.png)
What is the essence of a classic teen movie? Is it the homogeneous group of mean girls? The enemy-to-lovers romance? The nerdy girl's revenge plot? From Heathers to Clueless to Mean Girls, the most beloved teen movies all have one thing in common: teenage girls who are absolutely going through it—and willing to take down anyone and everyone who stands in their path.
Netflix's Do Revenge, like the best teen movies before it, is admittedly a bit unhinged. After losing her social status when her boyfriend leaks some very private footage of her, It girl Drea (Camila Mendes) finds herself socially shunned at her elite high school, Rosehill. When she finds out that fellow outcast, new girl Eleanor (Maya Hawke), is also out for the blood of an old crush, the pair agree to do each other's revenge. Mayhem and mess ensue.
Like classics that came before it—think 10 Things I Hate About You, She's All That, She's the Man, Cruel Intentions, Clueless—Do Revenge takes a classic text (this time, it's Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train) and updates it for the current generation of high schoolers. But this isn't the only teen movie tradition that Do Revenge embraces. It alludes to the preppy plaid fashion of Clueless, the cliquey scandal of Mean Girls, the soaring romance of 10 Thing I Hate About You, and that uniquely evil brand of teen girl revenge of Cruel Intentions. To sum up the vibe, we point you in the direction of this soon-to-be iconic line: “I'm a teenage girl. We're psychopaths.” Do Revenge gets it.
But Do Revenge doesn't just look backward—it looks forward too. We're talking a soundtrack of ’90s classics peppered with Gen Z anthems by Olivia Rodrigo, Muna, and Caroline Polachek, instantly iconic phrases like “Glennergy” (Glenn Close energy) and “Emotional Support Bearded Dragon,” and a world of social media, faux wokeness, social justice warriors, sexual fluidity, therapy-speak, and Taylor Swift.
As Gen Z coded as Do Revenge may be, it's still wonderfully nostalgic. In fact, it's a total Easter-egg-filled love letter to the high school movies of past generations. So grab your burn books and your fluffy pink feather pens and get ready to take notes: We've done the sleuthing and brought you every iconic teen movie reference in Do Revenge.
The tour of the cliques in Clueless
It's pretty hard not to see the influence of Clueless splattered all over Do Revenge. The preppy plaid uniforms. The berets. The iconic fluffy pink feather pen. The makeover scene (which has been given the Glossier upgrade, of course). Even Drea calling farming-obsessed Carissa a “human Birkenstock” feels extremely Cher Horowitz.
But one Do Revenge scene in particular has Clueless written all over it: When Eleanor arrives at Rosehill, she meets Gabbi (Talia Ryder), who, naturally, offers her a tour of the school—or rather the school's cliques. “I mean, as a disciple of the '90s teen movie, I would be offended if I didn't get one,” Eleanor says, smirking. Because, duh, every good high school movie features a clique introduction tour!
In Clueless, Cher takes new girl Tai on an outdoor tour of the groups that populate her school—in Do Revenge, we get the same scene with a 2022 update. Instead of the TV station group, the Persian mafia, and the popular boys, Rosehill's groups consist of the Instagram witches, the horny theater nerds, the farm kids, and Rosehill's “royal court, the cream of the incredibly entitled crop.”
The hallway of chaos in Mean Girls
Mean Girls was, like, a totally huge inspiration for Do Revenge. For one thing, Tara (Alisha Boe) is more than a little inspired by conniving Queen Bee Regina George. In fact, both even say the same sugary sweet yet maniacally evil line, “Why don't I know you?” when they first see their respective new girls.
The makers of Do Revenge also included one major Easter egg: the chaos hallway. In Mean Girls, Regina causes widespread rioting by printing pages from the secret-filled Burn Book. Standing at the end of a hallway, Regina proudly observes the chaotic scene as students brawl around her.
In Do Revenge, Drea attempts to orchestrate the same chaos by sharing dirty messages sent by Max (Austin Abrams) to numerous girls in school. However, when we see Drea standing at the end of the hallway, the scene is flipped on its head—everyone has sided with Max, who has claimed to be “ethically nonmonogamous.” This is high school in the Gen Z era, after all.
The opening credits and final scene in Cruel Intentions
Do Revenge is, in many ways, a love letter to Cruel Intentions. First of all, ’90s icon Sarah Michelle Gellar is giving some serious Kathryn energy as the stylish headmaster of Rosehill. As Do Revenge writer-director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson told IndieWire, the Kathryn vibes are intentional. “[I] literally thought about Kathryn from Cruel Intentions, like, if she was the headmaster of the school, what advice would she give?” Robinson said.
