How Heathers changed teen movies forever

The pitch-black satire, which debuted 25 years ago this week, set the template for the next generation of teen dramas

Heathers
(Image credit: Screenshot)

When it first hit theaters 25 years ago, audiences weren't quite ready for Heathers. The pitch-black high-school comedy — which sees Winona Ryder and Christian Slater act out a Bonnie and Clyde-style misadventure involving the staged suicides of their high school's cool kids — grossed a pitiful $1 million on an estimated $3 million budget. By any reasonable commercial standard, Heathers was an unmitigated flop.

Fortunately, it didn't stay that way. If you didn't catch Heathers during its brief run at the multiplex, you might be one of the millions who stumbled onto it years later on home video, in syndication, or via the knowing referral of an older friend or sibling. Based entirely on that kind of word-of-mouth, Heathers became one of the biggest sleeper hits of the 1990s, and it achieved a permanent place in the cult canon by the end of the decade.

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Daniel is a freelance writer, an Englishman abroad, and a pop culture junkie. He writes about film, TV, and lifestyle for outlets including MSN, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Evening Standard, and Yahoo.