Sightlines · reception
How I Saw the TV Glow was received
2024 · Jane Schoenbrun · I Saw the TV Glow on Sightlines
The arc
Premiered in Sundance's Midnight section in January 2024 and became A24's most argued-about release of the year — critics were rapturous while audience scores lagged badly. Barely a year on, the reappraisal has already happened: it's routinely called a landmark of trans cinema and an instant cult classic.
What’s debated
The eternal split between 'this movie cracked me open and changed my life' and 'nothing happens and everyone's whispering' — with a side debate over whether the film works if you don't clock the trans allegory.
Its footprint
'There is still time,' scrawled in chalk on the street, escaped the film entirely — it became a meme, a rallying cry, and a genuinely popular tattoo. The Pink Opaque, its fake '90s YA show, is now shorthand for the childhood television that raised (and haunted) a generation, and the soundtrack — Alex G's score plus Caroline Polachek, Phoebe Bridgers, and yeule — has a fandom of its own.
Where it stands
A Letterboxd darling of the four-and-a-half-star-with-a-sobbing-review variety — already canonized as the defining 'egg movie' and a you-must-see entry in the new trans cinema canon.
Did you know? Owen's intimidating suburban dad is played by Fred Durst — yes, the Limp Bizkit frontman — in one of the decade's most talked-about stunt-casting coups.
Named by the director
- David Lynch — Schoenbrun repeatedly cited Twin Peaks — especially The Return and the season two cliffhanger, which they described as lodged in their subconscious 'like trauma' — as the film's core influence.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) — Schoenbrun named the series (a teen obsession of theirs) as the direct model for The Pink Opaque, the show-within-the-film.