Happy Dazed and Confused Day! On May 28, 1976 in the movie Dazed and Confused, school was let out for the last time before summer and a group of high schoolers had a great time (although they didn’t know it) riding around all night looking for things to do. This is such a great and fun movie, so since today is Dazed and Confused Day, I thought I would rank the top 10 characters in the movie, counting down from 10-1.

Character (Actor/Actress)

10. Darla (Parker Posey)

I don’t know about other people, but I’ve always loved Darla in this movie. She’s the leader of the female group of seniors that haze the incoming freshmen girls before they are “accepted” as high schoolers. While plenty of other senior girls are also participating in the hazing, Darla particularly enjoys it, taking her leader role very seriously. Her cocky attitude toward the freshmen girls are perfect for this movie. “AIIIR RAAAAIIID!”

9. Mike (Adam Goldberg)

Mike is one of the three “nerds” that hang out together in the movie, and is easily my favorite one. He is one of the smartest people in the school with plans to go to law school once he graduates. Yet, he wants more out of life. He has a funny speech in the car where he admits to his friends, “I just wanna dance!” And his movie highlight comes towards the end when he starts a fight with tough guy Clint after being embarrassed by him. That whole scene is great.

8. Pickford (Shawn Andrews)

Pickford might have been higher on the list, but he didn’t have enough parts. I like his character when he’s featured, however. The end-of-school party was supposed to be at his house, until the delivery guy “bricked,” and his dad found out about it. My favorite scene of his is when he’s driving some of the guys around and they are knocking down mailboxes. His reaction to Mitch dropping the bowling ball through someone’s windshield is great, “You’re nuts Junior, you’re nuts!” You also can’t forget what might be the best intro to a movie ever when you hear Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” begin to play and the screen flashes to Pickford rolling into the school parking lot in his sweet Pontiac GTO Judge.

7. Don (Sasha Jenson)

The overall-wearing senior is a cool dude who loves to just have a good time. He seems to live his life carefree, going along with the crowd, soaking up being a football player and one of the kings of the school, and now a senior. He gets into the freshmen hazing too, but you can tell he doesn’t take it too seriously. His best line of the movie, one that really sums up his character, comes near the end of the movie after Pink claims, “Well if I ever refer to these as the best days of my life, remind me to kill myself.” Don replies, “Well all I’m saying is I just wanna look back and say that I did it the best I could when I was stuck in this place. Had as much fun as I could when I was stuck in this place. Played as hard as I could when I was stuck in this place. Dogged as many chicks as I could when I was stuck in this place!”

6. Benny (Cole Hauser)

I’ve always been a big Benny fan, maybe moreso than other fans of the movie. He was a tough guy that took the hazing pretty serious, but not too far like O’Bannion. You see him drilling the holes in his paddle in shop class and he is ready to use it on incoming freshman Mitch Kramer. He’s pretty funny when he’s on the loudspeaker outside of the junior high school warning the incoming freshmen. He’s also very serious into football and the high hopes they have for their senior season. You see this when he sets Pink straight towards the end of the movie about him possibly quitting. You have to think Pink ends up playing after Benny’s speech to him. My favorite Benny part in the movie is also towards the end when he is attempting to get up out of his chair in the back of his truck, but has to sit back down real quick because he’s had a little too much to drink. It’s a very underrated scene.

5. Pink (Jason London)

Pink is a central character in this movie so he is crucial to its storyline. Since he’s the quarterback of the football team, he’s like a king around the school. But he hangs out with pretty much everyone, even the group of “nerds” that includes Mike. He’s also a typical rebellious teenager who wants to do everything his way. The coach gives everyone on the team a no-alcohol/drug pledge to sign, which upsets Pink quite a bit. Throughout the movie many of his teammates try to get him to just sign it, but Pink won’t give in; I think it’s important to the storyline because it reflects the nature of a lot of high schoolers. Also the main theme of this movie is portrayed through Pink: that while they all are just ready to graduate high school and move on with their lives to bigger and better things, they don’t realize that they are currently living in some of the best days of their lives that they will later look back on fondly. That reflects high school years for a lot of people and is why this movie is so relatable.

4. Mitch (Wiley Wiggins)

I would say that Mitch Kramer is the main character of this movie. This is a coming-of-age film and it is Mitch who is coming of age. He is an incoming freshman, his sister is one of the main seniors in the movie, and the target on his back is huge for the rest of the senior boys looking to haze the freshmen. He gets paddled pretty bad, but then gets accepted as a high schooler by the seniors and spends the night roaming around having a good time with them. He’s sort of portrayed as the next Pink, although he is currently a dorky, goofy freshman. But he grows up fast in just the one night in the movie and will most likely keep the freshman initiation ritual going once he becomes an upper classman. It’s cool seeing him hang out with the seniors and all the situations he finds himself in such as buying Melvin a six pack. “Ehhh, just a sixer…”

3. O’Bannion (Ben Affleck)

Played by a young Ben Affleck, O’Bannion was a great character in this film. He was so unlikeable by pretty much everyone, but that’s what really made his character. O’Bannion was the “tough” guy who took the freshman hazing way too serious. He flunked his previous senior year, so he was able to haze freshmen for the second year in a row. Even though acknowledged as a jerk, he hung out with his new group of seniors because he played football with them. He makes it his goal throughout the movie to use his paddle on Mitch and his friends, which is pretty entertaining, especially when he gets the shotgun pulled on him by Carl’s mom. “I’m sorry ma’am, I was just escorting your fine son home...there’s some ruffians about.” A lot of great movies and tv shows have a good antagonist and he’s definitely that.

2. Slater (Rory Cochrane)

Slater is hilarious in this movie. From the moment he tells Pickford “I’m about to be a lot better, man, if ya know what I mean,” during school to the moment he asks Coach Conrad, “Hey you remember me? 2nd period gym class?” the next morning, he has a lot of comical lines. He’s a burnout, but he’s friends with everyone in the movie and is featured in many scenes with a lot of fellow seniors. Two of his lines that I use pretty regularly are “check ya later” and “ohhhkay man,” which don’t sound like profound lines unless you watch the movie. He’s got so many great one-liners, such as telling Mrs. Pickford he got straight A’s, but his best scene comes at the end when he does a lot of talking. He starts rambling on about George and Martha Washington, aliens, and conspiracies about the dollar bill. It’s hilarious!

1. Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey)

One of the greatest movie characters of all time, McConaughey’s first movie role as Wooderson was GOLD. He was the older guy that graduated several years prior, but still hung around the high school crowd as the “cool” guy that chased the high school girls. The senior guys looked up to him as someone they wanted to be like and the senior girls all wanted to be with him. He drove one of the coolest cars of all time with a black 1970 Chevelle SS with white racing stripes down it. He walked around like he was definitely the coolest cat in town. Everything about his character was brilliant. And Wooderson also delivered SO MANY memorable lines throughout the movie. “It’d be a lot cooler if you did.” “Alright, Alright, Alright.” “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” “Patience, darling, patience…” “Party at the moon tower.” “Hey, hey, hey, watch the leather.” “You just gotta keep livin’ man, L-I-V-I-N.” I’m sure I’m missing some other great lines as well, but there’s just so many. Other characters in this movie can be switched around in someone else’s rankings, but if they don’t have Wooderson as their top Dazed character, they are just wrong.

Garett

Ranking the Top 10 Characters in the Movie Dazed and Confused