5 College-Life Shows and Movies to Stream on Max After “Bama Rush”

Tik Tok-inspired university peekaboo "Bama Rush" has had viewers talking with its candid insight into the competitiveness and camaraderie that uncomfortably co-exist in Greek life on college campuses like the University of Alabama — a bipolarity that's been magnified in the social media age. But there are plenty of scripted movies and series also available on Max that depict the highs, lows and chicanery of higher learning, (mostly) without all the weight of considering its sociocultural implications. Here are a handful from the pre-digital era (i.e. the 1980s) through the more recently historical 2010s that will leave you nostalgic for your undergrad days, cautiously optimistic about your coming freshman year or curious how anyone makes it to commencement in one piece.

Long before Adam Sandler took a second stab at formative education in "Billy Madison," then 65-year-old comic's comic Rodney Dangerfield headlined this even more implausible — though arguably more charming — father-son farce. Dangerfield plays self-made millionaire and overall rapscallion Thornton Melon, who enrolls in fictional Grand Lakes University to both assuage his regret for skipping college and help his socially adrift kid Jason (Keith Gordon, who would quit acting and become an in-demand prestige-TV director) excel. Dorm room hot tub ragers, cross-generational love triangles, and collegiate diving rivalries ensue, with none other than "Cobra Kai" comeback kid William Zabka as Jason's sniveling archnemesis. It's surprising that this '80s latchkey-kids favorite has yet to be revived à la the "Karate Kid" franchise, but perhaps no one needed to revisit the sight of Dangerfield in a crimson singlet.

As with any Seth Rogen-starrer of its time, "Neighbors" — which features Rogen and Rose Byrne as new parents living next door to Zac Efron and his hellish frat brothers — offers no shortage of drug use, bodily dysfunction and Scorsese-worthy waterfalls of profanity. It's also one of the few college-focused flicks to take place almost exclusively off-campus (another one happens to conclude this list), pulling the curtain back on the abject debauchery that takes place when aimless young adults are left to their own, unsupervised devices for the first time in their lives. Much of the LOL factor throughout "Neighbors" actually comes from Rogen and Byrne's chemistry and reluctant grownups who can't decide whether they want to beat the party or join in. But — and sorry, parents everywhere — its depictions of basement keggers, backyard barnburners, ceiling-high bongs and sadistic initiation rituals hew pretty close to reality. Don't say you weren't warned.

Unlike "Neighbors," Mindy Kaling's love letter to self-possessed young women leveling the sexual playing field relies on the lived-in intimacy of co-ed quads and campus centers. These are spaces where college students cosplay as grownups while gradually coming into their own. The Max Original "Sex Lives of College Girls" centers on sexually adventurous Bela (Amrit Kaur), sheltered small-town girl Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet, sister of Timothée), privileged star athlete Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) and WASP-y lesbian Leighton (Reneé Rapp, familiar from Broadway's "Mean Girls"). Each character upends stereotypes in their own way, but social commentary is less the point than honing in on the foursome's growing pains with no punches pulled. Spoiler alert: Bela deals with the disapproving gaze of other female freshman after willingly trading sexual favors for an invitation to join the school comedy mag; Leighton first makes out with her girlfriend Alicia (Midori Francis) after Alicia beats the crap out of a frat boy who nearly urinates on them; and Kimberly and Whitney grow apart after each of them falls for coffee-shop hottie Canaan (Christopher Meyer). Throughout "Sex Lives"' first two seasons, the show hits Kaling's (and many a viewer's) sweet spot of soapy melodrama and unapologetic raunch, and has earned its place as immediate college TV canon.

While "Different World" began life as a "Cosby Show" spinoff, it really took flight after Debbie Allen was brought in before season two to retool the show, which had initially revolved around Lisa Bonet's beloved Denise Huxtable character from "Cosby". After Bonet became pregnant following season one, the lens shifted to wealthy socialite Whitney (Jasmine Guy) and well-meaning goofball Dwayne's (Kadeem Hardison) screwball will-they/won't-they push and pull (spoiler: they will). More significantly, "Different World" broke ground by depicting life at a Historically Black College or University (the fictional Hillman College) with verisimilitude amid an otherwise lily-white NBC primetime lineup. And thanks to an ensemble that expanded to include multi-talents like Dawnn Lewis, Sinbad, Cree Summer, Jada Pinkett, Loretta Devine and Glyn Turman, its half hours still hold up as topical without preaching, witty with or without a laugh track and diverse in ways sitcoms still take pains to pull off with ease. Cosby's reputation has been rightly rethought, but if anything, "Different World" deserves to be re-discovered on its merits.

Think of "House Bunny" as "Revenge of the Nerds" meets "Legally Blonde". In actuality, star/co-producer Anna Faris initially envisioned a more twisted dark comedy about a Playboy Bunny's fall from grace, but after teaming up with Adam Sandler's Happy Madison team, "House Bunny" morphed into a hodgepodge fable of Faris' Shelley finding refuge in a nerdy sorority house after Hef kicked her out of his hedonistic Mansion. College-movie tropes giddily abound, from the territorial cool-girl sorority and adult school administrators entirely too preoccupied with Greek politics to ugly ducklings coming into their own and homecoming-king frat jocks getting just desserts. But it coasts on Faris' singular antic likeability and a genuine all-star supporting cast with notables such as Emma Stone, Rumer Willis, Kat Dennings, Beverly D'Angelo and Colin Hanks. A bridge film of sorts for the genre, "House Bunny" belongs alongside its peers in any proper queue.