Quarter-life crisis cinema: 10 movies to watch in your messy mid-20s
Put aptly by actor and musician Suki Waterhouse, “Your 20s are pretty sadistic”. When we’re in our teenage years, we look up to our 20s as if they’re going to be incredible. We’ll feel settled and confident; we’ll look great and feel great; we’ll be self-assured; everything will be amazing. But then you get there, and you feel as lost, confused and chaotic as ever. Luckily, there are films that get it.
There’s all this talk about how the frontal lobe of your brain finally finishes growing and developing when you hit 25, but then how come being 25 feels like descending to being 15 again? When you hit your mid-20s, your body pushes you through a second puberty as your body and brain chemistry shift again. So it’s no wonder that in cinema, as in life, depictions of this age bracket tend to lean towards emotional carnage rather than any sense of settlement.
Especially in the modern age, being in your 20s is still basically being a baby. For those that went through higher education, suddenly, you’re spat out into the real world as a graduate and expected to get yourself together, even though you feel like you don’t even know how to walk yet. Realistically, it’s an age where you’re allowed to be a mess, even encouraged to be, as the final years where youth can still be an excuse truly demands some bad behaviour or at least some emotional blow-ups.
Time and time again, cinema has captured this feeling beautifully. It’s a complex one, at once being both distressing and utterly joyful, confused and delusionally confident, fun and full of fear. But in these 10 films, the directors perfectly nail the inner chaos of the quarter life crisis.
10 of the best films to watch in your mid-20s:
Mistress America (Noah Baumbach, 2015)
In Mistress America, you really get both sides of the crisis coin. In Lola Kirke’s Tracy, you get a young girl right at the start of adulthood, uncertain how it will all pan out. But in Greta Gerwig’s Brooke, you get the late 20s, when the youthful dreams you had are starting to not pan out.
But overwhelmingly, you get exactly the mix of humour and pathos that the feeling needs. Co-written between Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, you’re also getting it from two true masters of this distinct category of film who seem to understand the identity crisis of youth like no others.
Saint Francis (Alex Thompson, 2019)
Life takes us in unexpected ways, and part of the struggle of being in your 20s is just learning to accept that. No matter how much you plan, life will throw you off course. No matter how unsure you are, the world will move you along. No matter how long you feel, something will click into place.
Saint Francis is a film that depicts that beautifully. It’s both utterly gutwrenching and totally delightful, and it feels like the exact kind of big hug we could all often use. Following a 34-year-old who takes a job as a nanny while trying to figure things out, it’s another one that reflects back on the 20s while also accepting that no matter what age you are, there will always be a degree of uncertainty and resettlement.
Francis Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012)
I told you Baumbach and Gerwig were the masters of this. Obviously, this list could not be without Frances Ha, a movie which is arguably the ultimate quarter-life crisis, mid-20s movie.
“I’m so embarrassed. I’m not a real person yet,” Gerwig’s Frances declares. As all the friends around her seem to be figuring things out, settling down, finding jobs and finding partners, her character is utterly in flux and trying to stay dedicated to the youthful dreams she refuses to give up. The film sends the ultimate message that ‘it’s OK’ – it’s OK if you feel like you’re lagging behind, it’s OK if you don’t feel fully formed yet, everything works out in its own time.
The Worst Person In The World (Joachim Trier, 2021)
It could be argued that your 20s are exactly the time when you should be busy being the worst person in the world. Maybe you should be selfish and uncertain and difficult and maybe even a little unfaithful (although ideally not).
Joachim Trier’s Norwegian flick captures that so beautifully and so artistically. It is at once a romance, a comedy, and a drama, just as our mid-20s often are. Following Julie, a character so perfectly acted by Renate Reinsve, it’s a film that deals viscerally with the inner carnage of this period in a person’s life and the outer connections, damage, and disaster that can reflect into it.
The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
Perhaps the first quarter-life crisis film, The Graduate, was released in 1967. It was a cinematic breakthrough that helped bring indie and arthouse cinema into the mainstream. Part of that came down to the sheer relatability of this movie and the story of Benjamin Braddock, a post-graduate who has absolutely no idea what to do with himself.
