Girlhood Movie Database

Well, if you ever wanted to hear a 2-hour-ish rumination on the confusing and contradictory sexual politics of THE TWILIGHT SAGA, you’re in luck. How does this series feel like an obvious metaphor for Christian purity culture while also having no sense of its own metaphorical resonance? What does Renesmee’s “miraculous” conception say about the films’ attitudes towards sex? Is it possible to tell a compelling story about a human-va...

It’s finally time to discuss what might be the most lovably hated movie franchise ever: THE TWILIGHT SAGA. In this episode, which covers the first three films in the series, topics of discussion include: the chaotic aesthetics of the late 2000s, chosen one narratives, cultural appropriation, the false allures of choice feminism, and why 12-year-old Marin was a Twilight book purist who rejected these movies altogether. (We also talk...

Chanlee Luu—poet, friend, and author of The Machine Autocorrects Code to I—joins the podcast to discuss Zhang Yimou’s HERO (2002), the wuxia classic that’s full of stunning martial arts sequences, gorgeous colors, and timeless questions about truth, narrative, and political sacrifice. We also use the film as a springboard to discuss Chanlee’s own writing, her background in science, and poetry as archive, comfort, and resistance. 

We’re discussing a monumental film this week: Céline Sciamma’s PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (2019). Yes, it’s romantic and poignant and emotionally and intellectually rich, but it also features really direct communication between its two lovers—and that might be the hottest thing of all. We discuss myth-making, companionship as the bedrock for romance (also hot, Marin argues), the Green World Archetype, and, most importantly, which s...

We’re entering 2025 with new equipment and a revamped recording schedule, but we also want to take the time to appreciate the movies we covered and conversations we had in 2024—hence our creation of the prestigious Maggie & Marin Movie Awards. Which films were our favorites? Which intertextualities were the sexiest? Why does this episode open with Marin talking about Jojo Siwa? (It comes full-circle at the end, we promise.) Hap...

Hallelujah, folks. We’ve got a movie brimming with whimsy and goofiness that offers a tender vision of girlhood, first love, and queerness: Maria Meggenti’s THE INCREDIBLY TRUE ADVENTURE OF TWO GIRLS IN LOVE (1995). Maggie takes us on some major philosophical quandaries—Why is it difficult to analyze joy? What if you don’t need to love yourself before you love someone else?—and Marin puts her English degree to good use with an exub...

This week we’re talking about the definitive slasher of Maggie’s girlhood, Amy Holden Jones’s THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (1982)—a movie which offers just about everything you could want in a horror classic: inventive gore, insightful commentary on female sexuality and objectification, goofy phallic symbols, queer longing, and girls eating pizza over a corpse. Happy Halloween!

Secondary texts referenced:

Slumber Party Massacre (20...

We’re prepping for Halloween by subjecting ourselves to the most stomach-churning sight of the 90s: Skeet Ulrich’s greasy hair tendrils. Marin’s pick this week is SCREAM (1996), the first horror movie that actually scared her. And while Skeet’s hair IS an abomination, this film has plenty of other horrors for us to dissect: teenage misogynists, extreme fandom, and weaponized self-awareness. We also praise Drew Barrymore (naturally)...

It’s the movie that launched Sofia Coppola’s directing career and awakened Young Maggie to the beauty of Kirsten Dunst’s armpits: the dreamy, detailed, and devastating THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (1999). We wrestle with the male narration, Marin details falling out of love with the novel upon which the film is based (and appreciating the film more as a result), and we talk about the knottiest of conundrums: how to protect adolescent girls ...

We’re investigating a supremely entertaining work of garbage this week and, honestly, thank goodness—we needed some laughter around here. CRUEL INTENTIONS (1999) has it all: one of the most despicable romantic heroes in teen film history, ~tension~ between step siblings, a perfect Sarah Michelle Gellar performance, and a Counting Crows needle drop that offends Maggie but reverts Marin into a sentimental tween. We rant, we cackle, w...

MILLER’S GIRL (2024) was panned by critics and didn’t recoup even a fourth of its budget at the box office, so, naturally, we had to talk about it and dare to ask, “Is it really that bad?” The movie is fundamentally about a student being groomed by her teacher, so there’s a lot at stake in terms of how it addresses victimhood, villainy, and power—and our feelings about the outcome are complicated.

Secondary texts referenced:

Bunn...

We wade into the world of documentary filmmaking with Sandi Tan’s SHIRKERS (2018), which reflects on Tan’s teenage experience of making a movie with her friends and losing the footage after their teacher steals it. The movie’s “layers of aboutness,” as we writerly types love to say, are plentiful—and get into as much as we can wrap our heads and hearts around: magical realism, punk spirit, youthful determination, and how to live a ...

The day has arrived: Maggie vibes with a movie much more than Marin does. The movie in question? Claire Oakley’s MAKE UP (2019), a surreal and sparse story about a teen girl’s coming-to-desire on the Cornwall coast. Maggie offers a compelling analysis of characterization which invokes the spirits of Dashiell Hammett and RHW Dillard (our beloved former professor), Marin argues that the film is at least horror-adjacent, and we discus...

Did you ever work a soul-crushing service job that sometimes sent you to the bathroom crying? Then we have the episode for you! Andrew Bujalski’s SUPPORT THE GIRLS (2018) is a lovely and loving film which follows a restaurant manager and her all-female staff as they try to make it through the day. We talk about its authentic approach to solidarity, the dynamic ensemble of characters, our own hellish work experiences, and the signif...

We’re tackling religious upbringing this week with Laurel Parmet’s THE STARLING GIRL (2023), a phenomenal film about a teenage girl’s coming-of-age in her Christian fundamentalist community—and we’re having necessary conversations about modesty culture (and the violence it inflicts), predatory relationships, and the work of protecting each other whilst living within systems that thrive precisely by not protecting our livelihoods. 

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It’s finally time to talk about a teen comedy! Marin’s pick this week is Natalie Morales’s PLAN B (2021), which follows two South Dakotan teens as they try to obtain basic reproductive healthcare and endure lots of bullshit along the way. But the movie is also a funny and tender depiction of friendship and growing into yourself. We discuss its smart and empathetic use of humor, why its romantic subplots work, the logistics of its S...

Courtesy of Maggie, we are finally talking about a movie from this decade: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, THE LOST DAUGHTER (2021), which is also an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel. We marvel at Olivia Colman’s face acting. We use the word “boundless” a lot. We remember the ways our girlhood-selves terrorized our mothers. We have a lot to say about mothering, art-making, and terrible men who are, nevertheless, alluring...

NANCY DREW (2007) was one of Marin’s favorite movies as a child. Does it hold up? Not really! But Maggie hypothesizes why it makes sense that Young Marin would be smitten with this movie. We also talk about the movie’s depictions of danger, perfection, and violent /clueless/entitled men/boys—all of which leads us to wonder: are we over-thinking this PG movie?

Secondary texts referenced:

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by...