School of Rock

Released October 3, 2003, School of Rock was directed by Richard Linklater and written by Mike White — who also plays Ned Schneebly, the mild-mannered actual substitute teacher whose identity his broke rocker roommate Dewey Finn (Jack Black) borrows when a fancy prep school calls. Joan Cusack plays the wound-tight principal Rosalie Mullins, Sarah Silverman plays Ned's girlfriend Patty, and Dewey's scheme — secretly rehearsing his class into a band for Battle of the Bands — supplies the whole gleeful engine.

What made it transcend the premise was Linklater's insistence on the real thing: the kids were cast as genuine musicians and played their instruments live, no dubbing. That authenticity turned what could have been a cynical one-joke comedy into something people genuinely love — Black's unhinged missionary zeal for rock crashing into ten-year-olds who can actually shred. Made for $35 million, it grossed $131.3 million worldwide and stood as the highest-grossing music-themed comedy until Pitch Perfect 2 finally passed it in 2015.

The afterlife kept going: an Andrew Lloyd Webber Broadway musical opened December 6, 2015, and a Nickelodeon series ran from 2016 to 2018. But the core memory is the movie itself, endlessly rewatched — the greatest argument ever filmed that one ridiculous adult believing in kids can change everything.