A wildly inventive, crowd-pleasing comedy that turns a scrappy friendship premise into an elaborate time-travel caper. It sounds like a miracle of DIY filmmaking: dense with gags, meta-humor, and big theatrical set pieces that reward a loud audience.
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Comedy · Science Fiction
Mon · 1h 40m
Director: Matt Johnson
Starring: Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol, Ben Petrie
Overview
When their plan to book a show at the Rivoli goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008.
Director
Matt Johnson
Cast
Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol, Ben Petrie
Curator Review
Verdict
A wildly inventive, crowd-pleasing comedy that turns a scrappy friendship premise into an elaborate time-travel caper. It sounds like a miracle of DIY filmmaking: dense with gags, meta-humor, and big theatrical set pieces that reward a loud audience.
Best for
fans of absurdist, high-energy comedies
viewers who like time-travel stories with a playful, lo-fi edge
people who enjoy friendship-centered buddy movies
audiences who want a theatrical comedy experience with big laughs
Skip if
you dislike meta-comedy and in-jokes
you want a straightforward plot with minimal chaos
you prefer grounded realism over elaborate prank-like filmmaking
you are not interested in Canadian indie comedy sensibilities
Overview
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie feels like a long-running inside joke that somehow became a major feat of cinema. It takes the duo’s scrappy, self-destructive mission to book a gig and blows it open into a time-travel adventure that still runs on the chemistry of two best friends refusing to grow up. The result is less a polished studio comedy than a delirious, meticulously engineered prank on the audience, the city, and maybe reality itself.
Worth noting
What makes it work is the scale of the ambition relative to the deadpan stupidity of the premise. The movie keeps finding new ways to escalate a simple bit into something absurdly elaborate, and the craft is part of the joke: hidden-camera energy, public-stunt comedy, and a surprising amount of narrative engineering. It’s the kind of film that makes you laugh first and then immediately ask how anyone pulled it off.
Bottom line
It also has a real emotional core under the chaos. For all the copyright-nightmare spectacle and time-bending nonsense, it’s fundamentally about two people who have built an identity out of staying together, even as the world moves on without them. Seen with a crowd, it should play like a cult event from the moment it starts.
Top Letterboxd reviews
demi adejuyigbe (5★) · 9111 likes
better be a five hour comprehensive making-of bonus feature on that blu-ray
David Sims (4.5★) · 9098 likes
how on earth did they make this lol
eddyburback (5★) · 7625 likes
can’t recommend seeing this one in theaters enough asked myself “how did they do that???” at least 50 times
BenDavid Grabinski (5★) · 5664 likes
Comedy masterpiece. There’s a gag related to THE HANGOVER that might be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
coffee (5★) · 5296 likes
if you got a best friend, you won’t even notice getting older. one of the best comedies ever made
Themes
friendship, time travel, meta-comedy, cult filmmaking, failure and ambition, nostalgia, public-stunt comedy, Canadian indie cinema