Gen Z On Screen

Are the Kids Alright?

When you’re coming of age as a cinephile, it can be easy to feel like you missed out. Past eras and movements that are unlikely to be replicated. Filmmakers and actors who have long passed on before you ever heard of their work, let alone experienced it. Older film fans love to talk about their ‘generational classics’. It can seem like every generation has a defining film, every generation but the one you’re a member of.

It feels like you arrived too late; everything important and cool has already happened. Every great classic has already been made. This is far from the truth. It doesn’t seem like we have a generational film as Gen Z, but we also don’t have the history and ability to look back like previous generations. Our cinematic legacy is still being built. Filmmakers and showrunners are slowly but surely starting to represent our generation in authentic and recognizable ways.

I’ve brought together a great crew of fellow writers to help me curate this list. This is Gen Z on-screen.

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Shithouse - Dir: Cooper Raiff

Shithouse is a 2020 film directed, written and starring Cooper Raiff. It tells the story of a college freshman grasping his first year in college and the loneliness that comes with it. Everything might change, though, when he meets someone with whom he shares a connection. What I really appreciate about Shithouse is how real everything feels. There’s a lot of awkwardness in scenes that feel realistic to the story. You feel a sense of cringe with some of the actions Alex takes, but it’s exactly what someone his age would do. I also appreciate a college story that’s not just about everyone partying, but about the loneliness that comes with it as well especially when you’re somewhere far away from where you grew up.

There are times when everything feels overwhelming and you just want to go back home where you know everyone. This film perfectly describes that feeling and it really hit hard for me as someone who entered college around the time this came out. It’s nice to see a Gen Z college story that doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard to force a connection with that audience. Cooper Raiff was 23 when he made the film, and it shows in the best way possible. It’s a movie I’ll be looking back at as an important one to me.

- Caleb

The Society (Series) - Creator: Christopher Keyser

I don’t remember much about being a teenager. I do remember how restrictive it felt. How much it felt like life was something that happened to me rather than something I had an active role in. I remember not having much control; as a teenager I didn’t even schedule my own doctor appointments. I remember clinging to the aspects of life that I did have control of: the way I dress or the music I liked. I remember wishing I could just skip my way to adulthood, to freedom.

Then you get there, and you just want to be a child again.

The Society takes a look at this dynamic. When every adult in a town disappears, the children are left to fend for themselves and rebuild humanity as they know it. The first season was beaming with potential and great character dynamics. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled and left unresolved. I still think the first season is worth a watch.

- THG

My Old Ass - Dir: Megan Park

I can’t think of a better melding of the millennial and Gen Z generations on film than My Old Ass. As a millennial myself, I deeply appreciated Aubrey Plaza’s character (“Okay, fuck you. I am 39 years old. That’s not middle aged.”) Written and directed by filmmaker Megan Park, My Old Ass is thoughtful, hilarious, and wildly inventive. (A drug-induced Justin Bieber fantasy performance in the woods? Yes, please.)

The two leads (with Maisy Stella as the Gen Z character) are masterful in the telling of this story together. What I love most about this film is that you think it’s going to be your standard “coming of age” comedy, but then it takes a turn and slaps you (complimentary) with something so much bigger than that. And any chance to be surprised by how incredible of an actor Plaza really is is always worth a watch in my book.

- Colleen Claes

Bottoms - Dir: Emma Seligman

Few films capture the chaos of being in Gen Z quite like Bottoms, a satire about a group of lesbian friends who start a fight club at their high school in the name of female empowerment. The two lead actresses, Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri, have become Gen Z icons from starring in everything from Shiva Baby to The Bear, and embodying Gen Z’s hyper-aware humor and digital-native sensibilities in popular culture. I mean, Ayo Edebiri even has Letterboxd. This movie is layered, “like an onion” (I’m looking at you Donkey), with the reality of what it is like to grow up as part of this generation. The chronically online, awkward queer romance is something that never would have been seen in any other generation. Simply iconic.

- Benjamin Hegedus

Bodies Bodies Bodies - Dir: Halina Reijn

A generation once beloved for its open-minded brand of rebelliousness has revealed itself to be just as shallow and insecure as the predecessors they claim to stand against. Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies captures what makes our generation really tick, for better or worse.

