Girlhood Movie Database

Before Nicolas Cage recited the alphabet or wooed Cher or stole the Declaration of Independence, he played a punk doofus in Martha Coolidge’s sweet and silly coming-of-age romance VALLEY GIRL. We admire the film’s affectionate skewering of the 80s, its textured female POV, and how singular its male lead is within the canon of teen cinema. Marin also teaches Maggie about the existence of Jake and L...

Two months after it arrived (and everyone seemed to have an opinion on it), does anyone even care about Emerald Fennell’s “WUTHERING HEIGHTS” anymore? We do, I guess. We both agree this movie would be more interesting if it was far better or far worse, because middling movies just aren’t very fun! We get into the film’s characterization and aesthetics, Emily Brontë’s novel, and how the movie funct...

What is cinematic pleasure, you ask? We offer Nia DaCosta’s HEDDA (2025) as an answer: stylish formal choices, substantive commentary on gender/race/class, delicious sexual tension, and a transfixing titular character whose antics range from petty revenge to evil. We also manage to put the film in conversation with Saltburn (a far inferior object, Marin argues) and the panned Ryan Murphy legal dra...

Yes, we’re already a month into 2026, but that’s not going to stop us from reflecting on Girlhood Movie Database’s 2025! We’re awarding our favorite films, performances, and intertextualities that we covered on this podcast, along with additional pop culture that brought us joy. Happy New Year!    Follow us on Instagram: @girlhoodmoviedatabase

Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of LITTLE WOMEN is one of Marin’s all-time favorite films, while this was Maggie’s first time watching it. We praise Gerwig’s unique screenplay and meticulous blocking, debate if Amy’s character is redeemable in this version, agree that Beth is actually the best March sister, and both almost cry on mic because this film is so moving. (There’s also an extended prologu...

This Halloween we’re delving into a horror we like to call “marrying a hot stranger who’s a walking red flag.” Guillermo del Toro’s gothic-horror melodrama CRIMSON PEAK was a formative theater-going experience for teenage Marin and a decade later she’s happy to report that it still rules. We have a lot to say about its pulpiness, violence, and romance, plus some tangents about Ryan Murphy and Char...

Sometimes a movie just gets that an integral part of teenage girldom is being mean to your mom after she’s nice to you! Hence our fervent praise for Shuchi Talati’s GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS (2024), which is a nuanced and detailed story about a mother-daughter relationship in flux.    Follow us on Instagram: @girlhoodmoviedatabase Secondary texts referenced: Make-Up (2019) dir. Claire Oakley Portrait of...

Today we’re discussing a formative text from Marin’s childhood/Girl Scout days: TROOP BEVERLY HILLS (1989). This movie was critically shredded upon release—mostly due to its humane depiction of the upper class—and, well, do we have a newsflash for the critics of 1989: the rich characters in this movie are nothing compared to the 1% ruining everyone’s lives in 2025! We also have a lot to say about...

More like “my ass is crying”! We’re talking about Megan Park’s charming, wise, and slightly fantastical coming-of-age film MY OLD ASS (2024), which we wholeheartedly recommend you watch.   If you have arrived at the ARRIVAL SPOILER WARNING, skip to 41:45.   Follow us on Instagram: @girlhoodmoviedatabase Secondary texts referenced: Rabbit Hole (2010) dir. John Cameron Mitchell Arrival (2016) dir. D...

We’re cleansing our hearts and brains this week by discussing a very good movie with real, human stakes! What a relief. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s LOVE & BASKETBALL (2000) has us cheering, laughing, and appreciating the beauty of sports despite our own personal lack of athletic prowess. Do we question if the male lead proves himself to be a worthy romantic partner? Sure, but those reservations ar...

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...

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 the...

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 a...

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 Archet...

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-...

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 Engl...

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 ref...

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 als...

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 conundrum...

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 senti...

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....

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, youthfu...

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 l...

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 helli...

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 b...