Film
Eighth Grade
Eighth Grade is a small, devastating, funny film about the particular hell of being thirteen in the selfie era. Elsie Fisher's Kayla makes YouTube videos nobody watches while drowning in cafeteria dread and pool-party terror. Bo Burnham directs with tenderness rather than cruelty. It's for anyone who remembers adolescence as embarrassing rather than nostalgic — a squirm-inducing, ultimately kind portrait of surviving your own reflection.
If you liked this
PEN152019
Two adult women play their own thirteen-year-old selves with zero irony, and it's somehow even more accurate about middle school humiliation than Eighth Grade — the cringe is dialled up, the compassion never wavers.
But The gimmick of adults playing kids takes an episode or two to stop feeling strange.

Lady Bird2017
Same raw nerve of a teenage girl figuring out who she is, but a few years older and angrier — Saoirse Ronan fights everyone who loves her, including herself.
But Warmer and funnier than Eighth Grade; less interested in sitting in discomfort.

The Edge of Seventeen2016
Hailee Steinfeld plays a smart, furious, deliberately unlikeable teenager with the same unflinching honesty about how humiliating growing up actually feels.
But Sharper-tongued and more cynical — less interested in Kayla's gentleness.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Bo Burnham: Inside2021
Same director, same obsession with self-recording as a coping mechanism — Burnham filming himself alone is Kayla's YouTube channel grown up and turned inward.
Bo Burnham locked himself in a room and made this instead of a normal comedy special — it's the exact anxious, self-surveilling energy of Kayla's bedroom videos turned back on their own creator, only sadder and funnier.
But It's a filmed comedy special, not a story, and its bleakness runs far darker than anything in Eighth Grade.

More like this (8)
Booksmart2019
Flips the anxiety into pure kinetic joy — two overachievers try to cram four years of fun into one night before graduation, with real warmth under the jokes.
But Louder, faster and far less melancholic; it wants you laughing, not squirming.

Big Mouth2017
Animated, filthy, and somehow more emotionally honest about puberty than most things that aren't cartoons — hormone monsters included.
But Extremely crude and sexually explicit; nothing like Eighth Grade's restraint.

mid90s2018
Jonah Hill's directorial debut trades Kayla's phone for skateboards but shares the same tender eye for a kid desperate to belong to something.
But Rougher and more nostalgic for a specific subculture than Eighth Grade's universal dread.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower2012
A shy outsider finds his people just as Kayla does, filmed with the same generosity toward awkward kids trying to survive high school.
But More sentimental and plot-driven, with a bigger swing toward catharsis.

My So-Called Life1994
The original prestige teen drama — inner-monologue voiceover, hallway dread, the sense that every small humiliation is world-ending.
But Only one season exists, and its mid-90s pacing feels slower than modern teen TV.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl2015
A rawer, more sexually frank coming-of-age story that shares Eighth Grade's interest in a girl narrating her own becoming, awkward footage and all.
But Much more explicit and adult in its content; not the same audience at all.

The 400 Blows1959
French New Wave's founding coming-of-age film; Eighth Grade's naturalistic, unglamorous portrait of adolescent alienation traces directly back to this.
Sixty years before Kayla, Truffaut filmed a lonely, misunderstood kid wandering through an adult world that barely notices him — the blueprint for every quiet, aching coming-of-age film since.
But Black-and-white, subtitled, and from a completely different cinematic language — some patience required.

Thirteen2003
Identical premise — a thirteen-year-old girl navigating a cruel social world — played in the register of horror instead of comedy-drama, showing the same anxieties pushed to their worst extreme.
Same age, same suburban backdrop, but Catherine Hardwicke pushes past social awkwardness into genuine peril — a harrowing reminder of how close 'ordinary' teenage misery can sit to catastrophe.
But Far darker and more disturbing; this is not a comfort watch by any measure.

People
Cast
Elsie FisherKayla Day
Josh HamiltonMark Day
Emily RobinsonOlivia
Jake RyanGabe
Daniel ZolghadriRiley
Fred HechingerTrevor
Imani LewisAniyah
Luke PraelAiden
Catherine OliviereKennedy- Nora MullinsSteph
Gerald JonesTyler
Missy YagerMrs. Graves
Directing
- Bo BurnhamDirector
- Dan TaggatzFirst Assistant Director
- Sam EvoyScript Supervisor
- Vic CoramSecond Assistant Director
- Evelyn FoglemanSecond Second Assistant Director
Writing
- Bo BurnhamWriter
Production
- Dann FinkADR Voice Casting
- Tatiana ForsterAssistant Location Manager
- Tom IshizukaAssociate Producer
- Allison JonesCasting
- Meredith TuckerCasting
- Emily BuntynCasting Assistant
- Betsy FippingerCasting Associate
- Jamin O'BrienExecutive Producer
- Jake KrickhanExtras Casting
- Brian GackowskiExtras Casting Assistant
- Elizabeth KrekelLocation Manager
- Christopher StorerProducer
- Eli BushProducer
- Lila YacoubProducer
- Scott RudinProducer
- Abraham FriedmanProduction Assistant
- Joshua DavyProduction Assistant
- Jessie NgProduction Coordinator
- Barbara Jean KearneyProduction Manager
- Pete OlshanskyProduction Manager
- Stephenie MohamedProduction Secretary
Recommended by
Turning Red, Lady Bird, PEN15, Boyhood, Freaks and Geeks, Whisper of the Heart, The Edge of Seventeen, Booksmart, Ingrid Goes West, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Welcome to the Dollhouse, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, mid90s