I agree with post 5.  The teenage years are a time of self discovery.  Movies can allow teenagers to discover different aspects of themselves as well as explore different possibilities of adulthood without real risk.  Some teenagers may focus on violence and be desensitized to it.  This can, of course, be dangerous, but I'm not sure movies can take all the blame for this.  Television is also much more violent than it once was.  Parents must take the reigns over what their children can and cannot watch.  Personally, I think movies are a wonderful way of exploring different aspects of self and different emotional states.  This is particularly important during the teenage years.  In many ways, movies can be beneficial to teenagers.

Movies can be really good for teenagers. Films that expand a person's sense of the beauty of the world, the possibilities in it for love, joy, success, etc., can be really inspiring.

Not all movies will inspire, of course, but some will.

I don't think so.  The teenage years are a time of self-discovery.  Movies allow teenagers to explore the adult world and other cultures and ideas without risk.  Movies also help them find themselves, and give them an opportunity for relatively safe entertainment.

I don't think there's any reason to think that going to movies is a bad thing for teens.  If you have good values in the first place, it's not like watching a violent movie is going to make you go out and kill someone.  I think that movies are not any kind of a curse to teens (unless they're a curse because they cost too much...).

Going to the movies has long been a favorite pasttime of teens, and I certainly went to my share during the 1960s and 1970s. I tended to be more interested in Westerns, war movies and even foreign films rather than those aimed directly at teens, but times change and so do the types of films that people view. Parents probably should pay more attention to the movies they allow their kids to watch, but as long as people can distinguish between fact and fiction and truth and reality, attending films will remain a healthy diversion.