Film
Best Worst Movie
A joyous, occasionally sad documentary that tracks down the cast of Troll 2 twenty years after it was crowned the worst film ever made, and finds them delighted by their own infamy. It's really about fandom, obsolescence, and what happens when the internet decides your embarrassment is treasure. Funny, weirdly moving, essential for anyone who has ever loved something ironically and then, helplessly, for real.
If you liked this
Troll 21990
The obvious, correct next move: watch the film this whole documentary orbits and see for yourself why 'goblins' still gets shouted in living rooms twenty years on.
But It is, by every conventional measure, a genuinely bad movie — competence is not the appeal here.

The Disaster Artist2017
James Franco's loving, hilarious recreation of The Room's making covers almost exactly the same territory — a hopeless passion project that accidentally became a cult sacrament.
But Polished Hollywood comedy rather than raw documentary; it's affectionate mimicry, not the real, messier thing.

American Movie1999
Chris Smith's documentary about a Wisconsin filmmaker trying to finish his horror short is the funniest, saddest portrait of scrappy, doomed movie love ever shot.
But Less celebratory than Best Worst Movie — the humour comes with real desperation attached, and it stings a bit.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Ed Wood1994
Plan 9 from Outer Space was the 'worst movie ever made' before Troll 2 took the crown, and this film performs the same act of rehabilitating a hapless auteur through love rather than mockery — just in 1950s Hollywood instead of a 2009 fan convention.
Tim Burton's black-and-white biopic of the director once considered the worst of all time treats his delusion and joy with total tenderness — the redemption arc Troll 2 later inherited, decades earlier.
But It's a scripted period drama, not a documentary, and its warmth is Burton's invention, not unfiltered reality.

More like this (8)
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters2007
Obsessive underdogs, a bizarre subculture, and a hero-villain dynamic this good almost feels scripted — one of the most purely entertaining documentaries ever made.
But It's about competitive Donkey Kong, not film, so the connection is all in tone, not subject.

The Room2003
If Troll 2 is the gateway drug, this is the other pillar of so-bad-it's-transcendent cinema — you owe it to yourself to see the source material.
But Notoriously divisive to watch alone; it's really built for a crowd shouting back at the screen.

Winnebago Man2010no page yet
Another documentary about accidental internet fame — this time a foul-mouthed RV salesman turned viral meme — and what it costs the person underneath the joke.
But Its subject is prickly rather than endearing, and the film sits with discomfort longer than Best Worst Movie does.
Trekkies1997
A warm, funny survey of hardcore Star Trek fandom that treats its subjects' devotion with the same generous curiosity Best Worst Movie brings to Troll 2's cult.
But Dated and a little scattershot structurally; it's more anthropology than narrative.

Not Quite Hollywood2008no page yet
A rowdy documentary celebration of gloriously trashy Australian genre films from the 70s and 80s, made by people who clearly adore the schlock they're chronicling.
But Assumes some appetite for exploitation cinema clips that are genuinely rough, gory, or exploitative by design.
Rewind This!2013no page yet
A scrappy documentary about VHS culture and the tapes nobody else valued enough to preserve — the same spirit of reclaiming junk as treasure.
But Niche even by cult-documentary standards; it's more format nostalgia than character-driven story.
Anvil! The Story of Anvil2008
Swap film for music and you get the same structural engine as Best Worst Movie: people written off decades ago, discovered by a new generation, forced to reckon with fame that arrives too late and slightly wrong.
A documentary about an aging, endlessly hopeful heavy metal band who never made it big but keep touring anyway — the exact same collision of failure, delusion, and genuine talent.
But If you don't care about metal, some of the concert footage will test your patience regardless of the emotional payoff.

Marwencol2010
Best Worst Movie always has one foot in real sadness — the isolation under the joke — and Marwencol is what you get if you remove the comedy entirely and just sit with a misfit's private world being suddenly, uncomfortably exposed to strangers.
A documentary about a man who builds an elaborate toy-scale WWII village in his backyard after a brain injury — outsider creativity treated with total, unflinching seriousness.
But There is no laughter to be had here; it's a somber, occasionally devastating film about trauma, not cult celebration.

People
Cast
- Michael StephensonHimself
- George HardyHimself
Jason SteadmanHimself- Jason WrightHimself
- Zack CarlsonHimself
- Randall ColburnHimself
- Adam DeyoeHimself
John GemberlingHimself- Patrick GibbsHimself
- Paul GibbsHimself
- Eric GosselinHimself
- Rocky JalilHimself
Directing
- Michael StephensonDirector
Writing
- Michael StephensonWriter
Production
- Michael StephensonProducer
Recommended by
American Movie, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, Lost in La Mancha, The Room, The Movies That Made Us, Confessions of a Superhero