The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
Back to trending 
Girlfriends
Drama · Comedy · 1978
A photographer and her best friend are roommates. She is stuck with small-change shooting jobs and dreams of success. When her roommate decides to get married and leave, she feels hurt and has to learn how to deal with living alone.
Movie details
Girlfriends
“Everyone has one, wants one, or is one.”
1978 Drama · Comedy 1h 28m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.7 / 10
Community rating
A photographer and her best friend are roommates. She is stuck with small-change shooting jobs and dreams of success. When her roommate decides to get married and leave, she feels hurt and has to learn how to deal with living alone.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Girlfriends?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
Career Girls
Drama · 1997
A young college student in London moves into a flat and becomes best friends with a flatmate; the former moves into her own flat 4 years later but 6 years after their parting, the former returns to London to pay the latter a visit.
Kodachrome
Drama · 2017
Matt Ryder is convinced to drive his estranged and dying father Benjamin Ryder cross country to deliver four old rolls of Kodachrome film to the last lab in the world that can develop them before it shuts down for good. Along with Ben's nurse Zooey, the three navigate a world changing from analogue to digital while trying to put the past behind them.
Carrie Pilby
Comedy · 2017
Awkward, isolated and disapproving of most of the people around her, a precocious 19-year-old genius is challenged to put her convictions to the test by venturing out on to the NYC dating scene.
Don't Think Twice
Comedy · 2016
An improv group deals with several crises, including the loss of their lease and one member hitting the big time.
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
Comedy · 2023
When her family moves from New York City to New Jersey, an 11-year-old girl navigates new friends, feelings, and the beginning of adolescence.
Ana
Drama · 2020
Ana meets Rafa in a chance encounter and they embark on a road trip to try and save him from bankruptcy, or worse.
Paper Man
Comedy · 2009
A coming-of-middle-age comedy that chronicles the unlikely friendship between failed author Richard Dunne and a Long Island teen who teaches him a thing or two about growing up, all under the disapproving eye of his long-suffering wife and his imaginary Superhero friend.
Frances Ha
Comedy · 2013
An aspiring dancer moves to New York City and becomes caught up in a whirlwind of flighty fair-weather friends, diminishing fortunes and career setbacks.
The Station Agent
Drama · 2003
When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss.
Passing
Drama · 2021
In 1920s New York City, a Black woman finds her world upended when her life becomes intertwined with a former childhood friend who's passing as white.
Where it lives
Watch in your region.
Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.
Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Claudia Weill
Written by
Claudia Weill · Vicki Polon
Melanie Mayron
Susan Weinblatt
Eli Wallach
Rabbi Gold
A
Adam Cohen
Bar Mitzvah Boy
Anita Skinner
Anne Munroe
Jean De Baer
Terry
Christopher Guest
Eric
Nancy Mette
Denise
Court is in session
Put Girlfriends on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.