Dazed and Confused: No 19 best comedy film of all time

Richard Linklater's love letter to his 70s high-school days doesn't even seem like a comedy. That's not to say it isn't funny; it's just that it seems so real, so natural. Set on the last day of term, school kids of all ages are all looking forward to the annual beer-keg blowout. But they must first undergo some rather unpleasant, pointless rituals: the senior boys go after the juniors with wooden sticks and paddles to give them a beating, the older girls humiliate the younger ones, making them roll around in the filth. The only other joy on the horizon is the promise of Aerosmith tickets – Aerosmith will make everything all right. Full of quotable lines that are very handy in real life ("You are an embarrassment to the game of pool and should be glad I even let you play at my table"), they are all delivered by an incredible ensemble cast, with standouts such as Ben Affleck's held-back bully, Parker Posey's ultra-bitchy queen bee and, best of all, Matthew McConaughey's sleazy stoner loser, who still seems impossibly cool to the naive teens.