Film

Everything, Everything

Name: Everything, Everything
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 2017
Cast: Amandla Stenberg, Nick Robinson, Anika Noni Rose, Ana de la Reguera, Taylor Hickson

Romance

A visually inventive teen romance about a girl confined to her home by a rare immune disorder who finds connection through a window and risks everything for love. It's stylish and emotionally sincere, elevated by its art-house aesthetic and willingness to let the romance feel genuinely dangerous.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like teen romances that lean fully into a fragile, heightened premise, with bold colour, messages flying across screens and a sincerity that never winks at the audience.

Skip it if you find the central premise too contrived to accept, or you want a gritty, realistic take on illness; this one is glossy, brisk and happy to bend the rules.

What it asks of you: It runs about an hour and a half and moves briskly, asking you to accept its heightened logic and meet its emotions on their own bright, sincere terms.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Fault in Our Stars2014

A similarly tender, intelligently-written romance between young people facing health crises. It treats its characters' bodies as real obstacles without making them victims, and the emotional arc lands hard.

But It's a tearjerker that doesn't shy away from its own sadness. If you're not in the mood to feel properly sad by the end, skip it.

Five Feet Apart2019

Two cystic fibrosis patients fall in love while maintaining a literal physical distance. It shares Everything's central tension—desire versus survival—and asks what risk is worth taking for another person.

But The premise is somewhat gimmicky, and it leans heavily into the weepiness without quite earning every tear.

Love, Simon2018

A smart, warm teen romance with genuine wit and chemistry between leads. It's about finding yourself through connection with another person, handled with both humour and real emotional intelligence.

But It's gentler and more conventional than Everything, Everything. If you wanted something visually daring, this plays it straighter.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Everything, Everything

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Kodachrome2017

Both use visual style and constraint as metaphors for emotional isolation. Everything, Everything confines its heroine to a house; Kodachrome confines itself to a fading technology—both about holding onto something before it's gone.

A quiet film about a dying father and estranged son who take a road trip to Kodak's last film processing plant. It's structured as a journey toward connection, but the real subject is learning to see someone you thought you knew.

But Nothing much happens in plot terms. It's entirely dependent on performance and mood, and if you're not patient with stillness, it will feel slow.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl2015

A coming-of-age story about an isolated boy forced into connection with a girl facing illness. It's funny, genuinely moving, and refuses to sentimentalise its subject matter.

But The tone is deliberately uneven and sometimes rambling. Some find that authenticity touching; others find it unfocused.

Warm Bodies2013

A romance that uses a fantastical condition—being a zombie—to explore isolation and the transformative power of being known. It's funny, visually playful, and oddly tender.

But It's a lighter film that doesn't engage with its premise as seriously. The zombie metaphor works better than the plot itself.

The Sun Is Also a Star2019

A one-day romance between two teenagers from different worlds who connect despite—or because of—knowing their time together has an expiration date. It's about presence and choosing connection anyway.

But It's constructed around a fairly neat premise, and the emotional manipulation is visible if you're in a skeptical mood.

The Edge of Seventeen2016

Hazel Grace's real, awkward teen life—less about a central romance than about the messy work of being young and learning to let people in. Sharp, funny, and genuinely wise.

But The love story is secondary and slow-building. If you want a focused romance, you'll find this digressive.

After2019

A straightforward romance between a sheltered girl and a dangerous boy that works as wish-fulfillment. If you just want immersion in another person's attraction and risk-taking, it delivers that clearly.

But It's less concerned with wit or visual invention than Everything, Everything. The writing is functional, not elegant.

Never Let Me Go2010

Where Everything asks 'what will I risk to live?', Never Let Me Go asks 'how do I love knowing what I know?' Both hinge on young people whose bodies make them foreign to ordinary life, learning intimacy against the clock.

A haunting film about young people whose bodies are not their own, told with devastating quietness. It examines what you'd risk and sacrifice for the people you love, and whether love can survive the knowledge of predetermined loss.

But It's slow, melancholic, and the premise—once you understand it—carries a weight of dread. This is not a film to watch for hope.

A Ghost Story2017

Both films use their constraints—Maddy's isolation, the ghost's immobility—to explore the intensity of connection with a single other person. Both suggest that the walls that separate us are often what make love necessary.

A visually radical meditation on presence, absence, and the people we leave behind. It's about what it means to be truly known by another person, and what happens when that connection is severed by death.

But It's experimental and deliberately strange. If you want conventional narrative, this will frustrate you. Also genuinely unsettling in places.