Bodies Bodies Bodies is a horror comedy about a ‘hurricane party’ turned deadly. When a group of college-aged kids discovers one of their peers has been killed, the night devolves into panic as they accuse each other of being the killer. Half 90s-style slasher, half murder mystery. This film is funny, clever, and cuts to the heart of my generation.

Something I’ve noticed in my generational peers is their desperation for fitting in but being unwilling to visibly put in the effort. We want community without the work required to build one. What results is a bunch of selfish babble and performative nonchalance. Does that mean our characters in Bodies are unlikable? Surprisingly no. Despite their annoying and selfish antics, there’s still something about this friend group that feels alluring. Under all the yelling, finger-pointing, and name-calling is a group of kids that just want to be accepted. To them, being deemed an outsider is a fate worse than death. - THG

The Fallout - Dir: Megan Park

Gen Z has silently had to bear more than people are willing to grapple with. Every generation has its world events and tragedies, but Gen z has experienced them with a level of immersion that’s still new to us. The invention of smartphones has given us front row tickets to these events. Our parents thought war footage on the news was bad; try stumbling upon a beheading video. There’s potential to see extreme violence everywhere—multiple times a day, depending on how you spend your time online. For the Americans of this generation, extreme violence has even leaked into our schools. A problem that had been ramping up for decades is now an almost weekly occurrence.

Most films that attempt to grapple with these tragedies tend to focus on the shooter, and/or their upbringing (Elephant, We Need To Talk About Kevin, The Dirties). They very rarely touch on the victims and how the town reacts to the tragedy. Megan Park’s The Fallout is a tender and heartbreaking exploration of how trauma and grief affect everyone in different ways. Extremely nuanced (and overlooked) performances from Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler are the cherries on top of this sobering but important film.

-THG

Anora - Dir: Sean Baker

A FRAUWD MARRIAGE? More like the fraudulent promise of economic mobility! In Anora, we follow sex worker Ani (an enthralling Mikey Madison) as she’s swept away by the promise of a better life with a rich client, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). But before all of that — before the shimmery delusion of Las Vegas, before the After-Hours-esque odyssey through Brooklyn, before it all comes crashing down — we meet Ani on a typical day. We see her performing at an upscale Manhattan club by night, and we see her commuting back to her small Brighton Beach home, exhausted on the train in the dim light of the morning.

As a card-carrying member of Gen Z myself, I completely understand why Ani is so eager (desperate, even) to fall for Ivan. I mean, we’ve hardly had a moment of political or economic security in our collective adulthood. It’s the perfect set-up for my generation’s “Cinderella story” — but it’s not the sharp, foul-mouthed Ani who falls for the fairytale. It’s Anora, the girl trying to squeeze in a few moments of rest during her commute as she grinds for a better life. (Pun intended!)

- nic

American Vandal (series) - Creators: Dan Perrault and Tony Yacenda

Generational attitudes and trends are usually established during our youth. School is where culture is cemented and passed down. No piece of media has captured the Gen Z (and late millennial) high school experience quite like American Vandal.

American Vandal explores how technology has completely changed the way teens interact with the world, both digitally and physically. The “mockumentary” style is perfectly modernized for the iPhone generation. To this day, this series is incredibly accurate in its portrayal of how Netflix docs look and feel. To the point where I can’t take some of their docs seriously; You know you’ve nailed satire when it becomes hard to distinguish it from the real thing.

The character of Dylan Maxwell (Jimmy Tatro in the role he was born to play) is tragic. He’s obviously the butt of many jokes. His crude drawings and mean-spirited pranks are ridiculously over-the-top. Behind all the antics, though, is a kid who’s been dismissed as stupid. A kid trying to prove everyone wrong in his own way. Now, we might not all turn to “dad pantsing” or “baby farting” to achieve that, but I know most of us can relate to that desperation to rise above our mistakes.

-THG

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Huge thanks to Caleb, Nic, Colleen, and Benjamin for their wonderful additions to this piece. Subscribe to them if you like what you see here.

As always, thank you for reading!