In 2018, Netflix began to release what would be a total of 3 movies based on the Jenny Han novels of the same names. The film is the age old story of a boy and a girl who pretend to fall in love for their personal reasons. They end up in a predicament when their fake feelings become real.

The original, ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’, came out in 2018 and broke records for the most rewatched Netflix original film. 2 years later, ‘To All the Boys: P.S I Still Love You’ came out. And quite recently, the third and final movie came out titled ‘To All the Boys: Always and Forever’. But which one is the best?

“The first movie is so good because it’s the original. They don’t try to make something happen that isn’t there like they kind of do in the second and definitely do in the third,” said Jaiden Reilly (‘21). 

With many movie series, the sequels don’t live up to the high expectations set by the first movie, and that is true for this trilogy as well. A sequel done right is hard to come by, but the second movie didn’t disappoint too much.

“I loved watching John Ambrose in the second one, mostly because I love Jordan Fischer, I just personally think she should’ve ended up with him” said Ellie Solomon (‘23). 

The storyline of the second movie is also one heard many a time before. An old love comes into what was a solid relationship, and a love triangle is what comes out. Usually, I feel that the girl always ends up with the old love, like in ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’, but sometimes there’s a switch up.

The second movie was a good movie with an intriguing plot and a good execution. The series could have easily ended after this sequel. However, since there is a third novel, they decided to do a third movie as well.

“It took me three days to get through the last movie. It was just hard to watch,” said Dylan Rios (‘23). 

A pretty unanimous feeling, the third movie was not enjoyable. It was cringey, there was no plotline, barely any drama, and when we did see the couple together it wasn’t cute or interesting. Although there were pros like we saw a different side of each of the characters, the pros definitely did not outweigh the cons.

When people grow to love characters and become invested in them, they want to see more, but they want to see it done right. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen this time around. I think the directors and everyone involved took the overwhelming praise and buzz of the first movie for granted which backfired. Time to go and rewatch the first movie once again.