Added to the National Film Registry in 2021.

Set in 1964 in Chicago, and inspired by screenwriter Eric Monte’s own coming-of-age in the Cabrini-Green housing project, best friends Leroy “Preach” Jackson and Richard “Cochise” Morris would rather cut class than focus on exams in their last month at Edwin G. Cooley Vocational High School. A brush with the law pivots this coming-of-age comedy into a shocking tragedy for a fully rounded portrait of Black life in the mid-1960s. Offering an alternative to the Blaxploitation fare that saturated the decade, Cooley High’s dense Motown soundtrack and rich mise-en-scène make it a classic of Black cinema, inspiring directors Spike Lee and John Singleton.