In an era when the idea of a teenager was still relatively new, the idea of a confused 20-something seemed even newer, having previously been expected to be a fully functioning adult by the second a person turned 15 or so. But in The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman’s performance as a young man meandering through complex connections as a way to avoid figuring himself out captures precisely how it feels to be untethered and aimless now you’re dropped into the real world.
High Fidelity (Stephen Frears, 2000)
From a 1960s man to a modern man, High Fidelity feels like the ultimate male mid-20s movie. In a period of mourning after getting brutality dumped, Rob Gordon, played by John Cusack, hatches a strange plan in an attempt to take control of his life again. On a mission to figure out exactly how he’s going wrong, he decides to revisit all of his major heartbreaks and ex-girlfriends to get them to tell him where he’s going wrong.
Surely trying to do post-mortems of all your failed relationships is an epitomising messy mid-20s feeling? Right as dating begins to feel hopeless after a good few years and a good few scars racked up, the story in High Fidelity captures the awful itch of feeling like you might be doing something wrong but knowing it will only be truly scratch by a little bit of emotional chaos.
Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
If you’re looking for a film to soothe those chaotic mid-20s emotions, hit play on Amélie. In terms of the film’s plot, it really has nothing to do with age, as Amélie’s desire to help her community transgresses all of that.
But it’s in the characterisation of Amélie that a lot of relatable feelings are found. She’s shy and uncertain of the world, eager to have hope in it and the people around her, but still barely finding the courage to step out of the shadows of her sheltered youth to fully engage with her life. As she executes a bunch of schemes to help people out and slowly comes out of her shell through his interactions, it’s truly a film about finding the courage to open yourself up to the world.
Shiva Baby (Emma Seligman, 2020)
78 minutes of total early-20s carnage – that’s why Emma Seligman delivers with her film Shiva Baby. Based at a Shiva as an extended family and community gather to mourn a loss and celebrate a life, Rachel Sennot’s character of Danielle stands in the centre of it, facing up to the chaos of her life.
In that one room she has her parents and family, all pressuring her about what she’ll do after college. She also has the ex-girlfriend she’s still drawn to, the sugar daddy no one knows she has and the wife and baby of that sugar daddy, that she didn’t know existed. There’s a lot going on, and all of it is exactly the kind of situation that only a 21-year-old would wind up in.
Lost In Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation is another flick that considers complex quarter-life feelings, but from two sides. Charlotte, played by a young Scarlett Johansson, is only just in her 20s and is wondering, ‘Is this it?’ Stuck in Tokyo waiting around for her new husband after marrying young, in the quiet subtly of the film, it’s clear that this character is disappointed by the lack of fun she’s having, or the odd, anti-climatic feeling that often comes when your life doesn’t feel like how you were promised your 20s might.
But on the other hand, Bob Harris, played by Bill Murray, reflects how even if your 20s felt disappointing, chances are you’ll end up nostalgic for it, or maybe even that you’ll never quite shake that sense of being lost, no matter how old you are. As these two characters collide for a momentary encounter, their mission to find a second of fun and reprieve from the chaos in their head feels exactly like clinging to new loves and new friends to spark up this strange age.
Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018)
Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade feels like an odd choice for this list, given that Kayla Day, the film’s protagonist, is only 14. But there is something so beautiful and so comforting about this film that feels utterly ageless or even designed for people to reflect on from an older age.
As she prepares to move from middle school to high school, Kayla is exactly what most of us were as teenagers and perhaps still feel today; she’s shy, awkward, yearning to fit in, and desperate to be recognised in some way. As she moves through the trials of teenagehood, it’s a reminder of how that felt. People say your mid-20s bring about a second puberty where you somewhat feel like a new teenager again. So, as Kayla learns her lessons, there’s something to be learnt by confused 20-something-year-olds, too. If there’s anything to make you care more for your current self, it’s reflecting on how your younger self used to feel.
