10 Movies Like Miller’s Girl To Watch After Jenna Ortega’s Thriller

Summary

• Thrillers like Miller’s Girl captivate audiences with forbidden romance and moral ambiguity, sparking conversations and creating suspense.
• American Beauty weaves together lies and desires in a man’s life, celebrating complex storytelling which led to its Oscar success.
• Saltburn and The Crush explore deceit and revenge themes in unexpected ways, showcasing subversive storytelling and talented casts.

Miller’s Girl caused a lot of controversy due to the age gap between the stars, Martin Freeman and Jenna Ortega, but it’s not the first thriller to make people squirm. Thrillers are popular for a variety of reasons, from captivating the audience and putting them on edge, to causing a stir and sparking conversations. As a result, many movies in this genre get a lot of attention for better and for worse.

However, Miller’s Girl is, at its core, a story about forbidden romance, attraction, and blurred lines of morality. Freeman plays a teacher, who forms an unusually close bond with one of his student, played by Ortega. These feelings are reciprocated, and while the pair may hesitate to act on their feelings, ultimately, it has significant consequences on their lives. The film also depicts a narrative of spite and revenge, which sees characters turn on each other in unexpected ways.

10 American Beauty

American Beauty is an Oscar winning film from 1999 starring Kevin Spacey as a man who becomes disillusioned with his life. As he chooses to make drastic changes and alter the course of his life, he finds himself infatuated with a young girl who is a friend of his teenage daughters. The movie weaves together several threads with people in the small neighborhood, as lies, betrayals, and desires are brought to light.

The film’s similarities with Miller’s Girl are evident, but unlike the latter, American Beauty was widely praised and celebrated. The actors, and the visuals, along with the writing and direction were heaped with praise, resulting in five separate Oscar wins. American Beauty takes the ideas and concepts which Miller’s Girl tried to express and places them in a clear context of a man’s fracturing life, and the community that he resides in.

9 Saltburn

Saltburn takes the concepts of deceit and revenge and places them within a contemporary British setting. When Oliver Quick, played by Barry Keoghan, attends one of the most prestigious and elite universities in the UK, he struggles to fit in with his more well off peers. However, he eventually forms a connection with a popular and wealthy young man named Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi).

The film establishes the characters and settings in a way that draws out certain feelings of sympathy from the audience, but over time, the story takes unexpected turns. The subversive storytelling, and the characters gradually revealing new and opposite sides to themselves, is truly spectacular. The film has a similar feeling to Miller’s Girl as they both go into their final act, and it’s an incredible thriller.

8 The Crush

The Crush came out in 1993, starring a young Alicia Silverstone opposite The Princess Bride star, Cary Elwes. When a handsome writer (Elwes) moves into a beautiful guest house to help maintain the Forrester’s property, he finds himself entangled in an intense infatuation with their 14-year-old daughter (Silverstone). While initially, he is flattered and receptive to her flirtations, he quickly shuts down her advances, clarifying that there will be no relationship.

He then begins dating a woman from his work, but his young admirer struggles to accept that they are not going to be together. The film is a psychological thriller with much in common with Miller’s Girl. Exploring forbidden romance, and the fallout from such a dangerous connection. It is also the film debut of Silverstone which helped launch her career, and features a wonderful, talented cast.

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6 Cruel Intentions

Cruel Intentions has some distinct differences from Miller’s Girl, and several interesting similarities. The film revolves around a pair of entitled and wealthy young people who enjoy toying with people’s lives. They are step-siblings, whose parents recently married, and the young man, Sebastian, has an intense attraction towards his step-sister, Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar). When a new girl moves into town, and her virtuous nature is well known in the community, Katryn makes a bet with her brother.

If Sebastian manages to sleep with the new girl (Reese Witherspoon), Kathryn will have sex with him. However, if he fails to do so, she wins his luxury car. The movie follows a line of deciet and treachery, with complex emotions entangled in the story. However, unlike Miller’s Girl, the characters at the heart of the story set out with cruel intentions from the beginning.

