In select cinemas now, The Prom centres around one teenage girl’s fight to be her most authentic self and take her girlfriend to her prom. With this in mind, we started thinking about our favourite high school prom scenes from the world of cinema. Do you agree with our list?
MEAN GIRLS – 2004
Despite the dance at the end of Mean Girls technically being ‘Spring Fling’ we don’t care. There’s dresses, dancing and a tiara that ends up being broken into a million tiny pieces for the greater good of womankind. It is for all intense and purposes a prom. The dance features some of the film’s most emotional moments, including Cady’s speech, and for that reason Mean Girls has a firm spot on our list!
BACK TO THE FUTURE – 1985
With a theme like ‘Enchantment Under the Sea’ how could we not include this one in our prom roundup? Marty McFly’s mission is a pretty simple one – time travel to your parent’s prom and fix their high school relationship or you won’t be born. Easy. While he’s there Marty invents rock and roll, which in itself is pretty iconic. Great fun to be had by all.
GREASE – 1978
Okay, so The National Bandstand dance may not technically be classed as a prom, but with all the dancing and merriment how could we not include it? There’s a dance-off, fabulous outfits and enough bunting to make any prom green with envy. Despite the hand jive inducing scene having no real relevance to the film’s overall plot, anything that causes John Travolta to dance gets a big thumbs up from us!
LADY BIRD – 2017
Lady Bird provides us with the most perfect of prom scenes for several reasons, but mainly because it has emotional weight whilst still being funny and self-deprecating. We’re given visuals of the nuns making sure all students ‘make room for Jesus’ whilst they slow dance, we see Lady Bird dump Timothée Chalamet, and most importantly she is reunited with her best friend, Julie, and dances the night away with her instead of a boring boy. Girl power all round and five stars from us!
CARRIE – 1976
Not everyone has a great prom, but it is unlikely you will have a worse one than the title character in Stephen King’s Carrie. Following an escalating campaign of bullying by her peers, Carrie is awarded the title of Prom Queen only to be doused in pigs’ blood at this apparent moment of triumph. This final humiliation forces Carrie to release her hidden telekinetic powers and unleash fiery vengeance on the entire school. So, in hindsight, maybe falling over in front of your date isn’t the worst thing that can happen at prom.
The Prom is out in cinemas now and on Netflix from Friday 11 December
