The World Is Ready For Hollywood To Revive The Chick Flick

For a long time, it has seemed like the summers of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Bridget Jones’s Diary were a thing of the past. Women love and need stories about their own lives – where they find lasting love and friendship in the midst of whatever crazy stunts life may throw at them. But for the last few decades, the movies have abandoned innocence for indecency, and the womanly heroine for the girlboss.

But if we’ve learned one thing in recent years, it’s that femininity is back in a big way. Women are increasingly drawn to more traditional models of femininity for their health and happiness, and we’re starting to see it reflected in the movies they watch. Here’s why we think the chick flick is back in style – and a few classics you can revisit until production companies get the hint.

What Makes a Movie a Chick Flick Anyway?

Since the beginning of the movies, there has been a strong subset of films designed specifically to appeal to women, which historians frequently refer to as “women’s pictures.” Women’s pictures often followed a woman falling in love unexpectedly, as in It Happened One Night, or a woman who was experiencing trouble in her marriage that she tried to resolve, as in The Women. The woman’s film highlighted moments in a woman’s life - her prom, her wedding, her domestic life – and dramatized them for the audience.

In the late ‘80s, the woman’s film began to focus specifically on romance, especially through the high school romance films of John Hughes, such as Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles. This gave birth to a new golden era of romantic comedies in the late ‘80s and ‘90s – and along with it, a new term to describe this genre of film: a “chick flick.”

Rom-coms and chick flicks – the two terms share so many characterizations that we often use the terms interchangeably. Often, a chick flick centers around a female character, who is usually accompanied by one or more close female friends on her journey. During the course of the story, the protagonist is often looking for love, and if she’s not looking for it, it may find her anyway. Over the course of the film, the protagonist will discover her true worth as a person and will usually strengthen her closest friendships.

While many chick flicks follow a similar plotline, I think the best definition of a true chick flick isn’t really about the content of the film. All chick flicks have high emotional stakes – Will the girl find her one true love? Will the best friends make peace with each other? – but they accomplish these high emotional stakes without taking a large emotional toll on the audience. The appeal of a chick flick is in telling a fulfilling story without putting a large emotional weight on the viewer. A mother doesn’t need to worry she’ll watch a story where kids could get hurt, and a girl going through a breakup doesn’t need to worry she’ll have her heart broken again. By telling stories that achieve resolution without emotionally exhausting the viewer, chick flicks make a welcoming space for all women at the movies.

Is the World Ready for Chick Flicks Again?

In 2018, one year before the Covid shutdowns, Forbes released an article proclaiming the “Death of the Chick Flick.” In it, they claimed that statistically more women were attending action, sci-fi, or comedy films, including Black Panther and the R-rated film Girl Trip, than they were attending “stereotypical rom-coms.” “The proof is in the numbers,” film expert Alicia Malone was quoted to say.

If the proof is in the numbers, post-Covid numbers are telling a very different story. The summer of 2023 felt like a celebration of femininity in many ways. Margot Robbie’s massive hit Barbie was the top-grossing film of the entire year, bringing large groups of women together to share a story repeatedly, dressed in the finest styles of pink. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which had been selling out stadiums throughout the U.S. during the summer, then released a film version of the concert – which not only was the 11th highest grossing film of the entire year, but set a record as the highest grossing concert film of all time. When it comes to the movies, the numbers in 2023 were clear: women love going to the movies, and the movies were increasingly geared toward women’s interests. 

This year, the numbers are telling the same story. Sydney Sweeney’s rom-com Anyone But You started out to a slow $6 million box office start in late December of 2023, but picked up pace in January to eventually gross $220 million worldwide. A retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Anyone But You is a traditional rom-com that highlights the necessity of chivalry and true love.

And the top grossing film of 2024 so far? To the surprise of most box office projectors, it is Pixar’s Inside Out 2. While not strictly speaking a chick flick, Inside Out 2 has some of the key characteristics that appeal to female audiences. Inside Out 2 features a female protagonist, teenage Riley, who discovers that her closest friends will not be attending her high school next year. Riley then struggles to navigate the changes in her friendships at camp, as she tries to decide if the relationships are worth saving. It’s a classic chick flick storyline – and I can’t help but wonder if that’s why the film opened to three times the numbers it was projected to. 

In the Meantime, Revisit These Underappreciated Chick Flick Classics

It’s clear girls everywhere are ready for the return of wholesome chick flicks – but it may take some time for the production companies to get on board. If you’re dying for a solid summertime evening of fun with your friends, here are a few of our favorite under-appreciated chick flicks to check out in the meantime.

Two Weeks Notice

Lucy (Sandra Bullock) always wanted to be an environmental lawyer, but instead she’s stuck working for billionaire George Wade (Hugh Grant). But one day, Lucy’s had enough. She turns in her two weeks notice and hires her replacement. But as the time gets closer, Lucy realizes how close she’s grown to George and wonders if she can really let him go.

The Decoy Bride

Hollywood star Lara (Alice Eve) is about to marry her British author fiancé (David Tennant) on a remote island in Scotland. But when Lara spies paparazzi staking out the church, she disappears. Eager to avoid a scandal, her publicist hires a decoy bride (Kelly MacDonald) to play the bride and get the paparazzi off their backs. Will everyone be able to find happiness at the end of this comedy of errors?

Monte Carlo

Grace (Selena Gomez) heads to Paris with her best friend Emma (Katie Cassidy) and stepsister Meg (Leighton Meester). When Grace is mistaken for a wealthy British heiress, the three girls get caught up on an all expenses paid trip to Monte Carlo. But can Grace keep up the pretense that she’s British – and can the three girls find a way to be real friends?

Crazy Rich Asians

The buzz for this film died down way too soon, in my opinion. Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) is a professor in New York City and happily dating Nick (Henry Golding). But when he invites her to Singapore to attend his cousin’s wedding with him, she discovers that Nick is from the wealthiest family in Singapore – and his mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh) is on a mission to break them up.

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