I can probably count on one hand the movies I’ve rewatched more often than Everybody Wants Some!! (2016), and that’s because Richard Linklater’s secret masterpiece is one of the most endlessly watchable films of the past decade. Its 117 minutes fly by with the kind of effortless charm that makes you want to live inside it, following a team of college baseball players during the final weekend before classes begin at a mid-sized Texas university in 1980. Freshmen move into the house, parties blur together, baseball practice tests egos, and friendships form so naturally you wish you were dropped right into the middle of it.
The story is framed through Jake Bradford (Blake Jenner), a freshman pitcher whose easygoing demeanor allows him to slip into the team’s orbit without a hitch. He immediately catches the eye of Beverly (Zoey Deutch), a theater major who becomes his love interest, but the film quickly makes clear that this isn’t a story about Jake alone. Just like Dazed and Confused (1993), to which this film is a spiritual companion, Linklater shifts focus to the ensemble: Tyler Hoechlin as the commanding team captain, Glen Powell radiating charisma in what turned out to be his breakout performance, Ryan Guzman, J. Quinton Johnson, and Austin Amelio as upperclassmen already settled into the team’s dynamic, and Temple Baker, Will Brittain, Tanner Kalina, Juston Street, and Wyatt Russell as the newer recruits trying to carve out their place.
Unlike Dazed and Confused, which peered at high school life partly from the perspective of outsiders, Everybody Wants Some!! places us squarely with the most magnetic group on campus—the athletes who draw people in without effort. It’s virtually plotless, content to follow the team as they move from house parties to discos to country bars, carrying with them the social ease of young men who know the world wants to orbit around them. And yet, beneath the haze of good vibes and ’80s nostalgia, Linklater quietly threads in something deeper: the constant undercurrent of competition. Baseball games, ping pong matches, pool hustles, even casual conversations all reveal the hyper-competitive instincts of these players, showing how ego and drive shape not only their athletic lives but their social ones as well.
That blend of looseness and subtext is why the film holds up so well across repeat viewings. Every rewatch uncovers new details—the playful one-upmanship between teammates, the subtle insecurities masked by bravado, the fleeting moments of honesty that pierce through the group’s banter. It’s a hangout film, yes, but one rich enough to sustain endless rewatches without ever growing stale.
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Richard Linklater’s filmography is stacked with essential works—Boyhood, the Before trilogy, Dazed and Confused, even his experiments with rotoscope animation in Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. But for me, Everybody Wants Some!! has quietly become the one I return to the most. It’s a movie that feels like slipping back into a favorite memory, timeless in its energy and deceptively thoughtful in what it says about youth, masculinity, and the bonds of friendship. For all its lack of conventional plot, it’s a decade-defining film—and in my book, an easy 10/10.
Score: 10/10
Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)
- Cast: Blake Jenner, Zoey Deutch, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, J. Quinton Johnson, Glen Powell, Wyatt Russell, Will Brittain, Austin Amelio, Temple Baker, Tanner Kalina, Juston Street
- Director: Richard Linklater
- Genre: Comedy
- Runtime: 117 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: April 8, 2016
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