Lena Dunham's Girls to return for limited HBO run
Ten years after the series finale, the "Girls" are getting back together to explore the "milestone of turning forty", HBO says.
Lena Dunham’s Girls set for limited HBO return
HBO’s acclaimed series Girls will come back to screens for a limited run, ten years after its final episode aired.
Lena Dunham — the show’s creator, writer and one of its stars — revealed the news during a mock Zoom call with original cast members Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet and Andrew Rannells.
All five actors, whose careers took off thanks to Girls, will appear in the five-episode revival, with production due to start in 2027. Judd Apatow, who helped secure HBO’s green light for the series, will also return as an executive producer.
“We always said we would only return to 'Girls' if there was a specific story we were burning to tell,” Dunham said in a statement.
“I've missed these characters, but for a long time I couldn't quite picture them in the present day,” she said.
“Then, right around my 40th birthday, they started talking to me in the shower. And, as you may remember, once this fivesome starts talking it's pretty hard to get them to stop,” she said.
Girls, which ran for six seasons from 2012 to 2017, received 19 Emmy nominations and won two, including best casting.
It follows four friends — Hannah, played by Dunham, Marnie, played by Williams, Jessa, played by Kirke, and Shoshanna, played by Mamet — as they live in New York City in their 20s.
Created by Dunham when she was 23, the series drew both praise and criticism during its run.
“We're thrilled to have Lena turn her gaze from the tumult of one's twenties to the milestone of turning forty,” Amy Gravitt, HBO’s executive vice-president of programming, said.
“To say the world has changed since we last saw Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna, Jessa, and Elijah is a massive understatement, but we know fans - old and new - will be happy to see how they've grown and relieved to see that they're still the 'Girls' we knew way back when.”
The limited run’s title has not yet been announced, though Dunham did ask her fellow cast members on the mock Zoom call, “can we still call it Girls?”, before joking “because we're old as”.
Other cast and production figures, most notably actor Adam Driver, were missing from HBO’s official statement. Driver, in his breakout role, played Dunham’s on-and-off again love interest in the show.
In her 2026 bestselling memoir Famesick, Dunham alleged that Driver’s behaviour on set at times became verbally aggressive and physically imposing. Driver has not publicly responded to the allegations.
In Famesick, Dunham also wrote about the collapse of her working relationship and friendship with co-showrunner and executive producer Jenni Konner. Konner is not mentioned in HBO’s statement about the revival.
Dunham wrote on her Substack that “it's rare in life that you get the chance to return to something you love with new knowledge and a ... ton of gratitude.
“I love these girls (and boy) and I love all the people who have reminded us afresh why we do this, which is the joy of being together and the chance to wear yellow mesh…” she wrote.
Since Girls ended, Dunham has gone on to create the Netflix series Too Much in 2025 and the indie film Sharp Stick.