Eurotrip -

In the pantheon of early 2000s teen comedies, EuroTrip occupies a strange, glorious purgatory. It was never a box office titan (grossing just $20 million domestically), nor was it a critical darling. Sandwiched between the hangover of American Pie and the rise of Judd Apatow’s more nuanced bro-comedies, it should have been a footnote.

But its legacy is secure. It is the ultimate "cable find" movie—the one you stop on at 1:00 AM and watch to the end, even though you own the DVD. For anyone who has ever bought a Eurail pass, packed a backpack too heavy, or ended up in a hostel with a roommate they couldn't understand, EuroTrip is the funniest documentary ever made. EuroTrip

Yet, two decades later, the film is not only alive—it is thriving. For a generation of millennials, EuroTrip is less a movie and more a rite of passage. It is the cinematic equivalent of a gap year: messy, offensive, ludicrously horny, and surprisingly heartfelt. For the uninitiated: Scott Thomas (Scott Mechlowicz) is a straight-laced Ohio grad who gets dumped by his girlfriend. He discovers that his German pen pal, Mieke (Jessica Boehrs), is actually a beautiful model who wrote him love letters he never read. Fueled by a killer opening track (Lustra’s “Scotty Doesn’t Know”), he drags his best friend Cooper (Jacob Pitts) on a whirlwind trip across Europe, picking up fraternal twins Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg) and Jamie (Travis Wester) along the way. In the pantheon of early 2000s teen comedies,

Moreover, the friendship between Scott and Cooper is refreshingly loyal. Cooper is a hedonist, but he never abandons his friend. The final shot of the film—the four friends on a beach, covered in robot sex doll parts—is a surprisingly sweet depiction of found family. In the age of hyper-aware, quippy streaming comedies, EuroTrip feels like a relic from a more reckless era. It was rated R for a reason: nudity, language, drug use, and a truly unforgettable scene involving a crepe and a suggestive hand gesture. But its legacy is secure