Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It

Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It is a documentary about the performer Rita Moreno, tracing her path from a childhood in Puerto Rico to a career that made her one of the few people to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. The film follows how she resisted the limited, stereotyped roles she was offered and pushed back against the racism she met along the way, opening doors for other Hispanic-American actors. It draws on her own account of a career spanning seven decades, which gives the film its shape and its subject.

Mariem Pérez Riera directed, and the film, released in 2021, was her first feature; she is also credited as a producer alongside Brent Miller and Ilia J. Vélez-Dávila. Moreno appears as herself, and she is joined on screen by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg, Eva Longoria and Justina Machado, among a credited cast of thirty.

The documentary runs ninety minutes. It was made in the United States by Act III Productions, Artemis Rising, American Masters Pictures and Maramara Films. Audience response has been positive: it holds a rating of 7.7 out of 10 on IMDb from around 1,100 votes, and 7.4 out of 10 on TMDB from a small number of votes.