Forgotten Movies from 2000s IT Girls
The 2000s had no shortage of It Girls. Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Mischa Barton—these names dominated tabloids and red carpets.
But while everyone remembers Mean Girls or The Simple Life, plenty of their film projects slipped through the cracks. Some deserved better.
Others probably deserved exactly what they got. Either way, they’re worth revisiting now that enough time has passed to view them without all the noise.
Lindsay Lohan in Just My Luck
This romantic comedy, filmed in 2005 and released in 2006, paired Lohan with Chris Pine when he was still early in his career. She plays the luckiest woman in New York until she kisses Pine’s character and their fortunes swap.
The premise sounds like something from a fortune cookie, and the execution doesn’t do much to elevate it. But Lohan brings real charm to scenes that shouldn’t work at all, and there’s something oddly watchable about seeing her navigate physical comedy.
The movie tanked at the box office and critics weren’t kind. Pine had already appeared in The Princess Diaries 2 and various TV roles, but this was still before his Captain Kirk days.
Lohan would continue working, including Georgia Rule the following year. The movie itself just sits there in streaming libraries, mostly ignored.
Mandy Moore’s Chasing Liberty
Moore spent the early 2000s trying to transition from pop star to actress, and this 2004 film was one of those attempts. She plays the president’s daughter who wants to escape her Secret Service detail during a European trip.
Matthew Goode plays the agent secretly assigned to watch her while pretending to be a regular traveler. The movie borrows heavily from Roman Holiday, which isn’t necessarily a problem.
The problem is that it came out the same year as First Daughter with Katie Holmes, which had almost the exact same plot. Neither film did well, but Moore’s version has better chemistry between the leads and makes better use of its European locations.
Prague, Berlin, and Venice look gorgeous here, even if the story doesn’t offer much beyond standard romantic comedy beats.
Hilary Duff in Material Girls
Duff and her real-life sister Haylie starred in this 2006 comedy about cosmetics heiresses who lose everything and have to rebuild. The movie draws loose inspiration from Sense and Sensibility, though that influence is barely visible in the final product.
The sisters have decent comedic timing with each other, which makes sense given they’re actual siblings. But the script gives them nothing substantial to work with.
This one’s worth mentioning mainly because it represents a very specific type of mid-2000s comedy that doesn’t really exist anymore. Rich girls learn valuable lessons.
Montages set to pop songs. Product placement that feels aggressive even by 2006 standards.
It flopped hard, and Duff’s film career never quite recovered. She found better success returning to television later.
Amanda Bynes in She’s the Man
This one isn’t exactly forgotten—it has its fans. But it deserves more recognition than it gets.
Bynes plays a girl who pretends to be her twin brother to play on the boys’ team at his boarding school. Yes, it’s based on Twelfth Night.
Yes, that sounds ridiculous. But Bynes commits so fully to the physical comedy and the absurdity that the movie works far better than it should.
Channing Tatum plays the love interest before he became Channing Tatum. Their chemistry carries scenes that could have fallen flat.
The supporting cast helps too. But this is Bynes’ movie, and she understood the assignment.
The film did modest business but wasn’t considered a major hit at the time. In retrospect, it stands as maybe her best work and one of the more successful teen Shakespeare adaptations.
Jessica Alba in Honey
Alba plays a choreographer in the Bronx who gets discovered and starts working with big music artists. The 2003 film came during her rise to stardom but often gets overlooked when people discuss her filmography.
Everyone remembers Sin City or Fantastic Four. Honey gets dismissed as a dance movie that didn’t break new ground.
Fair enough. The plot hits predictable notes—success, betrayal, redemption.
But the dance sequences have real energy, and Alba trained extensively to make them work. The movie featured appearances from Missy Elliott among others, giving it credibility in the hip-hop dance world it depicts.
It made money despite mixed reviews, which says something about Alba’s appeal at the time. She could draw an audience even when the material wasn’t particularly strong.
Mischa Barton in Closing the Ring
After The O.C. made her famous, Barton tried movies. This 2007 Richard Attenborough-directed drama follows multiple timelines involving a love story during World War II and its effects decades later.
Barton plays the young version of Shirley MacLaine’s character. The movie wants to be sweeping and emotional.
It ends up feeling too scattered to land properly. Attenborough’s last film deserved better than to come and go without much notice.
But the marketing didn’t know what to do with it, and audiences who showed up expecting something different based on Barton’s TV fame left disappointed. She’s fine in it, working with limited screen time.
The movie itself just never found its audience.
Sophia Bush in John Tucker Must Die
Bush played one of three girlfriends who discover they’re all dating the same guy and plot revenge. The 2006 comedy made money but never quite broke through to become a teen classic like some of its contemporaries.
Bush was fresh off early seasons of One Tree Hill and brought an intelligence to a role that easily could have been one-note. The movie works better than expected because the female friendships feel genuine, even in a heightened comedy setting.
Jesse Metcalfe plays the title character with enough charm to make you understand why three smart girls fell for his act. The revenge schemes get increasingly absurd, but that’s part of the appeal.
This one has found more appreciation over time, especially from people who watched it during sleepovers and cable reruns.
Blake Lively in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Lively appeared in the 2005 film before Gossip Girl made her a household name. Four friends share a pair of jeans that somehow fits all of them perfectly, despite their different body types.
