By: Andie Hagemann

We’re going back-to-school this holiday weekend! So, whether you’re currently a student or your school days are far behind you, this marathon is sure to bolster your school spirit. From the gridiron to detention and everywhere in between, we’re highlighting beloved school-centered films. We present five feature films to binge watch on Disney+…

High School Musical 3: Senior Year—Available on Disney+
It’s senior year and the Wildcats are eager to leave their mark on East High. Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) grapple with the idea of attending different universities than the other. As they attempt to suppress pre-graduation nerves, the Wildcats decide to stage a spring musical capturing their hopes and fears about the future and their unforgettable experiences together. Directed by Disney Legend Kenny Ortega, the beloved musical also stars Ashley Tisdale as Sharpay, Corbin Bleu as Chad, Lucas Grabeel as Ryan, and Monique Coleman as Taylor.

College Road Trip—Available on Disney+
Melanie (Raven-Symoné) is an overachieving high school student who is anxious to begin the next phase of her life: college. She decides to travel around the country touring her top choices in the hopes of finding the perfect fit. However, when her overprotective father, James (Martin Lawrence), decides to join her, he cooks up a plan to convince her to attend a school closer to home. This hilarious comedy also stars Brenda Song as Nancy, Kym Whitley as Michelle, and Donny Osmond as Doug.

Lemonade Mouth—Available on Disney+
Five misfit high school freshmen—Olivia (Bridgit Mendler), Stella (Hayley Kiyoko), Wen (Adam Hicks), Charlie (Blake Michael), and Mohini (Naomi Scott)—meet in detention and seemingly have nothing in common. However, the teens bond over their love of music and decide to form a garage band.

Turning Red—Available on Disney+
Mei Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) is a confident, dorky 13-year-old who is torn between being a dutiful daughter and embracing the chaos of adolescence. Meanwhile, her mother, Ming (voiced by Sandra Oh) is a little overbearing… and never far from Mei Lee. As if navigating adolescence, friendships, and school weren’t enough, Mei Lee transforms into a giant red panda when she gets excited… which is practically ALWAYS.

Remember the Titans—Disney+
After leading his team to 15 winning seasons, high school football coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton) is demoted and replaced by Herman Boone (Denzel Washington). Boone—the school’s first-ever Black head coach—is tough, opinionated, and vastly different from Yoast. However, the two men must put their differences aside as they work to turn a group of hostile young men into champions. Based on a true story, the ensemble cast includes Donald Faison as Petey, Hayden Panettiere as Sheryl, Kate Bosworth as Emma, Wood Harris as Julius, Ryan Gosling as Alan, and Kip Pardue as Ronnie aka Sunshine.

By Andie Hagemann

Growing up is hard to do, but the new innovative hybrid docuseries Growing Up, debuting exclusively on Disney+, seeks to alleviate those embarrassing and challenging moments of adolescence.

Created by Brie Larson and Culture House, the series explores the challenges, triumphs, and complexities of adolescence through 10 compelling coming of age stories. The series uses narrative, experimental, and documentary filmmaking to follow one casted individual, ages 18-22, as they tell their story. They represent a wide range of lived experiences, giving audiences emotionally powerful narratives that offer an engaging look at teenage-hood and the diverse social, familial, and internal obstacles young people face on their path to self-discovery and acceptance. Each 30-minute episode features one young person, or “Hero,” and their experience growing up. All 10 episodes debut on Disney+ Day, Thursday, September 8, on the streaming service.

“It all started with a thought while I was driving, where I realized that I was living with shame about who I was,” says Larson, who also serves as an executive producer and directed the “Clare and Isabel” episode. “I was noticing how I was presenting myself in the world, either shielding certain parts of myself or living in fear. I thought, ‘If I’m feeling this way, other people must feel this way.’”

Larson brought on Nicole Galovski as showrunner and executive producer to help bring the illuminating project to the screen. “We highlighted the topics that we knew we wanted to address—what was really affecting young people—and we started to research and do a lot of Instagram reaching out and looking at local newspapers for young people who had stories within the kind of range of topics represented in the series,” Galovski says.

“[Growing Up] is about sharing, and at the same time, it’s about celebrating and recognizing that we have more similar than different,” Larson says. “It set us on this glorious path meeting so many wonderful young people as well as our incredible directors.”

In Growing Up, viewers will meet the fascinating Heroes—Alex Crotty; Clare Della Valle and Isabel Lam; Amiri Nash; Athena Nair; Sofia Ongele; Emily Flores; Sage Dolan-Sandrino; Gavin Arneson; Vanessa Aryee; and David Puma—as told through the lenses of directors Galovski and Kishori Rajan, Elegance Bratton, Smriti Mundhra, Yara Shahidi, Ashley Eakin, Sydney Freeland, Bernardo Ruiz, Ekwa Msangi, and Rudy Valdez.Additionally, the directors each have a shared lived experience with their respective Hero.

“As a longtime documentary filmmaker, it was such a pleasure to jump into something like this, and I got to direct an episode with Gavin,” Ruiz says. “Gavin had done so much work already, in thinking about his life and his story so my job was to shape those elements that I felt were most potent.”

Adds Ruiz, “Without spoiling anything, Gavin and I have similar histories—we both lost our fathers when we were teenagers. For me, I think telling a story about the processing of grief, but also how someone can rely on people and resources to grow and become stronger, felt very important.”

For Della Valle, participating in the group sessions with her fellow Heroes was a cathartic experience, and she hopes viewers will hold similar conversations with their friends after watching the series. She says, “I hope they’ll say, ‘I was watching the show, and they said this thing, do you feel that way, too?’”

Lam feels participating in Growing Up illuminated how relatable each story is, despite each Hero’s differences. “When we first got on set, and we met all the Heroes, we knew nothing about each other,” Lam says. “But once we started spending some time together, it was amazing how each of us could pull something from each other’s stories. By the end, you feel like you have a place.”

From the directors to the Heroes and the crew, filming Growing Up was a transformative experience, according to Larson. “I’ve never had an experience where people felt seen, transformed, and connected to what it was that they were doing,” Larson says. “I remember finishing this, thinking, ‘Even if no one ever sees this, I feel like there was a lot of healing that happened here and a lot of connections.’ We realized how much we all have in common, and no one can escape the growing up experience.”

She continues, “I cannot say, sitting here as an adult, that my growing up is done. I have so much love and gratitude for our incredible Heroes who had the courage to say things that I’m not sure if I would have had the courage to say—and do it in a way that brings so much love, joy, and celebration to things that are painful, but part of life.”