Quinceañera is the 2006 film in which Magdalena prepares for her quinceañera in Los Angeles.
Written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, the film follows Magdalena, a Mexican American teenager in Echo Park, as family tensions and changing circumstances affect her fifteenth-birthday celebration. The story uses the event as a setting for questions about family, identity, sexuality, and community.
The film premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, where it received major recognition. It won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the dramatic competition, making the film notable beyond its connection to the cultural tradition.
The title is intentionally identical to the celebration it depicts. That can cause confusion with documentaries, television episodes, or ordinary references to quinceañeras, so the year and the character Magdalena identify the feature film specifically.