Better Than the Movies: what we know about the Netflix movie

What's official

Netflix confirmed the adaptation of Better Than the Movies on May 5, 2026. Julia Hart directs and co-writes the screenplay alongside Jordan Horowitz and Heather Flanders; Horowitz and Shauna Phelan produce, according to coverage of the announcement.

On July 31, 2026, Netflix revealed the leads: Beatrice Kitsos (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) plays Liz Buxbaum and David Iacono (The Summer I Turned Pretty; Jurassic World: Rebirth) plays Wes Bennett. The announced cast also includes Deacon Phillippe (Michael), Judy Greer (Helena), Claire Coffee (Martha Buxbaum), Luke Kirby (Brian Buxbaum), Nicole Bruner (Jocelyn), Ora Duplass (Laney Morgan), Veronica Garrubbo (Alex) and Kynlee Heiman as the younger Liz.

The author celebrated the casting on social media and wrote, about the two leads' chemistry: “Like, Bea and David might be even more ‘WesLiz’ than the version I had in my head”.

The shooting schedule is public: according to Production Weekly (issue 1513), filming begins in Chicago on September 3, 2026 and runs through October 21. CNN Brasil noted on September 3 that Netflix had not yet announced a release date. The trade press speculates about a 2027 premiere — an estimate, not a commitment from the platform.

The book

Published in 2021, Better Than the Movies follows Liz Buxbaum, a teen obsessed with romantic comedies who dreams of a love worthy of the screen. When Michael, her childhood crush, reappears, she finds an unlikely ally: Wes, the boy next door — and the plan is an arrangement that looks a lot like fake dating.

The recipe is the one BookTok knows best: fake relationship, love rivalry and the enemies-to-lovers dynamic, according to Capricho itself when announcing the cast. It is fake dating with the structure of a classic romantic comedy — the trope guide explains why that arrangement works so well.

On the commercial side: the romance is a #1 New York Times bestseller and, according to Netflix Tudum, spent 44 months on the paper's monthly YA paperback list and 20 weeks on the weekly hardcover list. In Brazil, CNN Brasil reported in May 2026 nearly a million copies sold; the title is published by Intrínseca and entered the top 10 on the first day of Amazon Book Friday in 2025, according to PublishNews.

What we can already say — and what we can't

Here the same policy as our piece on The Love Hypothesis and the movie applies: adaptation comparisons only with the film watched and the book alongside. No “what changed” section will be published before that.

What is legitimate right now is separating expectation from fact. Every young adult romantic comedy adaptation negotiates the same currencies:

As for sets, wardrobe and music: no concept art, score or costumes have been released as of this date. Any claim about that would be a guess — and that is exactly the kind of claim this article does not publish.

The experience of readers is part of the package too: the network of readers who carried the book onto the lists is the same one that will be watching. As USA TODAY reminds us, the book is one of 60 BookTok titles at some stage of adaptation — the full map is here.

8 works with an announced adaptation and no premiere

Eight titles from the romance and BookTok orbit with a confirmed platform and no release date as of this date (September 26, 2026):

Announced rights are the most fragile stage of the funnel: it means a contract, not a camera. Boys of Tommen and Rose Hill, meanwhile, already have casts and productions underway — the distance between the two groups is years, not weeks.

Where to read first (or after)

If your plan is to read before the premiere, the path is simple: Better Than the Movies, from Intrínseca, in Brazil. There is no dependency on other books — it is a standalone.

If you would rather wait for the movie: that works too. The order only changes what you notice — reading first turns the screening into a natural comparison of cast, pacing and setting; watching first turns the reread into a discovery of what was left out.