25 years of logging and loving the comfort of The Princess Diaries • Journal • A Magazine • , Life in canada

This year, we are fortunate enough to have five films from member Anne Hathaway to tick off our watchlists and fill up our diaries with—but 2026 also marks 25 years (!) since her debut feature role, at the age of eighteen, in The Princess Diaries.

A lot has changed in the world since the unveiling of Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi, the unlikely crown princess of Genovia, but a lot also hasn’t—at least in terms of our communal appreciation for this comfort classic. Based on Meg Cabot’s 2000 novel of the same name—and produced, fascinatingly, by Whitney Houston—The Princess Diaries ranks among the 300 most watched films on . Its nostalgic charm hasn’t aged a day; for those who treasure The Princess Diaries, it’s arguably grown more meaningful every year.

The major arrival of Hathaway in Hollywood, as shy San Francisco teenager Mia Thermopolis, brought Julie Andrews out of semi-retirement (and back to make a Disney film for the first time since Mary Poppins, nearly 40 years prior) to play Mia’s estranged grandmother and Genovia’s reigning queen. What else? Robert Schwartzman—famously Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew, Jason Schwartzman’s younger brother and frontman of the rock band Rooney—had his first and only major film role as Michael Moskowitz; Mandy Moore played mean girl Lana Thomas in her first live-action role; and director Garry Marshall proved that fifteen-year-olds could have their own Pretty Woman, too—but more on that in a minute.

Below, a royal celebration of the community’s very favorite flavors of The Princess Diaries.