Chasing Amy (1997)

Chasing Amy is a 1997 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Kevin Smith and starring Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams and Jason Lee. The third film in Smith's View Askewniverse series, the film is about a male comic artist (Affleck) who falls in love with a lesbian (Adams), to the displeasure of his best friend (Lee).

The film was inspired by a brief scene from an early film by a friend of Smith's. In Guinevere Turner's Go Fish, one of the lesbian characters imagines her friends passing judgment on her for "selling out" by sleeping with a man. Smith was dating Adams at the time he was writing the script, which was also partly inspired by her.

Chasing Amy premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 1997 before being released by Miramax Films on April 4, 1997. The film received mostly positive reviews which praised the humor, the performances and Kevin Smith's direction, while grossing $12 million on a $250,000 budget. The film won two awards at the 1998 Independent Spirit Awards (Best Screenplay for Smith and Best Supporting Actor for Lee). Characters from the film would go on to appear in later Askewniverse films Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019), direct spin-offs of Chasing Amy, with Affleck, Lee, Adams and Dwight Ewell reprising their roles in cameo appearances; Smith described the characters' roles in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot as being an "eight-page sequel" to Chasing Amy.