Essential Arthouse: Girlfriends (1978)
A photographer and her girlfriend are roommates; when her roommate leaves, she must learn to live and build her life on her own. (PG, 88 min.)
Showtimes
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
7:00 PM
Essential Arthouse 2026
When her best friend and roommate abruptly moves out to get married, Susan (Melanie Mayron), trying to be an artist while making ends meet as a bar mitzvah photographer on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, finds herself adrift in both life and love. A wonder of American independent cinema by Claudia Weill (who, when she was admitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a director in 1981, was one of only four women ever to have received that honor), Girlfriends is a remarkably authentic vision of female relationships that has become a touchstone for makers of an entire subgenre of films and television shows about young women trying to make it in the big city. This 1970s New York time capsule captures the complexities and contradictions of women’s lives and relationships with wry humor and refreshing frankness. [Criterion]
Starring: Melanie Mayron, Anita Skinner, Eli Wallach, Christopher Guest, Bob Balaban
Director: Claudia Weill
Genre: Comedy, Drama
"A little indie gem and lo-fi miracle whose emotional force catches you glancingly."
— Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
"A film which is awfully easy to like: often funny, always moving and absolutely without airs."
— Noel Taylor, Ottawa Citizen
"The best American indie film you haven't seen - and the one you should go out of your way to watch as soon as you can."
— Sarah Ward, Concrete Playground
"Watching these two come to grips with the ghosts they've left in each other's lives is alternately exhilarating and devastating, but ultimately deeply satisfying."
— Peter Travers, Gannett Westchester
"Bring no preconceived notions to Girlfriends, a riveting first feature from director Claudia Weill that is a comedy, a social drama and a dead-center portrait of the 1970s."
— Candice Russell, Miami Herald
"Girlfriends is a unique experience: a wry and unflinching presentation of contemporary women facing up to universal conflicts and, for better or worse, making their own decisions."
— Martha DuBose, Sydney Morning Herald
"The phenomenon is all too rare: a film that seems too short rather than too long, a film that makes you want more and leaves you feeling that you would like to see it all over again next week."
— Colin Bennett, The Age (Australia)
"Girlfriends is easily the year's most sensitive, most profound, most moving in its handling of the female theme. It is funny and sad, cloying yet comforting -- and sentimental without ever being saccharine."
— Wayne Harada, Honolulu Advertiser
"Melanie Mayron is the center of the movie, visible almost continuously, and her performance is extraordinarily fine and right. It is a reading of such spontaneity and naturalness as to conceal its superbly disciplined professionalism."
— Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times
"It is technically brilliant with appealing softly lit photography, a musical soundtrack that adds so much to the poetic imagery and scenes that are woven together by the director with wonderful rhythm and care. And it has Melanie Mayron!"
— George Williams, Sacramento Bee
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