Film

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

Two best friends invent a wildly implausible cover story — they're the co-inventors of the Post-it note — to survive their ten-year reunion, and the film is smarter than its bubblegum surface suggests. It's a comedy about reinvention, humiliation, and the fierce loyalty of friendships forged in outsiderdom. Kudrow and Sorvino have flawless chemistry, the fashion is deranged in the best way, and underneath the neon there's real tenderness about who gets to decide you were a loser.

TMDb rating6.2

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Bridesmaids2011

Another female-friendship comedy that trusts women to be gross, petty, and heartbroken all at once, with Kristen Wiig unraveling spectacularly under the pressure of being a good friend at someone else's big moment.

But It's grounded, almost mean at times, where Romy and Michele stay determinedly silly — the tonal whiplash might not suit you.

Bridesmaids poster

Clueless1995

Same decade, same commitment to a heroine who is dim in exactly the right, lovable ways, dressed to the nines and never once doubting herself.

But It's gentler and less humiliating — nobody here has to lie their way through an ordeal to be accepted.

Clueless poster

Legally Blonde2001

Another underestimated blonde who gets to be smarter and kinder than everyone assumes, proving competence and glitter aren't mutually exclusive.

But It's a genuine underdog triumph rather than a comedy of humiliation — less bite, more polish.

Legally Blonde poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Waiting for Guffman1997

Both are about people constructing elaborate, delusional identities to be seen as special by the people who knew them best — Guffman just shoots it as a fake documentary about a terrible community theater production instead of a class reunion.

Christopher Guest's improvised troupe of small-town weirdos preparing a disastrous anniversary pageant is one of the funniest, most quietly tender comedies about wanting to matter ever made.

But The mockumentary deadpan is a world away from Romy and Michele's cartoonish brightness — much drier, much slower burn.

Waiting for Guffman poster
More like this (8)

Grosse Pointe Blank1997

The other great high school reunion movie from the exact same year, just filtered through a hitman's existential crisis instead of a fashion crisis.

But It's a dark, dry romantic comedy with a body count — not remotely as sunny or silly.

Grosse Pointe Blank poster

Miss Congeniality2000

A woman forced into a glossy persona she can't quite sustain, played for big laughs and, eventually, a surprising amount of heart.

But The beauty pageant setting swaps high school anxiety for adult-world absurdity — a different flavor of fake.

Miss Congeniality poster

10 Things I Hate About You1999

Same late-90s high school universe, sharper teen dialogue, and a cast including a young Heath Ledger at his most charming.

But It's a straight teen romance, not a grown-up comedy of reinvention and regret.

10 Things I Hate About You poster

Never Been Kissed1999

Drew Barrymore returns to high school to fix the past, chasing the same wish-fulfillment fantasy of finally being cool that drives Romy and Michele.

But It plays the premise mostly straight and romantic, without the absurdist comic engine.

Never Been Kissed poster

Booksmart2019

A more recent, equally devoted portrait of two best friends whose codependence is the whole joke and the whole heart of the movie.

But It's set the night before graduation, not a decade later — the nostalgia ache hasn't kicked in yet.

Booksmart poster

The House Bunny2008no page yet

Anna Faris doing a dumb-blonde makeover comedy with real sweetness underneath, in the same spirit of glitter hiding insecurity.

But It's broader and lower-stakes, more sorority hijinks than reunion dread.

Peggy Sue Got Married1986

Same reunion-as-reckoning structure — a woman returns to face who she used to be — but instead of lying her way through it, she gets to time-travel back and actually redo it.

Kathleen Turner is magnetic as a woman flung back into her teenage body at her 25th reunion, forced to confront the choices that made her, with warmth instead of mockery.

But It's an earlier, more sincere Hollywood dramedy with real fantasy stakes, not a satire of reinvention.

Peggy Sue Got Married poster

Frances Ha2013

Strip away the Post-it note lie and the neon, and you're left with the same question underneath: what happens to a friendship, and a self, when you haven't figured out who you're supposed to be yet.

Greta Gerwig, adrift and broke in New York, chasing a sense of having 'arrived' just as desperately as Romy and Michele — just in black-and-white, and quieter, and sadder.

But There's no reunion, no costumes, no big comic set piece — it's melancholic and loosely plotted, not a party movie.

Frances Ha poster

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