Curator Watchlist
A painfully accurate, empathetic coming-of-age film that captures the awkwardness, isolation, and self-consciousness of early adolescence with unusual honesty. Its humor is gentle but the emotional sting is real, and the filmmaking makes everyday teenage anxiety feel cinematic.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 1h 34m
Director: Bo Burnham
Starring: Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton, Emily Robinson
Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school — the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year — before she begins high school.
Bo Burnham
Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton, Emily Robinson
A painfully accurate, empathetic coming-of-age film that captures the awkwardness, isolation, and self-consciousness of early adolescence with unusual honesty. Its humor is gentle but the emotional sting is real, and the filmmaking makes everyday teenage anxiety feel cinematic.
Eighth Grade is one of the sharpest portraits of adolescence in recent memory because it refuses to romanticize it. Kayla’s world is full of tiny humiliations, half-formed confidence, and the constant pressure to perform a version of herself that feels acceptable online and in person. The result is funny, but the laughter is always edged with recognition and discomfort.
What makes it stand out is the film’s patience with small moments: a look, a pause, a phone scroll, a car ride that feels like a battlefield. It understands that middle school is often less about dramatic events than about the daily effort to survive being perceived. That specificity gives the movie its emotional force.
The film also has a real tenderness beneath the cringe. It doesn’t mock Kayla or the people around her; it sees how hard everyone is trying, even when they fail. By the end, the movie feels less like a memory than a bruise that has finally started to heal.
#1 gizmo fan (5★) · 9859 likes
The car scene broke me into a trillion pieces. It tore me down, ripped me of my skin and then let me bleed. But after the movie was over, it bandaged me and I could breathe. I've been where she was. The youngest one in the room, left alone with some guy way older and way stupider. When you're 13, you never really say what you want until you've been taken to your line. You agree and agree and agree,… more
cathy (4.5★) · 9140 likes
Kayla: gucci! 👌 me (through tears): gucci 👌
demi adejuyigbe (5★) · 7714 likes
three (non-spoilery) thoughts from a second viewing: 1) the final scene of this movie is maybe my favorite scene of any movie released this year 2) there’s a scene where kayla is walking around and talking nervously on the phone, shot in a mid-close up with the camera following her as she walks back and forth, passing a big window. when she passes the window, the light shining through is like a sudden, disorienting flash, and when combined with the constant… more
sophie (4.5★) · 6404 likes
the fact that someone shouts "lebron james" more than once in this shows how true to real life it is
molly (5★) · 4570 likes
my stomach DROPPED when i heard “truth or dare?”
A similarly precise, funny, and emotionally observant portrait of teenage self-invention and family tension.
Captures adolescent isolation, sharp embarrassment, and the feeling of being fundamentally out of sync with everyone else.
A raw, unsettling look at early teen identity, peer pressure, and the speed at which childhood can fracture.
A brutally funny and deeply uncomfortable study of middle-school social cruelty and outsider pain.
For its deadpan outsider perspective, social alienation, and acute sense of teenage drift.
Shares the same interest in loneliness, self-consciousness, and the longing to feel seen.
Balances awkward comedy with genuine tenderness toward a family of misfits and emotional strivers.
A candid, character-driven coming-of-age story about desire, self-image, and messy self-discovery.
A darker companion piece about adolescent humiliation, social cruelty, and the terror of being singled out.
For its dreamy melancholy and its focus on the unknowability of teenage girls from the outside.
A raw, naturalistic portrait of a young person trapped between longing, anger, and limited options.
Explores the vulnerability of a young girl navigating attention, aspiration, and adult manipulation.
coming of age, adolescence, social anxiety, loneliness, self-image, online identity, parent-child relationship, middle school
coming-of-age, teen drama, awkward comedy, social anxiety, suburban life, digital identity, female adolescence, indie realism, emotional honesty, cringe humor