14. I Feel Pretty (2018)
Renee Bennett (played by Amy Schumer) is your stereotypical mid-thirties city girl who struggles with low self-esteem and a desire to get thinner, prettier, and sexier.
Most women have probably wished for a genie to grant them their dream body overnight, something which partially happens inI Feel Pretty… but with a fun twist!
Rather than actually looking any different, Renee hits her head and wakes up to find shefeelsdifferent. She sees the same curves as before, but now she perceives herself as beautiful—and acts accordingly.
The takeaway of this easy-to-watch comedy is that confidence really is key, that knowing your own worth will make others see it, too. That said, some viewers found the film’s initial suggestion that “bigger women are less” to be controversial.
13. Shallow Hal (2001)
When dealing with hot issues like body image and beauty, there’s bound to be some backlash.
Shallow Halgot criticism for the eating disorder that Gwyneth Paltrow’s plus-size body double, Ivy Snitzer, suffered after production. Of course, that wasn’t the intention of Peter and Bobby Farrelly.
In fact, the whole point ofShallow Halis to show how beauty comes from within, from one’s soul, from one’s personality, even if obesity is the punchline to the movie’s 114-minute long joke. (Jack Black’s character Hal Larson doesn’t know he’s been hypnotized into seeing people’s hearts manifested as physical beauty.)
Gwyneth Paltrow, already a controversial actress for her dangerous Goop detox diets, admitted her eyes were opened to the reality of fat shaming when she wore a fat suit for the movie.
The fact thatShallow Halbegan such a heated conversation says a lot about the nature of beauty in modern-day culture, but the film itself has some genuinely funny and heartwarming moments.
Related:The Best Movies About Eating Disorders
12. Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
We know fromToddlers & Tiarashow competitive mothers can get when entering their children in beauty pageants. These pageants are demonized for their damaging effects on identity and mental health, which Michael Patrick Jann mocks inDrop Dead Gorgeous.
The mockumentary satire takes place in a small Minnesota town, where a film crew are documenting the Sarah Rose Cosmetics American Teen Princess Pageant.
Kirsten Dunst and Denise Richards star as the film’s focal contestants, urged on by their domineering mothers. The title is more than just a catchphrase, and it takes a turn in a bizarre sequence of events.
Drop Dead Gorgeousnow has a cult following despite flopping at the box office, with modern viewers praising its unabashed trashiness and on-the-nose parodies.
Related:The Best Mockumentary Movies
11. Miss Congeniality (2000)
Gracie Hart (played by Sandra Bullock) is the epitome of the “not like other girls” archetype in Donald Petrie’s action comedy, but she’s not doing it to impress anyone. She’s genuinely just clumsy, awkward, and likes to drink beer.
Making up for her messiness is Gracie’s hard-as-nails career in the FBI. When a bomb scare threatens the Miss United States pageant, she undergoes a transformation to infiltrate a spot as a top contestant.
Miss Congenialityis predictable, formulaic, and lighthearted, but sometimes that’s just what you need. If you can get past the toxic food mindsets and bulimia jokes of the early-2000s, you might even enjoy the sequel inMiss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous.
10. Mean Girls (2004)
Regina George (played by Rachel McAdams) screaming at the top of her lungs—having just found out her diet bars are actually weight gain bars—is theMean Girlsequivalent of Michael Cera saying “Bread makes you fat?” inScott Pilgrim Vs. the World.
But you probably already knew that because who hasn’t seenMean Girls? It’s a classic choice for a girls movie night, iconic for its depiction of high school and girlhood during the 2000s.
A big part of being a teenage girl is how you look, especially if you’re in the popular “Plastics” clique. Rules include eating fewer than 30 percent calories from fat and only wearing pink on Wednesdays.
But even after perfecting their outer appearances to doll-like levels, the Plastics still find flaws in the mirror—“my hairline is so weird”—while mercilessly judging everyone around them.
Related:The Best Girlhood Movies About Being a Teenage Girl
9. Wonder (2017)
So far, this list has been dominated by pageant-competing teens and women looking for their glow-ups, butWonderhas a very different message to add in the discourse of modern beauty standards.
