Film

Jackass: The Movie

Name: Jackass: The Movie
Genre: Action, Comedy, Documentary
Released: 2002
Cast: Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Ryan Dunn

Gross-out comedy
Action
Light-hearted
Strange
Relentless
Dip in and out

A group of friends inflict pain on each other and themselves for eighty-five minutes, on camera, for money. There's no arc, no lesson, just skateboarders and stuntmen escalating dares until someone bleeds or vomits. It's gleeful, juvenile, occasionally genuinely dangerous, and built entirely around the pleasure of watching idiots commit fully to a bad idea.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love anarchic physical comedy where the joke is pure nerve, a crew of friends turning their bodies and their dignity into a running experiment in bad decisions, and you laugh hardest when someone is clearly about to regret it.

Skip it if you find shock for its own sake tiresome, since the gags are crude, repetitive in rhythm and built on bodily grossness that some viewers will find more punishing than funny.

What it asks of you: Eighty-five minutes of short, disconnected sketches with no plot to hold onto, so you can dip in and out, but you need a strong stomach and a willingness to watch people hurt themselves on purpose.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Jackass Number Two2006

The sequel that actually improves on the original — bigger budgets, meaner pranks, and the crew visibly more comfortable being filmed doing horrific things to each other.

But If the first one already exhausted you, more of the same isn't a plot twist.

Jackass Forever2022

Twenty years on, older, more broken, still doing it — there's something almost moving about watching these guys refuse to grow up, alongside a new crop of lunatics.

But The nostalgia does a lot of heavy lifting; some stunts feel like reruns with worse knees.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa2013

Knoxville in old-man prosthetics pranking unsuspecting real people across America, structured as an actual narrative — proof the concept can stretch further than you'd think.

But The scripted story is thin and mostly there to string the hidden-camera bits together.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Jackass: The Movie

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Wrestler2008

Same premise stripped of the jokes: a man's body as the show, pain as the price of love from a crowd. Watch what happens when you take the laugh track away.

Mickey Rourke as an aging pro wrestler destroying his body one last time for an audience that barely remembers him — tender, brutal, and unexpectedly devastating.

But It's slow, sad, and offers none of the comic relief you'd expect walking in from Jackass.

Wildboyz2003

Chris Pontius and Steve-O travel the world getting bitten, stung, and charged by wild animals — same DNA as Jackass but with a nature-documentary structure that's genuinely funnier for it.

But The animal stunts occasionally cross from gross into uncomfortable, depending on your tolerance.

Viva La Bam2003

Bam Margera turns his house and hometown into a permanent Jackass set, roping in family and friends for slower-burn, more elaborate chaos.

But Less stunt-based, more prank-and-destruction — a different rhythm if you came purely for the physical carnage.

Impractical Jokers2011

Four childhood friends dare each other into public humiliation instead of physical pain — the same competitive-idiot energy, filtered through hidden cameras and strangers' reactions.

But Much tamer and cleaner-cut; nobody's getting a hoof to the groin.

Ridiculousness2011

Rob Dyrdek and Steve-O narrate a firehose of viral stunt-fail clips — basically Jackass distilled into commentary, endlessly bingeable in small doses.

But It's other people's clips with jokes over them, not the crew actually doing anything themselves.

Landspeed presents: CKY1999

Bam Margera's homemade skate-and-prank tapes, the actual raw material that got the Jackass crew noticed — DIY chaos with none of the polish.

But Amateur camcorder footage with barely any structure; interesting as an artifact more than as entertainment.

Sherlock Jr.1924

Jackass insists its stunts are real because that's the whole point — Keaton was the original proof that real bodily risk, filmed plainly, is funnier than any special effect.

Buster Keaton performs genuinely dangerous stunts — jumping through moving trains, riding a motorcycle handlebars-only — decades before stunt doubles or CGI existed, all captured in a single unbroken take.

But Silent, black-and-white, and slower-paced; you have to meet it on its own century's terms.

Dogtown and Z-Boys2002

This is the actual bloodline: skate culture's do-it-yourself, screw-the-rules ethos that Bam and company grew up worshipping, minus the stunts, plus the truth of where all that recklessness comes from.

The real documentary about the 1970s skate crew that invented the attitude — reckless, broke, brilliant kids turning empty pools into art, years before anyone filmed themselves for MTV.

But It's a serious, talking-heads documentary with real stakes and real consequences, not a gag reel.