Right now, this very moment, is a shiveringly exciting time to be in and around adult entertainment. It happens to mark the 20th anniversary of what some film critics regard as a cosmic-shift year for mainstream movies—1999 bore such radically synapse-jolting pieces of vanguard cinema as American Beauty, Magnolia,The Blair Witch Project, Being John Malkovich, Fight Club and The Matrix, among others. Many might also argue that the adult movie industry at the time was at its absolute zenith: the DVD boom was in full swing, the stars were like Hollywood royalty, and it was experiencing a renaissance as a legitimate, formidable sector of the cultural landscape.

There was a buzz in the air then. And that same feeling, that inimitable thrill of being amidst an unmistakably golden juncture in time, is present once again, right this precise moment—with no more enrapturing bellwether than Bree Mills’ masterful, very nearly miraculous Teenage Lesbian.

Forget every comment anyone’s ever made about a porn movie being “just like a real movie, but with sex!” Nothing before has crossed that threshold like this. Based, as has been widely publicized, upon Mills’ own travails of coming into her sexuality during high school, the movie resonates so powerfully and so universally, it completely transcends the handicap people generally assign to X-rated features—subconsciously or otherwise—simply by virtue of their coming out of Porn Valley instead of the other side of the hill. In fact, it’s not out of bounds to call this one of the most important pictures of the year from either side.

There’s a scene where Kenna James, in an assured, rakish performance as an older, more experienced college girl (albeit just how experienced anyone can actually be at 21 does beg some question) gives Mills’ avatar Sam (Kristen Scott) an extended, nurturing lesson in having real lesbian sex. Without exaggeration, it’s among the most naturalistic, deeply authentic-feeling sexual sequences we’ve ever seen in a movie of any kind. From a certain standpoint, it calls to mind a scene in another movie centering on a teenage lesbian—this past spring’s Booksmart—in which said character, played by Kaitlyn Dever, loses her virginity to a “hot girl” from her class in a bathroom during a big house party. By comparison, that scene, which aims to capture the same sort of awkwardness inherent to such early sex encounters, rings utterly false and kind of oblivious to even any realistic concept of their workings. Which is to say that Mills got exquisitely right a fundamental life experience that Hollywood was hopeless to portray.

Scott, too, is pitch-perfect in her wrenchingly vulnerable performance as the tomboyish Sam (a special nod to Mills for the aside she has Alina Lopez deliver comparing Scott to Dazed and Confused’s Wiley Wiggins—sublime reference). Having proved her thespian prowess a number of times already—including with her turn in Mills’ 2017 feature Half His Age: A Teenage Tragedy, which earned her an AVN Best Supporting Actress trophy—Scott absolutely astonishes here. Brave, heartbreaking and beautiful, it’s a career-defining show of leading lady bravura.

Wolf Hudson deserves special mention as well for his infectious (non-sex) portrayal of Sam’s bi best friend J.C.—he steals the spotlight whenever he’s onscreen, providing a sterling counterbalance to her reserved unease. That said, all of the acting here is tremendous … and so is the sex.

Yes, perhaps most remarkably of all, this is hands-down the best lesbian movie, purely sex scene-wise, that we’ve encountered in well over a year, maybe longer. If the scene detailed above wasn’t enough, there’s one between Gianna Dior and Emily Willis that’s almost too blistering to bear. And that’s just two—there are three more that blow the roof off just about as hard.

One more thing about that Scott/James scenes: In the leadup to it, James pontificates about certain “cultural reference points” that are part of the general lesbian lexicon. We would dare say Teenage Lesbian is destined to become one of those criterion reference points. And 20 years from now, when people are looking back at the golden sliver of time we’re experience right this moment, it will stand as one of the pivotal moviemaking monuments of a new era.