Nearly three decades on, 10 Things I Hate About You is having a very online moment with an audience that wasn’t alive when it came out. Screenwriter Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, via an Arkansas Times interview ahead of a Shakespeare Summer festival screening, put it down to something more specific than nostalgia: the film’s riot grrrl-inflected feminism, embodied entirely by Julia Stiles’ performance as Kat Stratford, is landing with a generation of teenagers discovering it for the first time on streaming and TikTok edits rather than in a 1999 cinema.
Smith wasn’t shy about drawing a line from the film’s late-’90s politics to now, telling the Arkansas Times that “we are still fighting the fight that we were fighting in the late ’90s.” It’s a reminder that the film’s staying power was never just the soundtrack or the paintball-gun kiss — it’s Stiles’ performance as a young woman who flatly refuses to perform likability. That’s also, as it turns out, the throughline of Stiles’ own career.
27 years have passed since Julia Stiles had ’90s teens bawling at the emotional delivery of her poem to Patrick (played by the late and great Heath Ledger) in 10 Things I Hate About You. It’s the moment we all knew we’d be seeing a lot more of her, and we certainly did.
How Save the Last Dance Turned Julia Stiles Into a Box Office Draw
Stiles went on to woo fans—and apparently Juilliard—with her mix of hip hop and ballet dancing in Save The Last Dance (although most of us look back at this scene with a different set of eyes now that we’re older).
Then came roles in the Bourne series, Mona Lisa Smile, A Guy Thing, and The Prince and Me. Yet no matter how different all these characters’ backstories were, Stiles made a point of playing headstrong, intelligent, complex women who weren’t afraid to speak their minds or spit out sassy one-liners. As the Irish Independent put it, “Julia Stiles was the ‘thinking teen’s’ poster girl of the 1990s,” and indeed she was.
Why Julia Stiles Walked Away From Fame to Attend Columbia University
She made an entire generation of teenage girls and young women feel seen and represented on screen. But as frenetic as her career started, it began to slow down when Stiles pushed back against the fame by enrolling at Columbia University. Sure, she was still acting during her breaks, but she chose to prioritise education, much like her characters Kat Stratford or Paige Morgan.
Julia Stiles Never Really Left Hollywood — She Just Went Quiet
If you check her acting credits on sites like IMDB, you’ll realise that Julia never actually stopped acting. Her roles just shifted from leading lady to supporting characters in independent films and television series.
One of the more overlooked entries from this stretch: her turn as Tricia Albright in the 2022 horror prequel Orphan: First Kill, a performance our own review called the film’s real anchor — read our full Orphan: First Kill review for more on why Stiles ends up carrying the second half of the movie.
Then, in 2017, Julia Stiles’ life changed again. She gave birth to a son, Strummer Newcomb Cook, followed by Arlo in 2022 and a third child in late 2023/early 2024. Stiles told The View that raising children with her husband, Preston J. Cook, prepared her for the jump from the front of the camera to the director’s chair.
Julia Stiles Made Her Directorial Debut With Wish You Were Here
Stiles also leaned into her rom-com roots for her turn behind the camera, Wish You Were Here. The indie film, which follows the romance between a young woman (Isabelle Fuhrman) and a man she finds out is terminally sick (Mena Massoud), was released in January this year (2025).
Julia Stiles Reflects on Kat Stratford’s Legacy 27 Years Later
While the actress may not appear in many major productions anymore, she is still proud of her early work in films like 10 Things. She was (and continues to be) grateful to have been given the opportunity to play Kat: “I thought it was so refreshing, seeing a teenage girl be feisty and opinionated and be a fish out of water, but proudly,” she told InStyle back in 2019. It’s a role that’s definitely held its own with time, and one we can’t picture anyone else but the incredibly talented Julia Stiles in.
The Heath Ledger Scene That Still Echoes Through Pop Culture
Kat’s poem gets most of the tears, but it’s Heath Ledger’s bleacher serenade to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” that keeps resurfacing in unexpected places. Earlier this year, a Reddit fan theory connected the scene’s choreography to Joaquin Phoenix’s stair dance in Joker — we broke down the side-by-side comparison in Joker’s Most Famous Scene Actually Pays Homage to Heath Ledger’s 10 Things I Hate About You. It’s another sign of how deeply this one film keeps embedding itself into films and internet culture that came decades after it.
Where to Watch 10 Things I Hate About You Right Now
As of publication, 10 Things I Hate About You is streaming on Disney+, with digital rental and purchase options available through Apple TV and Prime Video. Streaming availability shifts regularly by region, so it’s worth checking your local Disney+ catalogue or app store listing before settling in for a rewatch.
