Eighth Grade

Submission 1,943

Part of a series on Bo Burnham. [View Related Entries]

About

Eighth Grade is a coming-of-age film starring Elsie Fisher written and directed by YouTuber Bo Burnham that deals with sexting, cyber-bullying, and general teenage awkwardness.

History

On January, 19th, 2018, Eighth Grade was released at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was directed and written by first-time director, Bo Burnham. The film made several top 10 Sundance lists before its general release.^[5]^[6]

Online Presence

On August 12th, 2017, Bo Burnham^[1] posted a picture of himself and actress Elise Fisher before he announced the coming release of the film (shown below, left). The tweet gained over 700 retweets and 13,000 likes in two years. On January 15th, 2018 Bo Burnham took to Twitter again to announce that he wrote and directed a film to be released at Sundance Film Festival which was retweeted 4,900 times and like 52,000 times in a year (shown below, right).

On January 30th, 2019, Rotten Tomatoes reported on twitter that "@boburnham's 'Eighth Grade' is the highest rated film from #Sundance 2018" (shown below). The tweet garnered 620 retweets and 4,200 likes in a year.

On March 14th, 2018, film production company A24 released the official trailer for Eighth Grade on YouTube. The trailer received over five million views and 62,000 likes in a year (shown below).

On July 25th, actress Molly Ringwald^[4] tweeted "I just saw @eighthgrademov and thought it was the best film about adolescence I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe ever. #eighthgrademovie" (shown below, left). The tweet garnered over 400 retweets and 6,400 likes in a year. On December 28th, Obama^[2] released his year-end list on Facebook and included Eighth Grade in his top movies (shown below, right).

Awards

On February 18th, 2019, The New York Times ^[3]reported that Burnham was snubbed at the Oscars but went on to win the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding First-Time Feature and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay. Elise Fisher and Bo Burnham won Breakthrough awards as well at receiving nominations such as Best Independent Film at the Satellite Awards.

On February 17th, Twitter user @kylebuchanan^[7] tweeted "'To the other nominees in the category: Have fun at the Oscars, losers!' says WGA original-screenplay winner Bo Burnham, who was snubbed by the Academy. 'How is this happening??'" (shown below). The tweet gained 2,400 retweets and 13,100 likes in two days.

That same day, WGA West uploaded a clip of the Writer's Guild of America Award which has gained over 40,0000 views and 2,400 likes in two days (shown below).