Here are some movies which portray college life as so happening, you’ll want to go back to college again. 

1. Animal House (1978)

Set in the ’60s, the movie is a raucous comedy about two students who fight against the college’s elite frat members and the uptight college dean who conspire to kick them out. Based loosely on the writers’ own college experiences, there’s plenty of pot to pass around (even faculty members indulge in it), there is frat drama including ass paddling and naked pillow fights. Pillow fights, whaaat?

2. Mujhse Fraandship Karoge

Dealing with the very relevant issue of online friendships and chatting, Vishal and Preity in the movie, can’t stand each other but start chatting with each other unknowingly and hit it off. There are parties with cannonballs into the pool, flirting and falling in puppy love, announcing your love in front of a whole college, dean and alumni included, and then kissing the girl you announced your love for, again, in front of a whole crowd. The movie is a delightful watch and will leave you wishing that your college life was this eventful.

Though none of our colleges had frats, they had plenty of nerds and the problem with the nerds in the movie is that they kept getting picked on by the jocks. Lewis Skolnick and Gilbert Lowe decide to take matters into their own hands resulting in competitions where they prove themselves and of course, wooing girls and then getting them. All this, while the high point in our college lives was the daily visit to the golgappe-wale bhaiya.

When a Punjabi munda and a bubbly Tamilian girl meet in IIM Ahmedabad, sparks fly. What follows are choreographed dance sequences, a very happening Holi, sampling bad Canteen food and then eating yummy, unhealthy food outside, sneaking into hostel rooms and of course, blossoming love. Minus the choreographed dance scenes, the movie brings back wistful memories of our own college lives. 

Reese Witherspoon with her blonde hair and pink outfits dons the role of a college girl, Elle, set to win back the boy who has left her. The movie has bitter college fights between rivals, conspiracies, embarrassments (Elle turns up in a bunny costume at a party) and the thirst to prove yourself. We all know what it feels like to be yelled at and thrown out of class and with Witherspoon playing Elle, Legally Blonde remains a heartwarming movie about girl power and finding your confidence. 

6. 3 Idiots

While it’s unanimously agreed that 3 Idiots is a marvelous movie on the skewed education system in India, a large part of its appeal is owing to the hilarious antics of the three friends, Raju, Rancho and Farhan in college. Struggling under immense pressure at the reputed Imperial College of Engineering, the trio give us a glimpse of what it’s like in engineering colleges. Gatecrashing a wedding for food, changing words in a speech to turn it hilariously inappropriate, ragging, peeing on the principal’s door to crushing on someone. Many have lived their wishes vicariously through the trio.

Accepted is as unrealistic as it gets, but hey, once you’ve abandoned your disbelief it’s a fun watch. After getting rejected from every college, a group of students take matters into their own hands and build a fictional college, S.H.I.T. or South Harmon Institute of Technology. You’ve got experience building courses like ‘Foreign Affairs: Hooking Up Overseas’ and ‘How to Blow Shit Up…With Your Mind’ and students sunning themselves in a pool and hanging out at the skate ramp, not to mention completely wild parties. 

Smart redefines cool in Real Genius, where bright minds get together to work on lasers and create an epic indoors waterslide and make skating and sledding indoors a real thing. While our woes in college consisted mainly of insufficient attendance, students and professors both bunk college and leave tape recorders on in class to make sure they didn’t miss anything. We just got pally with the guy who always took notes.

Only in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai will you find over-enthusiastic students, an overly zealous principal hitting on another teacher, festoons and balloons with students hopping around and the hero, our very own Shah Rukh Khan, with his generously gelled hair, tacky shades and suffocating t-shirts wooing his lady love on a stage, in a meadow, near the lockers, wherever. Though nobody really wants all that jazz in their college lives now, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai will always remain that movie which first glamourised college life.

The characters in Ishq Vishk basically romance their college days away. It’s just a whole confusing bunch of triangles in which nobody can make up their mind about who loves who at which point. But then confusion is basically the dominant emotion we youngsters feel. 

Though the name might be Old School, the movie is anything but. When a heart-broken Mitch moves into a house near Harrison University, the dean tells them that the house is the college’s property and soon Mitch turns it into a frat house for the outcasts of the college. Enter a bunch of hormone-crazed youngsters who wrestle using KY lube, streaking and parties with hookups, booze and plenty of drama. We had wrestling too, just verbal wrestling, from a distance.

While School Daze focuses mostly on issues within the black community, like superiority and educational inequality, it has its share of glimpses into college life. Pajama parties and crazy parties with boozy youngsters are part of the college fun.

13. Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

This cute and innocent coming-of-age movie is pre-dominantly about Aditi and Jai who are the best of friends but are unknowingly in love with each other. The movie has some refreshing scenes about finding young love, navigating through the mire of confusion and shaky steps into adulthood.

With typical Farah Khan flair and pomp, Main Hoon Na is an extravagant story of an army major coming back to college on an undercover operation. The story revolves around infatuation with a good-looking professor, love triangles and friendships. Been there, done that.

15. Road Trip

Narrated using the flashback technique, the movie reveals how Josh and Tiffany were high school sweethearts who are now in a long distance relationship as they are in different colleges. Josh makes a video blog for her, which his friend is supposed to mail to Tiffany but mails a sex video instead. With typical comical errors and misfortunes, the movie also gives us a peek into the college parties, auction of women at one of the parties and love triangles within the plot which elicit some laughs.

Gather your college friends for this movie fest.