A Brilliant 2026 Comedy Is A Hilarious, Guerrilla Remake Of One Of The Best Movies Ever

If a studio were to set out to make one of the most beloved and rewatchable sci-fi movies of all time, fans would be in an uproar. But what if I told you that a brilliant comedy is flying under the radar in theaters right now, and it manages to deliver a guerrilla remake of "Back to the Future" that captures the spirit of the original time travel blockbuster movie while providing a fresh, hilarious take on the material courtesy of two cult favorite Canadian comedians?

We're talking about "Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie," and don't worry if that title doesn't make sense. It's a film adaptation of a TV show called "Nirvanna The Band The Show," which was itself an adaptation of a web series of the same name. The title is a joke in itself, and all you really need to know is that the film continues the exploits of creatives and lifelong best friends Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, who played fictionalized versions of themselves in a band called "Nirvana the Band." Their goal since 2008 has been to play a show at Toronto's hip venue The Rivoli. Matt is always coming up with some kind of harebrained scheme to get them in the door, while Jay improvises songs on the piano, prompting Matt to add his own spoken word silliness on top of them. 

The movie follows the exact same premise of the two shows that preceded it, but their efforts leap into high-concept territory when one of Matt's new schemes accidentally goes wrong (or right?). 

Matt thinks they can convince The Rivoli to give them stage time if they pretend to be time travelers showing up in an RV made to look like a time machine. But Matt accidentally creates a real time machine, sending the duo back to 2008, when they were just beginning their entertainment exploits.

What follows is a winking, borderline parody that combines the lo-fi filmmaking style of something like the "Jackass" franchise or the Lonely Island's famous ”SNL' Digital Shorts with the brilliance of "Back to the Future."

From an incredible sound-alike score that emulates some of the most famous orchestral cues from Alan Silvestri's iconic composition to a series of time travel mishaps that find Matt and Jay trying to avoid their past selves, as well as messing up the present-day timeline, "Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie" hits all the sweet spots of the "Back to the Future" trilogy. 

What makes it all undeniably funny and charming is how low-budget it all is. Shot with handheld video cameras, including one straight out of 2008 (or at least made to look like it was), we follow Matt and Jay as they risk messing up time and their friendship. This includes bits where the duo interacts with real people who have no idea that Matt and Jay are in the middle of shooting scenes for the movie. Think "Borat" but without the terrible people and cringeworthy comedy. 

At the same time, the movie clearly has a budget that allows it to craft some impressive tricks and visual effects, such as when the movie makes it appear as if Matt and Jay parachute from the top of Toronto's CN Tower to the roof of the Toronto Blue Jays Skydome. Another gag involves the CN Tower and an impossibly long extension cord, making for another delightfully absurd sequence. 

But perhaps the most impressive part of the film is just how many clearances the movie had to get (or how they avoided them) in order to execute this loving parody remake of "Back to the Future."

First of all, Johnson told Variety that he worked very closely with a lawyer to make sure that everything in "Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie" was legally regarded as parody and well within fair use. Johnson explained:

"I'm very lucky in that my career began with a movie called 'The Dirties,' which I made in 2013, which is making a movie full of infringement with no plan for how to fix it. I had to learn in releasing that movie how to navigate fair use law. I did that with a lawyer named Chris Perez, who works for a firm in California called Donaldson Callif Perez. Ever since then, I've worked with Chris to write most of my movies. And by that, I mean I triple-checked everything that I'm putting in these scripts against his counsel. So there was nothing that got put into this movie that I was worried about from a copyright point of view, because we'd figured all of that out before we even shot it."

But that's not the only legal clearance needed in the film. When Matt and Jay travel back to 2008, they replicate the sequence where Marty realizes that he's traveled back to 1955. (Well, it's technically a replication of every time Marty sees the familiar Hill Valley town square after traveling to a new year.) When Matt truly realizes he's in 2008, it's because he looks around Sankofa Square, which is basically Toronto's Times Square, and sees a bunch of dated digital billboard advertisements for things like "Grand Theft Auto IV", "The Dark Knight," the BlackBerry, and a "Got Milk?" campaign featuring Jared from Subway before he was charged with heinous crimes. The entire list of copyrighted materials in the credits, simply because of the visual gags from 2008, is staggering. 

It's all hilarious frosting on a tasty cake that combines innovative comedy with a genuine love for cinema. What better excuse do you need to head to theaters and have some big laughs with an actual audience?

"Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie" is playing in theaters now.