10 Things I Hate About You

Every time I watch this movie I get slightly concerned that it's not as amazing as I remembered. The first half or so is a really solid high school movie, but then it shifts into another gear so quickly it's almost overwhelming how charming, thoughtful, hilarious, and romantic it becomes. That next gear is named Heath Ledger and holy fuck was he an incredible actor. The adjectives I used to describe the second half of 10 Things are (obviously not) coincidentally exactly how I'd describe his performance. He was a truly generational talent the likes of which I don't think we've seen since.

Now I know I oversimplified it by literally inferring the only reason this movie morphs into a masterpiece is bc of Ledger, but I was lying bc bizarrely every single aspect of it is firing on all cylinders for like the final 30 minutes. Stiles is really great in this too and her performance during that iconic scene at the end always gets to me. It's just impossible not to leave this movie with a smile on ur face even if u were lowkey tearing up a few mins ago and trying to hide it from ur parents.