Entertainment
‘Pizza Movie’ Officially Brings Back the Stoner Comedy With ‘Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo
Every generation has its stoner movie, whether it’s the oeuvre of Cheech and Chong and Jay and Silent Bob, the heightened take on the genre with The Big Lebowski, or the absurdist comedy of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. But it’s strangely a type of comedy that has started to go away in recent years, the type of ridiculous, dumb humor that is enjoyable because of how silly and stupid it can be. But this year, writer-directors Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney (also known as the sketch comedy duo BriTANicK) attempt to revitalize the genre with Pizza Movie.
For this type of stoner college comedy, Pizza Movie has an impressive amount of ambition, a strange but brilliant concept full of wild ideas it can gleefully explore, all in the guise of a goofy comedy. Pizza Movie not only feels like an homage to the films that came before it, the types of movies that you’d watch over and over again, catching and memorizing every little joke, but a solid new step forward in the stoner comedy canon.
Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone Need To Walk Down Just 2 Flights of Stairs in ‘Pizza Movie’
Pizza Movie centers on two college roommates: Montgomery (Sean Giambrone), a shy kid who has a crush on music major Ashley (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), and Jack (Gaten Matarazzo), who the entire campus seems to be mad at. After another night of getting picked on by Logan (Marcus Scribner), who has made farting in their faces a ritual, Jack convinces Montgomery to take a 10-year-old drug that just fell from their dorm room ceiling in a mint container. However, the drug is far stronger than they anticipated, which sends them on a multi-phase adventure…to go down two flights of stairs and pick up the pizza they ordered.
As explained by the drug’s creator, Frankie (Sarah Sherman), this drug has six distinct phases that they will have to explore. For example, one phase makes several of the drug’s users switch bodies Freaky Friday style, while another phase makes it so that the users can only tell the truth. If they don’t eat pizza soon, they’ll have to reckon with the final phase of the drug: their worst nightmares come to life and shove a chainsaw up their ass. Montgomery and Jack are joined by Lizzy (Lulu Wilson), who used to be their friend but now tries to impress Logan and his friends. Together, they have to get down those two flights of stairs, eat some pizza, and avoid this chainsaw conclusion. Oh, and they also have to avoid a group of militant RAs who have it out for them and want to send them to the dreaded Gralk Hall, a nightmarish dorm that’s 4 hours away.
‘Pizza Movie’ Makes the Most of Its Ridiculous Concept
Kocher and McElhaney take an absurdly simple premise — three students need to go down two flights of stairs — and manage to make an entire film out of it. Pizza Movie sets up these characters nicely, leaves a little mystery for us about each of them, then sets them out on an adventure that will allow us to dig even deeper into this trio. In one of the phases of the drug, we’re basically stuck in all flashbacks, while another might just be for fun, like the phase where if they curse, their heads will explode. But still, at 90 minutes, Pizza Movie does clock out right when it starts to exhaust its premise, and that’s probably for the best. Kocher and McElhaney took the most bare-bones idea and found a way to expand it and make it interesting, all in an entertaining narrative centered around character.
Also, for a comedy that clearly had limitations (again, this is a story that is about going down two flights of stairs), Kocher and McElhaney make this feel grander and look better than you’d expect. Kocher and McElhaney ensure that every new phase is distinct and often has a specific look to it that differentiates it from the others. Some of these are clearly more bombastic than others, like the one where heads are literally exploding every few seconds, but others, like the body swap or flashbacks, are taking very basic concepts we’ve seen in movies plenty of times before and doing them justice. Pizza Movie really proves how much you can do with a little and make it really work.
Gaten Matarazzo, Sean Giambrone, and Lulu Wilson Are Fun Comedic Leads
Pizza Movie’s three stars are a delightful way into this story as well. As Matarazzo’s first project since the conclusion of Stranger Things, the character of Jack allows him to embrace a more adult character, while playing a guy who’s still a goof. But it is wonderful to see Matarazzo embrace the weirdness of this story and be an overtly comedic character in this way. The same is especially true of Giambrone, who is probably best known for playing Adam Goldberg on The Goldbergs for a decade. Montgomery is a role that lets him play to his nerdy strengths, but again, allows him to push a little bit further than the performances one might expect from him. Wilson is also a great addition to this crew, and it’s a delight watching her try to navigate her old friend group and the new one she’s still trying to get to appreciate her. Together, this trio is a solid group to follow on this journey.
Kocher and McElhaney also know how to utilize its fantastic cameos, whether it’s Sarah Sherman as a drug creator, Marcus Scribner as a guy who loves to fart on nerds’ faces, or, yes, Daniel Radcliffe as the voice of Montgomery’s pet butterfly. But the star of these is easily Caleb Hearon as Sidney, who went to college a decade later than most, has joined the militant RAs, and is trying to fit in. Hearon is fantastic, and it’s such a strange dynamic to throw him into, but it works beautifully.
Pizza Movie is a charming throwback to the stoner comedies that inspired it, an ambitious college movie that knows how to take a simple idea and turn it into something broad, wild, and expansive. While the joke might start to get a bit thin near the end, Pizza Movie is a clever bit of fun, and we definitely need more broad comedies like this in the world.
Pizza Movie premiered at the 2026 SXSW Festival. It comes to Hulu on April 3.
- Release Date
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March 13, 2026
- Runtime
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92 minutes
- Director
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Nick Kocher
- Writers
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Nick Kocher, Brian McElhaney
- Producers
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Billy Rosenberg, Jeremy Garelick, Max A. Butler, Molle DeBartolo, Gaten Matarazzo, Will Phelps
- Pizza Movie finds great ways to expand a very simple premise.
- The cast, including Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone, are a blast.
- Pizza Movie is inventive, playful, and a clever homage to stoner comedies.
- The story starts to grow a bit thin by the end.
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