Cooley High

"Cooley High" (1975) is an American coming-of-age comedy-drama directed by Michael Schultz — watch it online on iFILM. Chicago's Near North Side, mid-1960s: the halls of Edwin G. Cooley High School and a group of Black teenagers who treat the whole city as their playground.

Preach and Cochise skip class, chase girls, and throw parties with the confidence of seniors who haven't yet learned what's waiting for them. A joyride in a stolen Cadillac ends in a precinct holding cell, and everything that felt permanent starts to crack. Schultz keeps the early scenes loose and funny — which is exactly what makes the final act hit as hard as it does. Robert Townsend turns up in a small early role.

Critics have long placed this alongside "American Graffiti" as a companion portrait of early-'60s youth, drawn from a part of America that film rarely showed at the time. It was one of the first wide-release pictures to center an almost entirely Black cast in an urban coming-of-age story. Watch "Cooley High" (1975) online on iFILM.