Join us for a trip down memory lane with a Noughties Night In
BY ELLA GAUCI, IMAGES © 2025 CTMG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Did you really grow up queer in the noughties if you didn’t find yourself cosying up to your best friend — who you may or may not have been hopelessly in love with — watching films like 50 First Dates or Riding In Cars With Boys? While everyone else was swooning over noughties heartthrobs like Mark Ruffalo in 13 Going On 30 or Penn Badgley in Easy A, some of us were secretly captivated by the Drew Barrymores and Julia Robertses of this world.
For many queer people, particularly sapphics, traditional romcoms didn’t reflect our experiences. There were rarely love stories that felt like our own. Instead, we found ourselves drawn to the stories that centred women, not necessarily because they were explicitly queer, but because they carried undercurrents of queer longing, independence and self-discovery.
That’s why the Noughties Night In collection feels like such a joyride down memory lane. Films like Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Burlesque and Eat, Pray, Love may not have marketed themselves as queer cinema, but for those of us growing up queer in the 2000s, they hit a little differently.Â
Take Eat, Pray, Love, the Julia Roberts-led classic based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir. For years, we fantasised about ditching our daily grind to follow in Julia’s footsteps: devouring pizza in Italy, meditating in India and falling in love in Bali. But beyond the wanderlust and romanticism lies a queerer truth — Gilbert herself came out later in life and her upcoming memoir, All The Way Down The River: Love, Loss And Liberation, shares her experience of falling in love with her female best friend, giving the film an unexpected retrospective resonance for queer audiences.
How about Kirsten Dunst in Marie Antoinette (2006), Sofia Coppola’s lavish, candy-colored reimagining of the infamous queen’s life? Often hailed as one of the most visually stunning and stylistically bold period dramas of the 2000s, the film became an instant cult classic — especially within queer circles. While history may not confirm whether Marie Antoinette was actually locking lips with her ladies-in-waiting, Kirsten’s portrayal in this film exudes a kind of rebellious femininity and decadent defiance, reflecting Marie’s long secured status as a bona fide lesbian icon.
Or consider Mona Lisa Smile, another Julia Roberts classic that dared to challenge 1950s gender norms and encourage women to question the roles they were expected to play. While the film is often remembered for its glossy, collegiate aesthetic and feminist overtones, it also features a quietly revolutionary moment: the presence of a lesbian character, Amanda Armstrong, played by Juliet Stevenson. These small nods, often blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, meant the world to queer teens searching for themselves on screen. And while we may not have related completely to characters like gay teen Brandon in Easy A, we certainly knew what it felt like to be in the closet at high school.
And then there are the films that aren’t overtly queer but are dripping in camp, like Burlesque, with its glitter, feathers and Cher. Or Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, which redefined girl power with action-packed sequences and endless costume changes. These films gave us something rare: unapologetic female energy, camp excess and strong characters who didn’t exist for the male gaze alone.
Today, we’re living through a sapphic renaissance in cinema, with more authentic representation than ever before. But this summer, take a moment to indulge in some noughties nostalgia. Rewatch the films that once made you feel seen — even if you didn’t fully understand why.
Noughties Night In – available to Buy or Rent at Home.
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