Poseur Ranks the World: Stoner Movies

Well, it's the offseason again, which mean it's time to bring back my irregular feature of arbitrarily ranking things and then steadfastly insisting that this is a definitive list. Heck, I'll even do a little bit of research just to make it seem sort of legit.

As you already know if you are even casually acquainted with a single human being who has ever smoked a joint, today is 4/20. So, what better what to kick off the season of ranking the world than by ranking the ten best stoner films? You're welcome.

10 GRANDMA'S BOY

Allen Covert basically only has a career because he's a good friend of Adam Sandler. Sandler is a pretty good guy to be friends with, as he used his production company to fund his buddy's movie which has the basic plot of: guy gets high a lot and plays video games. Sure, there's a bit about him having to live with his grandma, but really, this movie is nothing but an excuse for Sandler's friends to hang out and crack wise on camera, and get paid to do so. It is an exceptionally lazy movie from conception to finished product, making it perhaps the epitome of stoner cinema.

9 TRUE ROMANCE

While not really a stoner film, it has perhaps the greatest stoner character of all-time, so it deserves a mention. Brad Pitt's acting career hit its objective peak when he played Floyd, the stoner roommate. His addled kiss off of a bunch of mob guys holding a bunch of scary looking guns is stoner cinema's highest achievement.

8 THE BIG LEBOWSKI

OK, so maybe this an even better stoner character. The Dude is an icon of affable laziness. We're talking about a guy who writes a check, which will likely bounce, to buy some milk. Oh, and he's wearing a bathrobe pretty much the entire movie. It's kind of amazing all of the hijinks he manages to get himself into despite his genuine desire to just hang out on his rug and listen to Creedence. And bowl. Is bowling a stoner thing?

7 FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMEONT HIGH

Not really a pot movie, but more of an 80's high school movie, but let's face it... everyone was smoking pot, not just Spicoli. I mean, we are talking about a bunch of kids who are hanging out at their backyard pool. Mr. Hand believed everyone was on drugs not because he was a paranoid old man, but because, well, everyone was on drugs. Even Charles Jefferson.

6 HALF-BAKED

The greatest scene of a guy quitting his job of all-time. This is not even up for debate. Dave Chappelle's breakout role and honestly, I don't even mind Jim Breuer in this movie (remember when he was briefly famous?) It's an amiable movie that in no way takes itself seriously, and it has gifted us some quotable lines.

Abracadabra.

5 CLERKS

A movie that truly gets what happens when you get stoned: you argue about Star Wars with your friends for hours. Jay and Silent Bob are the ostensible stoners in the film, but Dante and Randall embody the average college aged pot-head to a T: they are unmotivated slackers working in dead end jobs while they wax philosophical about pop culture in between those times they mock the customers. Pretty much all of pop culture and the internet is now based upon this model.

4 UP IN SMOKE

In many ways, it is THE pot movie. Cheech and Chong made a career out of smoking weed, and good for them. This movie provided the platonic ideal for pot movies to aspire to, right down to the Volkswagen bus. It's not quite as funny as you remember it being, but that's probably because you've never watched it start to finish sober.

3 DAZED AND CONFUSED

This is your favorite Richard Linklater movie despite him making a half dozen better movies*. But come on, this has Matthew McConaughey at his Matthew McConaughey-iest, a terrific soundtrack, a fetishized version of the 70s that you will inevitably apply to your own high school experience, and even a character named Pink Floyd. It's a great hang out movie, as the movie ambles along to no place in particular, just enjoying hanging out with the characters. It also is prefect as a stoner film because it flopped on initial release, only to become a cult classic on home video.

* They are: all three films in the Before trilogy, Boyhood, Bernie, and Slacker. Linklater is one of the great directors of our times, yet he never seems to get that kind of acclaim. It's a shame. His movies are great.

2 FRIDAY

It's Friday, and you ain't got no job, and you ain't got shit to do. Not coincidentally, this is also one of the funniest movies ever made, though it does get a bit heavy near the end as it tries to tag on a message. But come on, no way Ice Cube takes out Debo.

1 HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE

There is nothing more stoner than an entire movie about two guys who got high and are just trying to get the perfect food to satisfy the munchies. Terrific cameo by Neil Patrick Harris, outstanding one-off scenes throughout ("Pookie! Let's burn this mother down!"), a great freak out, and the perfect condemnation of EXTREME! Culture ever filmed. It is the perfect stoner film, and hilarious throughout. Picture the Holocaust, it's the total opposite of that.