Fast Times at Ridgemont High
1982 film directed by Amy Heckerling
Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a 1982 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Amy Heckerling in her feature directorial debut. The screenplay was written by Cameron Crowe, based on his 1981 book Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story, and the film stars Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Brian Backer, Robert Romanus, and Ray Walston. Crowe went undercover as a student at Clairemont High School in San Diego and wrote about his experiences.
The film chronicles a school year in the lives of underclassmen Stacy Hamilton and Mark Ratner, and their older friends Linda Barrett and Mike Damone, both of whom believe themselves wiser in the ways of romance than their younger counterparts. The ensemble cast of characters form two subplots with Jeff Spicoli, a perpetually stoned surfer facing off against history teacher Mr. Hand; and Stacy's older brother Brad, a popular senior who works in entry-level jobs to pay for his car and ponders ending his two-year relationship with his girlfriend Lisa.
In addition to Penn, Reinhold, Cates, and Leigh, the film marks early appearances by several actors who later became stars, including Nicolas Cage, Eric Stoltz, Forest Whitaker, and Anthony Edwards (the first two in their feature-film debuts).
Fast Times at Ridgemont High was released by Universal Pictures on August 13, 1982. The film received positive reviews from critics and was a box office success. In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” enters the record as 1982 film directed by Amy Heckerling. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Fast, Times and Ridgemont can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1302846. VIAF identifies the subject as 175854412. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982, 1981 and 2005.
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