John Green Power Rankings
From the "cigarette" and "paper towns" metaphors to Laura Dern, here are our rankings of the John Green cinematic universe.
The first movie both of us watched in 2021 was, unfortunately (fortunately?), Paper Towns. It’s been a wild eight years since John Green took the youth population by storm, so we decided to revisit his cinematic universe. Which, for those keeping track, consists of two movies (Paper Towns and The Fault in Our Stars), one ensemble film with two other co-writers (Let It Snow), and one mini-series (Looking For Alaska). For our own sanity, and for the length of this list, we’ve decided to stick to his two main movies: TFIOS and Paper Towns.
Urban Outfitters probably wires John Green a monthly check for his contributions to their brand. The rise of the Fjallraven Kanken backpack, the continuation of plain black Converse, and the global domination of fairy string lights is undoubtedly connected to John Green’s empire of quirky protagonists, who use ballpoint pens to doodle stars on everything they own. Let us not forget the app We Heart It, nor the grainy images we saved from Tumblr.
Thank you, John Green. To quote Hazel Grace herself, “And I’m grateful.” Full of Tumblr-era pictures and quotes, here are the fifteen biggest “John Green-isms” — characters, metaphors, quotes — ranked by their power:
15. Ansel “The 18-Year-Old Virgin With One Leg Who Can’t Drive” Elgort as Augustus Waters
Annabelle: The 5-second cameo Mister And Selle Elle Gawt makes in “Paper Towns” as the gas station attendant who sells them the confederate flag t-shirt is better than the entirety of his role in TFIOS. When Augustus died I literally did not care at all! Too many of my ex-boyfriends took notes from Mr. Waters himself and it makes me SICK! No more Ansel, please.
Fletcher: As far as I can tell, Ansel Elgort has given me no reason to trust him. He is a creep. Not only is he a creep, but in The Fault in Our Stars, he is such a bad actor that I had to squint through my hands in order to watch him “deliver” his “lines.” I don’t think that he was acting. The shoes he wears, the quotes he speaks, his essence… oh boy. And a name like Augustus Waters is revolting.
14. The “Cigarette” Metaphor
Annabelle: So let me get this straight, he buys an ENTIRE pack of Marlboro reds just to… kind of suck on one? What a waste.
Fletcher: This metaphor doesn’t even make sense to me. So you put a cigarette in your mouth and it can kill you — but only if you light it. By putting the cigarette in your mouth and not lighting it, it is a metaphor. But a metaphor for what? His illness? Sorry if I’m missing the message here, but it just doesn’t make sense to me. Also, very dramatic to get one silly, stupid point across.
13. Cara Delevingne as Margo Roth Spiegelman
Fletcher: Margo, Margo, Margo. Where has she gone? This girl has not done any favors for women. Now we are expected to be mysterious, manic, create dreamlike scenarios for the men who watch us from afar. Give them the time of their lives in one short evening. I’m tired, Margot. Get rid of that extreme side part.
12. Mike Birbiglia as Patrick
Annabelle: Why wasn’t he in CATS? That’s all.
Fletcher: The literal heart of Jesus? More like the literal heart of Jellicles.
11. The “Paper Towns” Metaphor
Annabelle: I love the definition of what a paper town is, but calling your hometown a “paper town with paper people” is a little melodramatic! That being said, it is definitely the better metaphor. Though I would venture to say that perhaps the best metaphor of all is the John Green Tumblr cock monologue.
10. “Okay?” “Okay.”
Fletcher: It’s such a romp, this bit: Hazel and Gus like to tease their friends for this cheesy thing, “Always,” that they say to each other. But then they just do the same thing? To make it worse, it’s with a lesser word. At least it inspired brilliant graphic artistry.
9. Shailene Woodley as Hazel Grace Lancaster
Fletcher: Why did she and Ansel Elgort have to play brother and sister in Divergent? Seriously? Was anyone even thinking in 2014? So many questions. Somehow Shailene Woodley went from playing Laura Dern’s daughter to playing her peer in Big Little Lies, and honestly, good for her! She rocked those wild v-neck henley tees. It is rumored that Birdy wrote “Tee Shirt” not only for this movie, but for Shailene Woodley.
8. Shailene Woodley’s iPhone 5 in a Speck phone case
Annabelle: The literal epitome of “boring relatable girl who is the star of the movie” accessories. I can absolutely guarantee that if After was filmed in 2014 that girl would have one as well. Probably the turquoise blue one with a hot pink bumper. We all knew one of those girls.
