At its core, Girls Like Girls is a story about first love: the butterflies, the confusion, and the exhilarating uncertainty of being young, all unfolding in the warm glow of 2006 Oregon.
The film follows Coley (Maya Da Costa), a teenager who moves to a small Oregon town to live with her estranged father. There, she meets the charismatic Sonya (Myra Molloy), her boyfriend Trenton, and the rest of their close-knit friend group. What begins as an innocent fascination soon evolves into something deeper as Coley finds herself pulled into Sonya’s orbit and navigating feelings she can’t quite put into words.
But for Hayley Kiyoko, this isn’t simply a movie adaptation. It’s the culmination of a story she’s spent more than a decade building.
A Decade-Long Journey From Song to Feature Film
What began as Kiyoko’s 2015 song eventually became a life-changing music video that has amassed more than 163 million views on YouTube and helped define an entire generation of queer internet culture. Years later, she expanded the story into a bestselling young adult novel before bringing it to theaters as a feature film.
There are very few LGBTQ+ stories that have been allowed to evolve this way, growing alongside their audience and adapting to meet them at different stages of life.
That longevity is part of what makes Girls Like Girls feel so significant. At a time when queer stories continue to fight for visibility and, in particular, sapphic stories are still too often overlooked, the film serves as a reminder that these stories deserve investment, longevity, and the opportunity to become cultural landmarks.
Kiyoko recognizes how special this moment is after spending 10 years building this world.
“It feels so incredibly special that they have allowed us to release this movie during Pride, during June,” she told us. “It’s a summer film. We have a theatrical release. This summer’s for the gays.”
And if she could leave audiences with one message for lesbian summer?
“To go see Girls Like Girls.”
Hayley Kiyoko Created the Representation She Never Had
One of the most moving parts of our conversation came when Kiyoko reflected on the origins of her own artistic journey.
So many people have felt seen by Girls Like Girls over the years, but Kiyoko didn’t have any media that served that purpose growing up. Instead, she had to create it herself.
“I think it was the lack of representation that really helped form my decision to create art,” she explained.
She also shared that she started writing music because she “didn’t have anyone to talk to about my crushes.”
That full-circle moment is embedded throughout the film itself. Kiyoko revealed that she revisited ideas she first wrote at 16 and 17 years old and incorporated them into the soundtrack. She also shared that “Falling Through” includes a sample from a demo she recorded as a teenager.
“It goes back to necessity… I wasn’t able to get the music that I initially wanted and therefore had to create the music for the film.”
In many ways, that statement perfectly summarizes her career. If the stories didn’t exist, she made them herself.
Why the Smallest Moments Leave the Biggest Impact
The film also highlights one of its most impactful ideas: that sometimes the smallest moments end up meaning the most.
Instead of relying on grand romantic speeches, Girls Like Girls embraces the subtle interactions that define so many first crushes. The nervous glances. The awkward tension. The split-second moments that somehow end up meaning everything.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty with being young and in love. You’re like, ‘Am I overthinking it? Am I going crazy?’ This movie is showing you aren’t going crazy. It exists.”
One example that immediately stood out to the cast was a scene in the back of a car where the characters’ knees touch.
It’s a tiny moment, but that’s precisely the point.
“I think that’s the most beautiful thing about the human experience is like we speak so much without language all the time,” Molloy said, adding that the film ultimately feels like “Hayley’s POV put on film.”
Da Costa also highlighted why those smaller interactions are especially meaningful for young queer audiences.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty with being young and in love. They’re like, ‘Am I overthinking it? Am I going crazy?’”
Her answer is the entire reason this story resonates.
“This movie is showing you aren’t going crazy. It exists.”
More than anything, Girls Like Girls is about being seen.
It’s about validating the little crushes and complicated feelings that can feel impossible to explain when you’re young. It’s about reminding queer audiences that their experiences aren’t imaginary, dramatic, or isolated.
It’s also about allowing more people to see themselves reflected on screen, particularly young people of color who don’t often get to be centered in sweeping, joyful first-love stories.
And perhaps that’s the greatest achievement of Girls Like Girls. Not that it endured for 10 years, but that it continued to grow until it became exactly the kind of story younger generations deserve to inherit.
Because queer women deserve more than subtext.
They deserve songs. They deserve books. They deserve movies. And they deserve entire worlds built around their experiences.
Girls Like Girls stars Maya da Costa, Myra Molloy, Levon Hawke, and Zach Braff. The film is directed by Hayley Kiyoko from a screenplay she co-wrote with Stefanie Scott, based on a story by Kiyoko and Chloe Okuno. The feature is produced by Marc Platt, Adam Siegel, Michael Philip, Jason Moring, Richard Alan Reid, Katie McNicol, and Dee Best.
Girls Like Girls is now playing in theaters. Hell yeah!