Film

American Movie

Name: American Movie
Genre: Documentary, Comedy
Released: 1999
Cast: Mark Borchardt, Mike Schank, Tom Schimmels, Monica Borchardt, Alex Borchardt

A real Wisconsin dreamer named Mark Borchardt spends years trying to finish his no-budget horror short 'Coven' while his life quietly falls apart around him. It's scrappy, hilarious, and unexpectedly moving verité filmmaking — a comedy about failure that somehow becomes a genuine tribute to stubborn, unglamorous hope. Essential for anyone who's ever loved a project more than it loved them back.

TMDb rating

7.5

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The Disaster Artist2017

James Franco's loving, very funny recreation of Tommy Wiseau making 'The Room' is the closest thing to a glossy studio cousin of American Movie — same delusion, same devotion, more polish.

But It's a dramatized retelling rather than the real, ragged thing, and some of the mystique gets sanded off in the translation.

Grizzly Man2005

Werner Herzog's documentary about a man who lived among grizzly bears shares Mark's obsessive, self-mythologizing energy, but pushes the joke of American ambition somewhere much darker.

But It ends in genuine tragedy, and Herzog's cool philosophical narration is a colder register than American Movie's warmth.

Best Worst Movie2009

A documentary about the accidental cult classic 'Troll 2' and its earnest small-town cast, with the same affection for lovable amateurs chasing a strange kind of glory.

But It's gentler and more celebratory throughout — less of the financial dread and family strain that gives American Movie its edge.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Ed Wood1994

Ed Wood is Mark Borchardt's spiritual grandfather: a joyfully untalented true believer surrounded by a ramshackle found family, making cheap genre pictures out of pure love rather than skill — just told forty-five years earlier, in fiction, with a Hollywood budget.

Tim Burton's black-and-white biopic about Hollywood's most famously terrible director is, unbelievably, the fictionalized origin story for every Mark Borchardt who ever lived — same ragtag crew, same unstoppable belief that this film will be the one.

But It's a tender, stylized Hollywood valentine rather than a document of real struggle, so the stakes never feel as raw or as truly at risk.