And then there's faux-feminist “ultimate manic pixie dream boy” Max. According to Robinson, he's directly inspired by Cruel Intentions's Sebastian. “Max being vanquished to ‘Praise You’ [a song that plays during one famous Sebastian scene] at the end of the movie is obviously a nod to Cruel Intentions,” she told Vanity Fair.
There's also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Easter egg when we see Gabbi reading Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the French book that inspired Cruel Intentions.
But the biggest Cruel Intentions callback has to be the opening credits and the final scene. Just like Cruel Intentions, Do Revenge is bookmarked with scenes of women driving along the highway, the wind in their hair, revenge on their minds. However, while Cruel Intentions ends with Annette traveling solo as “Bittersweet Symphony” plays, Do Revenge gives us Drea and Eleanor road-tripping together and belting out Meredith Brooks's '90s classic “Bitch.”
The croquet in Heathers
There's a lot of Heathers in Do Revenge. The matching plaid outfits are very Heather girl gang. And, of course, there's the whole outsider-infiltrates-the-girl-group-to-take-them-down-from-within thing.
But is there a more iconic teen movie scene than the croquet game in Heathers? Come on—those color-coordinated croquet mallets! Naturally, Do Revenge manages to sneak in its own croquet scene when Drea visits Carissa (Ava Capri) at the rehab center or, as she calls it, the “glorified spa.”
The paintball kiss in 10 Things I Hate About You
Okay, admit it. If you saw 10 Things I Hate About You as a teen, you yearned for a bad boy to sweep you off your feet, splatter you in paint, and give you your first kiss on a bale of hay.
The famous paintball scene from 10 Things I Hate About You finds its way into Do Revenge. When British indie boy Russ (Rish Shah) pulls a Ferris Bueller and whisks Drea away from the stresses of school, he takes her to his artist's studio to chuck paint at a canvas to “channel her rage.” A paint fight ensues along with a very predictable yet totally satisfying first kiss.
“It’s 10 Things all the way,” Robinson confirmed to Netflix's Tudum. “Kiwi Smith, who wrote 10 Things I Hate About You, actually came to one of the first early screenings of the movie and gave me her blessing. Then, I used it.”
The whole Fern Mayo thing in Jawbreaker
The 1999 teen flick Jawbreaker sees popular girl group transforming the outcast Fern Mayo into the ultra-cool (and platinum blonde) Vylette, then welcoming her into their clique. Like Eleanor in Do Revenge, she secretly plots to take them down from the inside.
“I do think that there’s definitely some Fern Mayo energy in Eleanor,” Robinson told Tudum. Even the blonde makeover is an intentional callback—as Robinson said, “We went for it.”
The fountain scene in Scream
When Eleanor first sees the popular girls in Do Revenge, they are draped elegantly on the edge of a fountain like something out of a Renaissance painting. Turns out, this fountain scene is a direct reference to the 1996 teen horror movie Scream.
“The fountain in the center of Rosehill does not exist in the location,” Robinson told Vanity Fair. “We built that. And it is an homage to Scream. Obviously, Do Revenge is not a slasher, but tonally it’s something that I went to a lot.” Like, hello, one of the girls is even eating grapes!
The voice-over in Election
Let's be real—is a teen movie even a teen movie without a confessional, diary-style voice-over? From Cher in Clueless to Cady in Mean Girls, voice-overs reign supreme as the teen movie storytelling device.
Do Revenge gives us not one but two voice-overs from the perspectives of both Drea and Eleanor. While they may have reminded you of Clueless or Mean Girls, as Robinson told Tudum, the real inspiration was the 1999 high school movie Election, which features four separate, interchanging voice-overs.
“As I was cutting the movie together, I was like, ‘I really want to know more about Drea and Eleanor,’” she said. “Obviously, there are many twists and turns in the movie. And so I wanted another device that could further make the audience feel like they knew them and then pull the rug out from under them even more.”
Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion
It's impossible to talk about the ’90s teen movies that inspired Do Revenge without giving Romy and Michele's High School Reunion a mention. I mean, just look at the clothes! That scene in which Drea and Eleanor rock up to the admissions party wearing pink and blue? It might remind you of Romy and Michele in those iconic pink and blue monochromatic dresses—and for a good reason.
As Robinson told Tudum, many of the candy-colored outfits are little nods to the movie. “We definitely talked about Romy and Michele a lot,” she said. “I wasn’t directly inspired by Romy and Michele, but that was a movie we spoke about a lot in terms of finding the visual language and the vibes for the costumes. That was a huge touchstone for us.”