The clichéd Facebook mom quote “You can’t blend in when you were born to stand out” is given a much deeper meaning in Stephen Chbosky’s coming-of-age drama.
Jacob Tremblay is one of those rare child actors who astounded us from a young age, starring inRoomat just eight years old. Two years later, he played the fifth-grader Auggie inWonder.
Auggie has undergone 27 surgeries for his mandibulofacial dysostosis, a facial deformity that makes him a target for bullies. Depicting a deformity requires caution and sensitivity, but it’s safe in the hands of Chbosky, who previously brought usThe Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Kids can be cruel, butWonderreminds us not to assume thatallkids are cruel. In fact, their innocent minds that haven’t yet been tainted by years of social conditioning can make them more able to sense the inner beauty of others.
8. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
Bridget Jones (played by Renée Zellweger) is a frazzled thirty-something English woman who drunk-cries to “All By Myself” while waiting for her dream man, her dream job, and her dream dress size.
Back in 2001, most viewers accepted Bridget’s obsession with weight loss as normal. Zellweger even gained 30 pounds for the role! In retrospect, though, Bridget is actually a slim, healthy woman who inadvertently fed into a generation of female insecurity.
This all sounds pretty heavy for a rom-com about a woman bumbling about London,Bridget Jones’s Diaryremains a classic slice of sarcastic British cinema, co-starring Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.
Adapted from Helen Fielding’s hilarious 1996 novel,Bridget Jones’s Diaryhas all the crude wit and charm of a Richard Curtis movie with a surprisingly realistic central performance from an American actress.
7. Marie Antoinette (2006)
Marie Antoinette’s famous remark “Let them eat cake” accurately sums up her ignorance of the poor living conditions of her people. It was an ignorance that ultimately led her head into a guillotine.
Sofia Coppola—known for her dreamy, feminine, pastel visuals—capitalized on this infamous reputation of hers when she directed the Queen of France’s embellished biopic.
Marie Antoinetteis supposed to be watched with a pinch of salt, exaggerating Antoinette’s famed lavish lifestyle in the run up to the French Revolution in 1789.
This exaggeration is chiefly relayed through Antoinette’s aesthetic, who surrounds herself with colorful frosted cakes and flower bouquets while lounging around in extravagant dresses.
Kirsten Dunst played the young royal with a general focus on Antoinette as a trend-setter and beauty icon of the 18th century.
Related:The Best Movies About Royalty and Monarchy, Ranked
6. Pretty in Pink (1986)
Pretty in Pinkis a cornerstone of the “Brat Pack” era made up of 80s teen classics. Molly Ringwald features in many of them, sometimes as the “Princess”—or, in this case, the unpopular outcast.
Pretty in Pinkdepicts a more simplistic divide within the high school hierarchy than seen in, say,Mean Girls. At Andie Walsh’s Chicago school, it’s simply the “richies” versus everyone else.
Because Andie lives with her single, working-class father, she has to make all of her own second-hand clothing. Luckily, she’s good at it! And even luckier, she loves it. (This alone makesPretty in Pinka staple movie for any fashion enthusiast.)
But director Howard Deutch goes beyond that to examine how class, income, upbringing, family, and school dynamics all play a part in whether or not you’re perceived as “pretty.”
Related:The Best 80s Chick Flick Movies Still Worth Watching
5. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Edward Scissorhandsis another film that reveals the inner beauty of a conventionally “unattractive” protagonist, and this one focuses on how lonely and alienating it can be for such people.
Sure enough, if we saw Edward (played by Johnny Depp) in real life with his paper-white skin, deranged hair, and blades for fingers, we’d run a mile in the other direction! But this is cinema and you have to remember that Tim Burton is behind this film.
Edward Scissorhandsis one of the Gothic director’s rare films to use bright, poppy colors. Well, except for Edward, of course. Against the candy-colored houses and peach-fuzz wardrobes, Edward’s black-buckle suit and haunted mansion stand out like an eye sore.
Despite his scary appearance, Edward is a shy little boy: innocent, quiet, and unfamiliar with the judgmental, rigid world of adults.
