The Kissing Booth

Elle Evans is a high school student who has never been kissed, and her closest friend is Lee Flynn, a boy she has known since childhood. When she takes part in a kissing booth at a school carnival, she ends up sharing her first kiss with Lee's older brother, Noah, the sort of confident, sought-after student who has left a trail of broken hearts behind him. The encounter starts a romance the pair have to keep quiet, one that puts Elle's friendship with Lee at risk if it becomes known. The film stays with the complications that follow rather than the kiss itself.

The 2018 comedy romance runs 105 minutes and was directed by Vince Marcello, who also wrote the screenplay and produced the film with Michele Weisler and Andrew Cole-Bulgin. It is the third feature he directed, after An American Girl: McKenna Shoots for the Stars in 2012 and Liar, Liar, Vampire in 2015, and he went on to direct The Kissing Booth 2 in 2020 and The Kissing Booth 3 in 2021. Joey King plays Elle, Joel Courtney plays Lee, Jacob Elordi plays Noah, and Molly Ringwald appears as Mrs. Flynn, with 36 credited cast members and 64 credited crew.

The film was a British production from Komixx Entertainment. On IMDb it holds a rating of 5.9 out of 10 from around 103,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.2 out of 10 from some 7,500 votes, a clear gap between the two audiences. A critics' score of 4 out of 10 from 12 reviews places professional assessment well below both audience ratings.