Generation Defining Comedy Starring Hollywood’s Most Stunning Women Could Not Be Ruined By Tepid Reboots

Sometimes, a comedy defines an entire generation, leaving everyone who sees it quoting its every iconic punchline for the rest of their lives. As it so happens, one of the best genre-defining comedies of the 21st century also happens to star some of the most stunning women in Hollywood. That movie is 2004’s Mean Girls, and you can now stream this timeless teen tale on Hulu.

The plot of Mean Girls is that a former homeschool girl is trying to adjust to life in high school and quickly befriends the resident outcast. The newest additions to her geek squad warn her about “the Plastics,” a group of popular girls who rule the school with both beauty and brutality. The new girl decides to infiltrate the Plastics and destroy them from within, but when this good girl takes a walk down the pink side, it may forever dominate her destiny.

Mean Girls is helmed by Mark Waters, a very capable director who is otherwise best known for the 2003 film Freaky Friday. Arguably, though, the real secret sauce of this movie is Tina Fey: in addition to starring in a very memorable role in the movie, she wrote arguably the funniest script of the 21st century. Every punchline has fangs and every character has an arc, and the impossibly tight writing will remind you of 30 Rock in the best possible ways.

For all the talent Mean Girls has behind the camera, it has even more onscreen, starting with Rachel McAdams (otherwise best known for The Notebook) as the ruthless leader of the Plastics. She is joined by Lacey Chabert (otherwise best known for Lost In Space) and Amanda Seyfried (best known for Mamma Mia!) as two sidekicks as ditzy as they are obsequious. Meanwhile, our protagonist’s nerdy-but-lovable companions are played by Daniel Franzese (otherwise best known for the TV show Looking) and Lizzy Caplan (best known for Cloverfield)

While the entire cast shines, the best performance in Mean Girls comes from Lindsay Lohan as the movie’s plucky, perky lead character. This was the role of a lifetime for this talented performer, and to this day, it is the best movie she has ever been in. And she is perfect in this role, effortlessly switching between saccharine sweetness and mean-spirited mischief over the course of this iconic teen comedy.

Moviegoers were all too happy to make “fetch” happen, and Mean Girls earned $130.5 million against a budget of about $18 million. This success led to a tepid ABC Family sequel, Mean Girls 2, and a killer musical written by original movie writer and star, Tina Fey. That stage production has since been adapted into a 2024 film that is perfect for anyone who can’t get enough of this quirky universe and its memorably mean characters.

On Rotten Tomatoes, critics decided that the limit does not exist for this spunky teen comedy. It has a rating of 84 percent, with critics praising the movie for its brilliant ensemble cast and sharp-tongued screenplay. They also loved the film for how it subverts this familiar genre, showing us the triumphs and travails of high school life through a fiercely feminine lens.

Will you agree that Mean Girls is a snappy, snarky masterpiece, or is this one movie whose name you’d rather write in the Burn Book? You won’t know until you pop on your most comfortable sweatpants, dust off your mathlete credentials, and stream this classic comedy on Hulu. Afterwards, you may want to banish all lesser comedies from your streaming queue.

After all, they don’t even go here!