We rewatch the movies we loved as teens

By Stephen Thompson,

Linda Holmes, Aisha Harris, Glen Weldon, Liz Metzger, Hafsa Fathima, Mike Katzif, Jessica Reedy

Published July 10, 2025 at 8:47 AM EDT

Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. — Michael J. Fox in *Back to the Future*.

This summer marks Pop Culture Happy Hour's 15th birthday. We decided to re-watch the movies we loved at 15 with fresh eyes, and of course, some of them have aged better than others. Today on the show, we revisit the movies we loved as teens — including Chicago, Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, and The Hunger.

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Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

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Linda Holmes

Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.

See stories by Linda Holmes