Chick flicks are movies that are marketed towards women, mostly romantic comedies or sappy love stories.
They’re often (falsely) regarded as lowbrow entertainment.
I grew up loving the whole genre and had a huge collection, first on VHS then DVD. But when I was a teenager I started feeling insecure about how much I loved them. I wanted to be seen by others as a respectable cinephile with impeccable taste, so I started hiding all of my DVDs that I thought were embarrassing or uncool inside of a secret drawer and a few years later I just gave all of them away. 🥲
In recent years I’ve started buying all the same ones I used to have again whenever I see them at thrift stores and I’m happy to say my collection is slowly growing back to its original size. \o/

For me teen movies are a separate genre so I’ve excluded them on this list. I’ve also excluded Jane Austen adaptations. There are just so many that I love and I didn’t want them to take up all the space.

1. The First Wives Club (1996)
2. 13 going on 30 (2004)
3. Heartbreakers (2001)
4. Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001)
5. When Harry Met Sally (1989)
6. Ever After (1998)
7. 500 Days of Summer (2009)
8. Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997)
9. The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
10. Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

Honorable Mentions: Moonstruck (1987), Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), Jumping Jack Flash (1986), My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), Legally Blonde (2001),
Uptown Girls (2003), What Women Want (2000)

Movies I liked/loved by people who for some reason only ever made one feature film.

I don’t count movies like “Sorry to bother you” or “Aftersun”, because they came out not that long ago and I’m pretty sure the directors are going to end up making some more films.

The idea for this list came from my friend Katja (shoutout!)

1. Gen Sekiguchi – Survive Style 5+ (2004)
   
   This is one of my all time favorite movies and I’m so sad that the director never made another one. It is complete perfection in my opinion and I recommend it a lot to friends because it’s relatively obscure and I want more people to know about it.
   Aesthetically incredible beautiful and artsy, very original, sweet, sad at times, funny!!! This movie has it all.
   
2. David Byrne – True Stories (1986)
   
   David Byrne is not only a musical genius but also a really great director and I find it very unfortunate that he never got back into filmmaking. The movie is very very pretty, well written, funny, original. You can really see how detail-oriented this guy is because every little thing in it is just perfect.
   Highly recommend!
   
3. Matthew Ryan Hoge – United States of Leland (2003)
   
   Also one of my favorite movies and my favorite performance of Ryan Gosling, who plays the lead.
   The movie is underrated in my opinion (3.3 average on Letterboxd) and also not really well-known despite having an absurdly stacked cast (Kevin Spacey, Don Cheadle, Jena Malone, Martin Donovan, Michelle Williams).
   I really related to the movie when I was a teen and it still touched me very deeply when I recently rewatched it.
   But TW: the premise is that a teen boy kills a disabled kid and no one knows his motive. And the film empathises with the killer and doesn’t straight up frame him as an evil monster.
   
4. Bo Burnham – Eighth Grade (2018)
   
   This movie was made during Bo Burnham’s hiatus from stand up in between “Make Happy” and “Inside”. His anxiety had gotten really bad and he felt unable to perform in front of an audience. The idea behind the movie was him channeling all that anxiety into a story about a teenage girl who’s also anxious constantly and that idea really paid off. I’ve watched it multiple times now and I’m still stunned every time that this movie was made by an adult man. It feels so authentic.
   There is one scene in it (I won’t spoil it) that I think every guy should watch to truly get how fucking scary it is to be a girl.
   
5. Yoshifumi Kondo – Whisper of the Heart (1995)
   
   This is one of my favorite Studio Ghibli movies and I only just recently found out that the director was set out to be next star director for the studio, but sadly passed away only a few years after making the movie. He had worked on many Ghibli movies before but this was his first time directing.
   
6. Jessica Sharzer – Speak (2004)
   
   A really great film adaptation of an amazing young adult novel. When I first watched the film I was so taken with it that I had to read the book right after, which for me always is the most obvious sign of a successful adaptation.
   It features a teenaged Kristen Stewart as the lead and her acting in this is incredible. Probably my favorite role of hers.
   The story is about sexual trauma (so big trigger warning!), but you don’t really know what exactly happened for most of it. It deals with the subject by showing the effects, the feelings and behavior of someone who went through trauma and is overwhelmed with having to deal with the aftermath.
   One of the best movies about this subject in my opinion.
   
7. John Swayback – The Big Kahuna (1999)
   
   This film is based on a play whose writer also wrote the screenplay. It’s a chamber play (small cast, set in one place during a small time frame) which I looove in movies.
   The 3 important characters are played by Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and Peter Facinelli (the vampire dad in Twilight).
   It’s basically just long philosophical discussions about life and work between two older, very jaded guys and one young guy who’s very naive and optimistic. I really like this movie.
   
8. Chris Blum – Big Time (1988)
   
   Great concert movie from the 80s about Tom Waits.
   It’s one of the best concert movies I’ve seen and there’s a lot of effort put in for it to be original and interesting.
   And the sets are really cool looking.
   Would recommend to any fans of Tom Waits’ music.
   
9. Nicholas Jasenovec – Paper Heart (2009)
   
   This is not the best movie ever, but it’s really cute and romantic and features cool animation throughout.
   It’s a mockumentary about the comedian/actor Lo Mutuc, who also wrote the script (You might know them by a different name. They are out as genderfluid now but the movie came out before) searching for love and interviewing random people about their relationships and experiences with finding love. They end up meeting Michael Cera (also playing himself) and they like each other and start dating. Mutuc and Cera play fictionalised versions of themselves and the director is played by Jake Johnson (Nick from New Girl) which is very random, but the interviews about love are all real afaik.
   
10. Drew Barrymore – Whip it (2009)
    
    Cute coming of age movie about a roller derby team featuring Elliot Page in the main role. It’s also not the best in my opinion but worth a watch if you like Elliot Page, roller derby or the aesthetics of 2000s coming-of-age indie movies.
    

Honorable Mention: Gabriel Sunday – Hi, How Are You Daniel Johnston? (2015)

I unfortunately couldn’t put it on the list because it’s a short film but it’s probably my favorite short film ever made.
It’s about and starring Daniel Johnston, one of my favorite musicians and artists, who sadly passed away since it came out.
It is really really well done and features the singer Soko in a small role. There is also a beautiful cover of “Some things last a long time” sung by Lana Del Rey in it, that was recorded just for the movie.
Both Mac Miller and her contributed a lot of money to the kickstarter campaign that funded the movie.
It’s only 15 minutes and you can find it on YouTube.

I only count feature films. Most directors make short films early in their careers but they don’t really count as their debut to me.

Also I didn’t rank the films only on how much I like them but on how impressive of a feat it is in my opinion to have a movie that is that well crafted in all regards and that has such universal appeal to be your first movie. (so some movies that are a more acquired taste are ranked lower even though I love them the most)

It is crazy to me that all of these movies were someone’s first try at making feature films. The first 10 are obvious 10/10s to me.

1. Past Lives (Celine Song, 2023)
2. Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
3. American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999)
4. The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999)
5. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, 2022)
6. Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
7. Blood Simple (Coen Brothers, 1984)
8. Pride and Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005)
9. Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July, 2005)
10. Go Fish (Rose Troche, 1994)
    

Honorable Mentions:

Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1996)
Garden State (Zach Braff, 2004)
Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005)
Sorry to bother you (Boots Riley, 2018)
Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
Shiva Baby (Emma Seligman, 2020)
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Tim Burton, 1985)