The jeans travel between them during a summer apart. It sounds like a silly premise designed to sell a young adult book series, which it was.
But the movie treats its young characters with more respect than similar films from that era. Lively plays the athlete of the group, and her storyline involves a summer at soccer camp and a romance with one of the coaches—a plot point that raised some eyebrows at the time.
She holds her own against more experienced actors and shows signs of the screen presence that would serve her well later. The film spawned a sequel and maintains a loyal following.
But it rarely comes up in discussions of 2000s teen movies the way Mean Girls or 10 Things I Hate About You does.
Alexis Bledel in Post Grad
The 2009 comedy followed a college graduate struggling to find her footing after school. Bledel, coming off seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, played the lead role as a recent grad living with her eccentric family while job hunting.
The movie came out during the recession, though the film itself focuses more on quirky family dynamics than economic realities. Michael Keaton and Jane Lynch show up as the parents and do what they can with underwritten roles.
Bledel tries to ground the story in something real, but the script can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be. Critics weren’t fans.
The audience stayed away. The movie came and went so quietly that even Bledel fans sometimes forget it exists.
The premise about struggling to launch a career after graduation feels more relevant now than it did then.
Rachel Bilson in Waiting for Forever
This 2010 romantic drama featured Bilson as a rising actress who reunites with a childhood friend who’s been following her around working as a street performer and juggler. The friend, played by Tom Sturridge, has been in love with her for years.
The movie wants to be a quirky love story. What it actually delivers is something that feels uncomfortable in ways the filmmakers didn’t intend.
Bilson does her best with material that asks her to be charmed by behavior that comes across as concerning. The movie premiered at festivals but barely got released theatrically.
Critics who saw it weren’t kind. It’s notable mainly as an example of how certain “romantic” storylines that worked in earlier decades don’t translate well to modern sensibilities.
Or maybe they never worked and we just notice now.
Emma Roberts in Wild Child
Roberts plays a spoiled Malibu teen sent to a strict British boarding school in this 2008 comedy. The fish-out-of-water setup is nothing new, and the movie doesn’t pretend otherwise.
But Roberts brings enough attitude and comic timing to make familiar beats feel fresh. The British school setting adds novelty for American audiences, and the supporting cast of young British actors holds their own.
The movie did better internationally than in the United States, which makes sense given the setting and the fact that Roberts wasn’t yet a major star. She’d gain more recognition later with American Horror Story.
But this one shows early signs of her ability to play characters who are difficult to like but interesting to watch. It’s a minor entry in the boarding school movie genre, but it works better than several films with bigger budgets and more promotion.
Hayden Panettiere in I Love You, Beth Cooper
The 2009 comedy adapted a popular young adult novel about a valedictorian who confesses his love for the most popular girl in school during his graduation speech. Panettiere played the title character, coming off her acclaimed role in Heroes.
The movie wanted to capture that late-2000s trend of teen comedies with heart. It mostly missed the mark, and fans of the book noticed the film stripped away much of the novel’s darker, edgier tone.
The humor felt dated even on release. The other issue was that Panettiere and co-star Paul Rust didn’t generate much chemistry, despite both actors being talented.
The movie has defenders who appreciate its awkward charm and occasionally quotable lines. But it came out the same year as better teen comedies and got lost in the shuffle.
It’s one of those adaptations where fans of the book felt disappointed and people unfamiliar with the source material didn’t see a reason to care.
Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body
This 2009 horror comedy deserves special mention because it was genuinely ahead of its time. Fox plays a high school cheerleader who becomes possessed and starts eating boys.
Diablo Cody wrote it fresh off her Juno success. Karyn Kusama directed.
The marketing campaign sold it as a vehicle for Fox’s looks, completely missing the satirical point. Critics were mixed.
The movie earned $31.6 million on a $16 million budget, making it modestly profitable, but it was considered a disappointment given the expectations. The marketing missteps meant it never found the right audience on release.
But over the years, it found a second life. People started recognizing it as a smart commentary on female friendship, predatory male behavior, and how society treats attractive women.
Fox gives a performance that’s both campy and genuinely threatening. Amanda Seyfried grounds the story as her friend who realizes something’s wrong.
The movie underperformed because it came out in 2009, when audiences weren’t ready for what it was doing. Watch it now and it feels prescient about conversations that would dominate culture years later.
When the Spotlight Moves On
These movies exist in a strange space. They’re not cult classics that people passionately defend.
They’re not notorious flops that become punchlines. They’re just there—part of a specific moment when these actresses were everywhere and then suddenly weren’t.
Some of them found new success later. Others stepped away from the industry.
The movies remain, though, waiting in streaming queues and cable schedules for someone to stumble across them and remember when these faces defined a decade. The 2000s built up its It Girls and then got bored with them faster than any previous era.
Social media accelerated the cycle. Tabloid culture became inescapable.
Many of these actresses were barely adults when they became famous, and the pressure showed in various ways. Some of these movies capture them before things got complicated.
Others show them trying to navigate success and expectation simultaneously. None of them are perfect, but they document something real about that time.
You can judge these films on their merits. Some hold up better than others.
But they’re also artifacts of a moment when being an It Girl meant something specific—something that doesn’t quite translate to how celebrity works now. The movies might be forgotten, but they remember.
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