Once in a while there’s a movie that is so brazen and real and self-reflexive about the way it portrays a topic that, if it’s successful enough, any movie made thereafter about the same topic has a responsibility to meet it’s baseline. Like, The Dark Knight forced superhero movies into a more serious corner, Cabin In The Woods forced horror movies to examine their own cliches and work around them. I think Eighth Grade is that movie for teenagers.

It is so absolutely perfect in the way it gives a voice to its main character and the people in her life that I cannot imagine watching something as melodramatic or saccharine as (name any Netflix teen movie) and not demanding better of it. Eighth Grade is the new baseline.