Suburbia

Director Penelope Spheeris / / USA

“Probably the best teenagers-in-revolt movie since Jonathan Kaplan’s Over the Edge.” – The New York Times

Two runaways wind up living with a ragtag gang of delinquents in abandoned tract housing. Sneering at authority – their parents don’t want them and the cops can’t control them – The Rejected run riot in the sleepy streets of suburban LA. That is, until they clash with Citizens Against Crime.

Director Penelope Spheeris encapsulates the ethos of 1980s punk in America under Reagan: down, dirty and do-it-yourself. She recruited street kids and punks as actors (including a young Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and filmed in drug-infested squats. Killer live performances from underground legends T.S.O.L., The Vandals and D.I. amp up the nihilism. Funded by low-budget king Roger Corman, Suburbia is the raw, real and heartfelt, the perfect fictional bookend to Spheeris’ legendary punk doc The Decline of Western Civilization.

“Not only the best movie ever made about punks, but one of the great films of all time.” – Destroy All Movies: A Complete Guide to Punks on Film


Contains images of violence and animal cruelty

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