Emma Stone (in an earlycareer appearance) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, are awkward and hilarious in the film, which gifted the world with the worst fake ID name of all time: McLovin.
Stream it on Showtime.
If you miss the even greater simplicity of the 1990s: ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’
Set entirely at a blowout graduation party, this 1998 film follows Preston (Ethan Embry) on a quest to finally declare his love for longtime crush Amanda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) before their lives change for good. But it’s really an ensemble comedy that offers snapshots of the characters we all know from high school movies (and maybe a few from high school) realizing that they are no longer tied to the stereotypes and roles they assumed in the brick walls of secondary education. It’s a liberating feeling to remember that high school only lasts four years.
Stream it on Netflix.
If you don’t know where life is headed next (isn’t that all of us?): ‘The Graduate’
A classic for a reason, the driving emotion of the 1967 film has less to do with Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) seducing young college graduate Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) and more about Ben’s aimlessness after completing his studies. His intense indecisiveness is heightened – having an affair with a married woman and then trying to date her daughter is not a particularly common post-grad endeavor – but his fear of the future is relatable.
Stream it on Hulu.
If you just want to watch favorite TV characters walk the stage: Two fantastic graduation TV episodes
Like the obligatory annual Christmas and Thanksgiving episodes, many of your favorite TV shows had to give their teen characters diplomas, even if they didn’t want to acknowledge that their cast is aging (looking at you, “Beverly Hills, 90210”). While not every gradthemed episode is great (or even memorable), two are worth revisiting if you’ve already seen the series (if not, they’re both streaming and good enough for you to binge-watch).
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Graduation Day Part 1 & 2” (Season 3, Episodes 21 and 22) The cult classic supernatural series thrived on the theme that high school is literally hell (Buffy’s school rested on a evil-spewing portal to it), so the transition from the lockerlined hallways was risky. To say goodbye to Sunnydale High, Buffy and friends literally blew up the building to slay the town’s evil mayor, who had successfully turned himself into a giant snake demon. Your typical commencement speaker. Stream it on Hulu.
“Gilmore Girls, “Those Are Strings, Pinocchio” (Season 3, Episode 22) The episode that covers Rory’s (Alexis Bledel) graduation from Chilton so perfectly bookends the first three seasons of “Gilmore” it could have been a fitting finale (certainly much better than the cringeworthy end to the “Year in the Life” revival on Netflix). Rory’s graduation represented not just the end of her high school years but the end of her and Lorelai’s unique mother/daughter dynamic. Sure, they’d always be close, but they’d never live together and rely on each other in the same way again. The episode perfectly captures the grief for that time, and the excitement about Rory’s future at Yale. Stream it on Netflix.