I Saw the TV Glow (2024) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by mesh509 ★★★★★ 43

  My name is Julie. I am a trans woman. And tonight is the first time I’ve said those words to anyone other than myself.

  I first started questioning my gender identity around my sophom*ore year of high school. It had never crossed my mind when I was younger; I thought I was comfortable with my identity, until very gradually becoming overwhelmed with the feeling I wasn’t. Looking back in hindsight, I think I had always felt uncomfortable in my own skin to some degree, but I never knew how to put a finger on it. I slowly started to realize I’d be happier as a girl, but the more confident I became in that assertion, the more scared I became…

• Review by 24framesofnick ★★★★★ 86

  I don’t even know what to say

  I find myself reverting to someone I never was. A feeling unburied by waves of nostalgic torment that hasn’t been a part of my life

  I wanna curl up in a little ball and lock away the world, I don’t want to speak about what’s going or process a moment

  Even while writing these very words I feel shaky and cold but something is trying to bring me comfort. I feel like I’ve been crying for years but I haven’t shed a tear

  This is something I desperately need to rewatch the moment I can. I selfishly want a theater all to myself to let the screen speak to me and only me. I need this on in my room without any burden of the world

  Whether this is what I’m supposed to feel or against I couldn’t tell you

  Thank you Jane

• Review by Liz

  The horror of a high school acquaintance suddenly re-entering your life with a nonbinary haircut

• Review by Zoë Rose Bryant ★★★★½ 14

  “time wasn’t right. it was moving too fast. i was 19, and then i was 20, and then i was 21. like chapters skipped over in a dvd. i told myself ‘this isn’t normal. this isn’t normal. this isn’t how life is supposed to feel.’”

  was stunned speechless for a few seconds after finishing this one. don’t know what else to say other than that it got under my skin in a way few films ever have, with its nightmarish sights and sounds already seared into my memory. knew this one would hit hard for Obvious Reasons (🏳️‍⚧️), but even after going in with that awareness, i still wasn’t fully prepared for how hard the hit would be. a devastating…

• Review by coffee ★★★★½ 1

  the horror inherent to knowing who you are and being too scared to truly let yourself come into it, the terror of spending every day wondering if it’s too late for you, if you’ve wasted every waking day deceiving yourself. there’s a certain sort of neurodivergent obsession (with works of art you gravitate to early on in youth) portrayed here to such pitch perfection, the awkwardness of trying to relay that passion to other people, trying to make yourself understand how it’s changed you… it’s going to make so many people Seen for the first time and i could not be happier for how this is about to change their lives. enormous, truly singular. a total f*cking face melter. will have to sit on it for roughly the next eternity. if We’re All Going To The World’s Fair was the beta, this is the final release, an aesthetic opus of nostalgia dysphoria ghost horror. a masterpiece maybe?

• Review by esther ★★★★★ 32

  a man lives in a town that's beginning to flood. when he gets the evacuation notice, he decides to stay put. as the streets around him fill with water, a neighbor paddles by in a boat.

  "get in," the neighbor says, "i'll get you out of here."
  "no need," the man replies. "i've been praying, and god will save me."

  eventually, the flood waters rise so high that his house is underwater. he's forced to sit on the roof and wait for salvation. an emergency rescue boat sees him, and speeds over.

  "get in," the rescuer says, "i'll get you out of here."
  "no need," the man replies. "i've been praying, and god will save me."

  the flood rises so…

• Review by bb ★★★★ 13

  Donnie Darko for they/thems

• Review by clementine ★★★★½ 14

  so good and amazing but i laughed when the flashback scenes ended and it said “two years later” and the black child actor suddenly turned biracial

• Review by Jamie Lauren Keiles 6

  horror movie about how if u don’t transition ur lips will eventually become soooo chapped

• Review by Ronnie Dinnel ★★½ 4

  This is what my mom thought would happen to me if I watched SpongeBob

• Review by davidehrlich ★★★★½

  Sinister and liberating in equal measure (and often at the same time), Jane Schoenbrun’s ultra-lo-fi “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” leveraged the inherent loneliness of webcams and the performative danger of online creepypasta into a haunting portrait of the potentially dysphoric relationship between screens and identity in the internet age. The kind of sui generis shot in the dark that feels like it could only have been made by someone who wasn’t sure if anyone would see it, Schoenbrun’s first movie is one of the rare coming-of-age films that manages to embody the full dread and possibility of self-recognition, and for that reason it almost immediately resonated with an audience of people — trans people in particular —…

• Review by Colin ★★

  This is probably one of the most frustrating films I’ve seen in 5+ years. Good god, it’s gorgeous and has a super fun score and soundtrack. But it flounders its concept with an overly pretentious narrative and dialogue, bringing back memories of when im14andthisisdeep was popular.

  The TV/film blurring into reality concept is a fun one, and I venture to say there’s no definitive film version of the idea. So when I saw a up-and-coming director tied with an A24 horror version of the concept, I was on board. The first hour of the film is great. The TV show the film invents is great and our two leads watching it in the basem*nt felt really cozy and nostalgic, a…