Pizza Movie

Bluesky

If you’ve ever been in the habit of casually smoking cannabis with friends, you’ll understand the dilemma of desperately wanting snacks but feeling that going out to get them is an insurmountable challenge. This is, in essence, the theme of Pizza Movie, which premièred at SXSW 2026. Now that cannabis has gone mainstream in parts of the US, however, it no longer works in quite the same way – plus smoking is very much out of style – so instead this film involves a new, designer drug. This also gives it the opportunity to up the ante.

Montgomery (Sean Giambrone) and Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) are two likeable young men who have spectacularly failed to impress the in-crowd at college. Monty has an obsessive crush on fellow student Ashley (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) and is striving to become an ‘alpha’ in order to make the right impression, though he really knows nothing about her. Jack has alienated the entire campus by leading its football team into an embarrassing situation, and is consequently subject to random insults and attacks every time he shows his face. Neighbours in their student dorm routinely visit just to bully them. During one of these incidents, a ceiling panel in their room is dislodged, and a tin falls down. It is here that they find the mystery drug – and they only think to go looking for advice about it after they’ve taken it.

All is not lost. Monty had already ordered a pizza. Unfortunately, it has been delivered by robot (the ridiculously endearing Snacktotron), which has no concept of lifts and cannot navigate stairs. To reach it, they must descend two flights – whilst coping with several different wildly disorientating psychedelic experiences.

It’s an uneven film, emerging as a series of comedy skits before gradually melding them into a coherent story. Some of these are more successful than others, though the gathering pace and developing characters mean that overall the film gets better over time. As well as coping with their central challenge, our heroes must deal with the usual poor condition of student accommodation, avoid the bullies, and avoid a pack of RAs (residence advisors) led by the sinister Blake (Jack Martin) as if they were a junior offshoot of ICE. Should they fail, a terrifying fate awaits, and even if they avoid the consequences of their ill-advised psychedelic experimentation, there is the danger of being sent to the gulag that is satellite student residence Gralk Hall.

There are some nice touches. Where Ashley’s lifestyle diverges dramatically from Monty’s, it is sensitively handled. His macho ambitions produce comedy without becoming obnoxious, and there’s a refreshing lack of spite about the whole thing. A bizarre subplot around him having a pet butterfly will fail to convince lepidopterists but is pleasingly surreal, sweet and sometimes very funny. Viewers should be aware that there are occasional gory moments, but ultimately this is quite a gentle film, an affectionate tribute to well-meaning nerds who like roleplaying games and are in fact much better adjusted to life than many of their peers.

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