Having analyzed over a thousand of audiovisual media texts, the authors of the article conclude that in the Soviet, Russian and Western cinema stereotypes of teenagers as positive characters can be divided into the following main groups: 1) positive leaders (high achievers); 2) "nerds" (overly diligent students), 3) average performers. Naturally, the Soviet cinematography had to be more or less ideologically filled with communist values, while in the West and in modern Russian cinema, individual, family and / or group values come to the fore. Stereotypes of teenagers as villains/ evil characters can be, in the opinion of the authors, represented by the following groups: 1) offenders and criminals; 2) narrow-minded/struggling students; 3) "silver spoons" (representatives of the rich "golden youth"). There are nuances, too. For example, in the Soviet cinema heirs of wealthy families were replaced by handsome egoists from the intellectual background, and there were far fewer juvenile offenders than in the American and European media texts. The Soviet cinema (with the exception of a few "perestroika" pictures) did not emphasize schoolchildren's sexuality. In general, the analysis of stereotypes of teenage images in audiovisual media texts on the theme of the school and university shows that, despite the national, sociocultural and ideological differences, the stereotypes of these images have more similarities than differences.