Starring Mason Thames, Kylr Coffman, Ryan Foust, Mckenna Grace, Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey, Bobby Lee, Fred Armisen
Technically, Nimrods is set in the present day, but, unless you look closely, you'd swear it was a long-lost '90s comedy in the mould of Empire Records or Can't Hardly Wait, with its muted colour palette, punk rock soundtrack, and story of punk rock dirtbags who want nothing more than to skip school and rock out. There's even some VHS camcorder footage to really drive home the nostalgia.
Green Day are co-producers, bit-part actors and the central plot point of the film (originally titled New Year's Rev at TIFF 2025, and substantially upgraded to Nimrods, referencing the band's 1997 album). It's about a Kansas City punk trio called the Analog Dogs, who are pranked into thinking they're opening up for Green Day at a New Year's Eve gig in Los Angeles. The road trip story follows these three delinquents as they scam, steal and scheme their way across the country.
That's pretty much the whole plot, which is more about gleefully half-baked hijinks (entering a battle of the bands at a biker roadhouse, falling in love with a manic pixie punk rocker at a show at the dump) and Green Day needle drops than it is about logical plotting. Car breaks down? No worries, they'll be gifted another one in the next scene.
The goofy film has moments of sentimentality that it doesn't quite earn, but those schlocky emotional beats make a lot more sense upon considering that the film begins at Christmas and ends at New Year's. This is a holiday movie (confusingly arriving in cinemas in August), where some hokeyness is encouraged, and this type of trip down cinematic memory lane will go down as easy as spiked eggnog.