Once Edward’s Florida town learns of his impressive hairdressing skills, they accept him—but only to use him. If only someone could see beneath the surface of this scarred, knife-wielding humanoid, they might just find his heart…
Related:The Best Magical Realism Movies That Mix Fantasy and the Real World
4. Barbie (2023)
Barbieis a showcase of perfection. Greta Gerwig’s feminist blockbuster opens to Margot Robbie in Barbieland, where nothing ever goes wrong and there’s no such thing as a bad hair day.
The catch? None of it’s real.
In a moment of existential realization, Barbie becomes self-aware of her surface-level lifestyle. After noticing—in horror—that she now has flat feet and cellulite, Barbie must choose between the high heel or the sandal, the red pill or the blue pill.
It was already obvious from the trailer thatBarbiewould be a tale about unrealistic beauty standards and the patriarchy (a system that Ryan Gosling’s Ken brings back to Barbieland from the real world).
However, Gerwig goes even further and creates a multi-layered metanarrative on the intricacies, pitfalls, and wonders of the modern world through the lens of a touching mother-daughter subplot.
Ultimately, Barbie learns to reclaim her female power—cellulite and all—while reinforcing the idea that it’s okay to ugly-cry, it’s okay to feel ugly, and it’s also okay to feel pretty.
Related:The Best Movies Based on Real Toys and Games, Ranked
3. Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
“God, when I meet you, I’m gonna be pretty if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll be a beautiful angel.” Those are the heartbreaking words spoken by Rayon inDallas Buyers Club, which helped secure for Jared Leto an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
On reflection,Dallas Buyers Clubshould have cast a transgender actor to play Rayon, but Leto’s career-defining performance can’t be denied. He almost steals the show from Matthew McConaughey’s version of the real-life smuggler Ron Woodroof! Almost.
Leto leaned into his role of a transwoman diagnosed with HIV, honoring a character who refuses to give into her illness. Rayon yearns for nothing more than a life of feminine beauty, a simple dream in the face of a ravaging illness (coupled with a heroin addiction).
The innocence of this yearning—especially in a society that holds appearances so highly—makes Rayon’s time in front of the mirror feel sadly poetic rather than vain.
Related:The Best Movies About Cancer and Terminal Illnesses
2. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
We’re circling back to beauty pageants again inLittle Miss Sunshine, but this one’s slightly different than the rest. Instead of a hungry, lip-gloss-wearing teen, Olive (played by Abigail Breslin) is a seven-year-old girl who loves ice cream and wears kneepads.
Oblivious to the realities of child beauty pageants and body image issues, Olive is choreographed by her grandfather to perform the song “Super Freak.”
Olive is the last remnant of childlike innocence (symbolized by the color yellow) among her loving but dysfunctional family, who agree to drive her to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California. So innocent, she’ll break your heart when asking, “Grandpa, am I pretty?”
Upon arriving at the hypersexualized pre-teen pageant, Olive refuses to give into beauty norms and shines in her own way. Even her moody, Nietzsche-reading older brother Dwayne cheers her on!
Related:The Best Competition Movies of All Time
1. The Elephant Man (1980)
The aforementionedWonderis basically the Gen Z version ofThe Elephant Man, which is a tragically true story about a Victorian circus freak who was taken in by a kind doctor.
The Elephant Manis about the only David Lynch film that doesn’t feature his trademark surrealism and dream logic. But even when he’s working in an atypical genre, Lynch still proves a master.
John Hurt gave his greatest performance as John Merrick, who toiled with a severe form of (what experts believe was) Proteus syndrome. Enslaved under the stage name “The Elephant Man,” Merrick was so deformed he couldn’t even lie down to sleep in case of asphyxiation.
Despite being such a pure soul, Merrick was abused and exploited because of his looks. The image of him walking Victorian streets with a ghost-like sheet over his head to shroud his shame is made even more haunting by the fact it’s a true story.
Thankfully, Frederick Treves (played by Anthony Hopkins) showed Merrick the kindness he deserved, which overwhelmed Merrick and brought him—and us—to tears.
Related:The Best Circus Movies and Carnival Movies, Ranked
