Hayley Kiyoko’s ‘Girls Like Girls’ Hits Theaters June 18

Hayley Kiyoko’s directorial debut, ‘Girls Like Girls,’ arrives in theaters this weekend via Focus Features, based on her 2015 landmark music video and set in 2006. The film follows grieving teen Coley (Maya da Costa) as she falls for Sonya (Myra Molloy), expan

Hayley Kiyoko’s ‘Girls Like Girls’ lands in theaters this weekend with a strange double gravity: it’s a debut feature from a beloved queer artist, and it’s also the big-screen arrival of a viral 2015 music video that once felt like it belonged to a very specific corner of the internet.

Kiyoko—35-year-old singer-songwriter and the subject of a fan nickname that calls her “Lesbian Jesus”—directs the story. drawing from her own landmark video. first released in 2015. Today. that original ‘Girls Like Girls’ music video sits at hovering around 163 million views on YouTube. and it became a kind of Tumblr-era phenomenon that helped shape sapphic culture in the digital age.

The film’s appeal wasn’t just cultural; it also carried into books. In 2023, Kiyoko wrote a best-selling YA novel about the characters from ‘Girls Like Girls,’ inspired by the same sun-soaked fairytale that follows two teen girls falling in love amid suburban longing and hidden desire.

Now Focus Features is translating that world to the big screen—an increasingly sharp business logic for studios chasing internet audiences in real-world spaces. But the timing also feels personal for many viewers. When the track and music video debuted in 2015, same-sex marriage had only just become legal nationwide in the United States. Today. more LGBTQ Americans are willing to pay more for safe and inclusive experiences. with civil liberties and onscreen representation often feeling less secure than they once did.

‘Girls Like Girls’ ©Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection

Still, the leap from bite-sized online story to feature-length movie doesn’t always land cleanly. As a film. ‘Girls Like Girls’ plays more like dreamy devotion than like a standalone work staking out major new territory. It doesn’t feel built solely to announce Kiyoko as a director; it feels built to comfort the core fanbase that grew up with the song.

The result is a nostalgic period romance. In 2015, Kiyoko co-directed the earlier ‘Girls Like Girls’ music video with Austin S. Winchell. and the movie clearly carries that same connection—though the earlier charm doesn’t consistently scale up to a larger canvas. The script. co-written by Kiyoko and actress Stefanie Scott (who also appeared in the music video). struggles to build an emotionally rich world that many longtime viewers will bring to the theater with them.

Set in 2006. ‘Girls Like Girls’ follows grieving teen Coley (Maya da Costa) as she moves to Oregon to live with her estranged dad (Zach Braff). There. Coley falls for Sonya (Myra Molloy). the magnetic but emotionally unavailable girl who anchors the movie’s most recognizable visuals and broad strokes. Among the recurring motifs: shimmering pools. yellow bikes with butterfly handles. and rushed glances over tall fields of grass—image language Kiyoko’s audience already knows by heart.

The film underlines the romance with a recurring piano riff from the namesake song. but Kiyoko also expands the retro musical influences beyond the idea of turning ‘Girls Like Girls’ into a feature-length playlist of her own greatest hits. Needle drops range from Imogen Heap to Tegan and Sarah, shaping a wider aughts catalog. The nostalgia can feel tailored both to Millennials who came of age alongside Kiyoko and to Gen Z listeners currently hooked on the Y2K nostalgia craze.

When it’s working best, the movie blends melodramatic juice—compared here to ‘The O.C.’—with a light brushing of melancholia reminiscent of Sofia Coppola’s ‘Virgin Suicides.’

Da Costa, meanwhile, is particularly effective at conveying the central emotional shift of young queer love: the realization that an intimate, important friendship has turned complicated. Even when the scripted beats stretch too broad, her expressiveness has gravity enough to do real work.

‘Girls Like Girls’ ©Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection

Sonya, though, is the sticking point. Through no fault of Molloy. the story makes her a frustrating love interest. and the chemistry between Coley and Sonya rarely burns hot enough to justify the pain the film keeps leaning into. For viewers who aren’t deeply invested in Kiyoko’s ‘Girls Like Girls’ lore. the movie can feel like it leaves them outside the circle—especially because even the longest version of the story still doesn’t fully close that gap.

There’s also a recurring tension in how ‘Girls Like Girls’ frames desire early on. The film leans on visual shorthand that emphasizes bodies. beauty. and desirability through comedy—beats that feel surprisingly indebted to heterosexual coming-of-age movies. Representation itself isn’t the issue; queer women have every right to occupy the same romantic space in film straight actors have held for decades. The problem is how consistently the film tries to borrow the grammar of other stories instead of building its own.

The movie begins to crack in the best way when Coley and Sonya argue about their mutual attraction. An intense confrontation pulls adolescent feelings into the open and stands out as one of Kiyoko’s most inspired moments of directing, partly because it risks taking a clearer perspective.

As that central relationship weakens, the screenplay grows more complex and rewarding. The story starts forcing Sonya to confront her exhausting boyfriend. Levon Hawke’s character. while also pushing Coley to connect with her father—who. for whatever reason. spends a lot of time hand-making turquoise jewelry. Outside of shared attraction and decidedly lesbian hobbies. Braff and da Costa don’t always feel like they’re operating in the same cinematic universe. but family scenes do help ground the tearjerker in themes of shame and self-acceptance. Those universal questions land harder through Coley’s arc than the on-again-off-again fling that runs alongside her growth.

The movie’s emotional relationship to its audience has changed with time, too. The account of a gay viewer here traces it back to earlier eras—when a story like this would have “absolutely wrecked” them. Femme-for-femme romances from ‘Glee’ and early CW dramas like ‘Riverdale’ mattered during an imperfect transitional period for lesbian media. and ‘Girls Like Girls’ arriving then would likely have been embraced with open arms. Even the memory of hotties making out in the AMC elevator after the movie appears as a reminder of how communal the experience once felt.

‘Girls Like Girls’ ©Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection

Quirier cinema has evolved over the past decade, and so have the ways people read stories like this. Leaving the screening described here. the feeling wasn’t immediate—yet many other fans lingered in the lobby and parking lot. processing the movie and its ending together. Their reactions didn’t magically change the reviewer’s own evaluation. but they did underline what Kiyoko wanted to preserve: community.

Unlike auteur-driven projects that often center their own mythology, ‘Girls Like Girls’ also keeps its distance from Kiyoko’s celebrity. One of the film’s decisions is that she never casts herself. instead building a tribute to an imaginary place her followers inhabited long before the rest of the world took notice. That loyalty can be admirable even when the execution doesn’t fully enchant.

And if ‘Girls Like Girls’ gives queer cinephiles an excuse to kiss at the movies in 2026, Coley and Sonya may have finally accomplished what they set out to do—at least in the way audiences will remember.

Grade: B-

From Focus Features, ‘Girls Like Girls’ is in theaters on June 18.

Hayley Kiyoko Girls Like Girls Focus Features Maya da Costa Myra Molloy Zach Braff Stefanie Scott Austin S. Winchell Lesbian Jesus queer film sapphic romance 2015 music video Tumblr era June 18 theaters