Fletcher: Okay, we either all knew one of those girls or we were one of those girls. I was one of these girls. I had this Speck case. Later, I upgraded to a Kate Spade case, which is like upgrading from the Starbucks double chocolate chip frappuccino to an iced vanilla latte.
7. Willem Dafoe as Peter Van Houten
Annabelle: Willem Dafoe proves just how terrible of a writer John Green really is, because if I were him and a couple of teenagers flew to my house and interrupted my drunk listening to Swedish Hip-Hop I would absolutely have the same reaction. Yet we’re supposed to hate him!
6. Lotte Verbeek as Lidewij
Annabelle: Just to get this out of the way, Lidewij definitely has an OnlyFans and I absolutely support her. That being said, taking a girl with lung cancer and her boyfriend to the… Anne Frank house? And they KISS… in the Anne Frank House… and everyone else there… claps? This is absurd and disrespectful. Why write in the Anne Frank House? They very well could have had their vanilla-ass kiss at the Van Gogh museum or on a bridge or something. Let’s leave Anne Frank out of this please.
5. Justice Smith as Radar Lincoln
Annabelle: Paper Towns is the superior John Green film just for the Chad Radar and Virgin Ben dynamic alone. Though I find it exhausting that JG feels the need to give every side character a ~quirky~ backstory, Radar’s parents owning the world’s largest collection of Black Santas is in a word, phenomenal. If I went to this high school I would take Radar’s virginity.
4. Laura Dern as Frannie Lancaster
Fletcher: Again, let me mention the fact that Laura and Shailene later play gal-pals in Big Little Lies. While Shailene’s role is pretty much an older Hazel Grace, pivoting away from v-necks and into vests (she only wears Vs), Laura’s is quite the turn. She is such a sweet mom in TFIOS, and she even has her flaws! I’m obsessed!
3. Nat Wolff as Isaac/Quentin
Annabelle: Very grateful that the Naked Brother himself is so high up on this list as he was the subject of my prepubescent lust for many months! We deserved so much more of him in TFIOS than we got. Quentin is an absolute disaster in Paper Towns but Isaac? What a guy. Every single movie that Nat Wolff is in I have the same review: nat wolff hot.
Fletcher: There is this John Green theory I have. It’s all in my head, based solely off of these two movies alone, and I wouldn’t dare write about it past this blurb. But that is: John Green’s wingman will always be funnier, hotter, and wiser than the protagonist. Nat Wolff is the perfect example: he is the best part of TFIOS, playing Gus’s blind best friend, but unbearable in Paper Towns. Luckily, his best man in Paper Towns never got the chance to have his own JG standalone film – again, “And I’m grateful.” — but more on that in just a bit.
2. The Soundtracks
Fletcher: So much to say. The John Green soundtracks have gone on to inform soundtracks like that of Normal People, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, probably even Big Little Lies, seeing the corresponding casts. There’s just something about them. They can be played as you giggle, enjoying popsicles on your suburban front lawn — or as you cry about the despairs of life under five sets of Urban Outfitters string lights. M83, Jake Bugg, Birdie, Grouplove. These soundtracks are untouchable.
As we watched The Fault In Our Stars, we were accompanied by our dear friend Liam Faigen. He did some quick researching as we watched— “Boom Clap” by Charli XCX was written for Hilary Duff’s album. After she declined the track, it was sold to The Fault in Our Stars as an official movie track. That, I did not know! Duff later announced that she didn’t know the song was offered to her, claiming she would’ve accepted had she heard it. Sure, Hilary.
1. Austin Abrams as Ben Starling
please read the caption for this Instagram post on Austin Abrams’s main fan account
Annabelle: The top of our list, the absolute king himself of proving that the side characters in JG novels/movies are always more interesting than the main characters. The scene where he starts singing the Pokemon theme song in the abandoned gift shop is seared in my brain. Legend behavior. Shoutout to @austinabramsfans on Instagram.
Fletcher: Again, my theory — the John Green sidekick will always be better than the protagonist. Austin Abrams is the foul-mouthed weirdo sidekick of Paper Towns, and it’s my belief that he would’ve played the lead in a film adaptation of John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines (the best John Green book). Thank god JG pivoted to YouTube school. We need to protect Austin Abrams. His collection of recent work — Dash & Lily, Euphoria, Chemical Hearts — is much better than anything John Green related. But hearing him say “Honey Bunnies” did make me cackle.