5 Lady Bird

Lady Bird is a comedy drama from 2017, starring Saoirse Ronan, and written and directed by Greta Gerwig in her directorial debut. The story is largely focused on the central character, played by Ronan, maturing and going through the regular stresses and dramas of growing up. However, the tone, and the visual style of the film resemble the one present in Miller’s Girl. While the movie doesn’t dive into forbidden love, there is heartbreak, growth, acceptance, and highly intelligent characters.

Both Miller’s Girl and Lady Bird feature beautiful and engaging visuals, and characters with aspirations that go far beyond their small town. Both stories are also witty and engaging in their style of comedy and the way the characters are designed, with well-defined personalities and frequent shifts in the ways that each character is presented. All of this combines to make a thoroughly compelling story, with engaging characters and a twist around every corner.

4 Easy A

Again, pushing more into the realm of comedy drama, Easy A was the breakout role for actress Emma Stone early in her career when it was released in 2010. The film is a contemporary adaptation of the 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter. Stone is a teenage girl who suddenly develops a reputation for promiscuity. Despite the rumors about her promiscuity being false, Olive (Stone), leans into the stories and chooses to cash in on her reputation.

The movie features a compelling and highly intelligent protagonist, and a story that builds up tension and drama around lies and deceptions. Like Miller’s Girl, romance is a prominent central theme in the plot of the story, with other themes about promiscuity and indecent actions. However, the story keeps everything age appropriate, which immediately alters a significant part of what is at the core of the story overall.

3 The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a 2012 movie based on a novel of the same name from 1999. The story follows a young man who has had clinical depression from a young age. This protagonist, played by Logan Lerman, is undergoing a huge change in his life when he begins high school, and it could potentially be a moment that causes him to retreat from society entirely, or to be brave and embrace a new chapter in his life with his head held high. Fortunately, he befriends two seniors whose passion for life help him come out of his shell.

Emma Watson and Ezra Miller, before many controversies arose, play the seniors who show the protagonist how to grab life with enthusiasm and overcome the darker thoughts and past that plague him. The film takes an honest look at a very difficult and exhausting aspect of growing up, and some of the worst challenges that can come with it. While the central concept may be different, the movie has a similar aesthetic in terms of young intelligent people pursuing greater knowledge and dreams, with a particular love of literature.

2 The Edge Of Seventeen

The Edge of Seventeen stars Hailee Steinfeld in a film about loss and growing up. The comedy drama follows a young woman who recently lost her father and finds her entire life thrown into disarray. Throughout the film, Nadine (Steinfeld) is faced with challenges that she struggles to overcome in the process of growing up. While the film has similar themes, and the inclusion of dark humor and more mellow scenes, there are also stark differences.

Both films share a commonality with a young woman who is forced into maturing at an accelerated rate due to the absence of parental supervision in their lives. Both Nadine and Cairo (Ortega) find solace and comfort by engaging with a teacher who gives them special attention, and makes them feel seen. However, Nadine’s teacher never creates a romantic or ambiguous relationship, which helps to preserve their relationship and keep it strictly platonic.

1 The Idea Of You

The Idea of You came out after Miller’s Girl as a Prime Original film starring Anne Hathaway as a single mother who forms a romantic relationship with a much younger man. The relationship is made more complicated by the fact that the young man is a lead singer for an incredibly popular boy band, which makes their relationship breaking news. Despite the difference in age and life experience, the pair form a passionate romantic relationship together.

The tone of The Idea of You is much lighter and brighter than Miller’s Girl, but there is still a core relationship which is formed that feels inherently taboo. Despite the lack of other moral factors, such as Hathaway’s character being single, unlike Freeman’s Mr. Miller, there is a lot of attention directed at the couple due to their public relationship. It provides an interesting contrast to Miller’s Girl, and several similarities which are worth exploring within the context of both films.