In 2007, “Superbad” introduced a coming-of-age story through the eyes of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who wrote it in their teenage years, loosely based on their own experiences. Nearly two decades later, Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher filmed their debut feature, “Pizza Movie,” which rehashes most of its tropes.
Written and directed by the duo, the film plays out like the stoner comedies from the aughts and the early 2010s. There’s little that separates their movie from those projects, apart from a meta element that reveals their thought process and pokes fun at their inner critics. So, what you get is a 90-minute delirious ride that can be exhilarating or exhausting, depending on your mileage to bear with the relentless twists and turns in its underdogs vs jocks tale.
Gaten Matarazzo leads the cast as a college student with an embarrassing reputation, alongside Sean Giambrone as his roommate, who seems like an eccentric theater kid. Lulu Wilson plays the third wheel in this equation, who hangs out with the jocks while trying to outrun her past. Most of their conflicts come from their struggle to fit in and be their honest selves.
So, it’s a usual coming-of-age story wrapped in a package of a surreal drug-induced trip that relies heavily on the chemistry between its central cast. Part of it also feels inspired by Edgar Wright’s playfully electrifying design for “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” The resulting whimsy keeps it afloat for the most part.
Spoilers Ahead
Pizza Movie (2026) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
What happens in the Pizza Movie?
Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) and Montgomery (Sean Giambrone) are two of the most unpopular college students trying to make their college experience less painful by sticking to each other’s sides. They face a fair share of bullying from other students for a couple of reasons. One of them is for their awkward personalities.
As if that’s not enough of a reason, Jack did something that no one was ready to forgive him for. He decided to pull a prank on the principal that everyone dislikes, probably because he saw it as a way to elevate his status in the collegial hierarchy, but it backfired on him. While dressed as the college mascot, he told the football team members to follow the principal, fully naked.
It led them to a police station in front of the officers on their annual daughter day. So, they were charged as sex offenders, all because of Jack’s silly prank. Since then, all the students seem to have ostracized him. Montgomery doesn’t face a challenge of that scale, but he seems just as awkward and anxious as Jack. That’s why he struggles to confess his feelings for his crush, Ashley (Peyton Elizabeth Lee). One day, he and Jack have a life-altering experience that helps them get over their differences. The trigger for that alteration happens to be a box of experimental drug tablets previously hidden in their room.
After getting bullied by Logan (Marcus Scribner) and his cronies, Jack and Montgomery stumble upon that box and decide to get high. Since then, they find themselves in increasingly absurd scenarios that put their friendship to the test. They learn that a pizza can help them escape those horrors, but they can’t reach the delivery robot that is supposed to hand it over.
What are the stages in Jack and Montgomery’s trip?
After taking a tablet, Jack and Montgomery have surreal visions where they can’t make head or tail of anything. So, they look for a way out. They came across a video by Frankie (Sarah Sherman), who talks about the drug, the stages in the trip, and how they can get out of it. She calls these tablets M.I.N.T.S. (Mind Igniting Neural Tuning Stimulants).
The trip includes six distinct phases if someone doesn’t take them with food. Jack and Montgomery already went through the first phase, called ‘Make The Baby Like It.’ The second one, called ‘No Bad Words,’ requires them not to say any curse words or their heads will explode, and they will go back to square one. In that phase, Montgomery learns that Ashley has a rather strange folk punk band that doesn’t align with his musical tastes.
He and Jack realize that Lizzy (Lulu Wilson) is also high on a MINT. They reluctantly join forces as they enter the next phase, called ‘Flashbacks.’ This time, the drug reminds them of some of their darkest memories. Lizzy recalls a scene during her school years, when she was excited to perform a magic trick in front of her classmates.
Montgomery says he would have loved to see her performance, reminding her that she shouldn’t be ashamed of this part of her life. He recalls how she used to hang out with him and Jack until she decided to be a part of a different clique. He and Jack believe she ditched them to be with Logan’s group, but she doesn’t see it that way. The next phase makes them empathize with each other by walking in each other’s shoes.
Called ‘The Ol’ Switcheroo,’ the fourth phase involves Lizzy and Jack switching bodies, leading her to realize the pains of social exclusion and him to realize what it’s like to be popular. Montgomery switches his body with his butterfly, Lysander’s (voiced by Daniel Radcliffe). While flying around the campus, he realizes what the RAs have been up to all this time.
Pizza Movie (2026) Movie Ending Explained:
The RAs, led by Blake (Jack Martin), were planning to expose intoxicated students and discipline them to assert their authority. While trying to run away from them, Lizzy, Jack, and Montgomery step into a room with Sydney (Caleb Hearon), an incompetent RA. They pretend to be RAs themselves to gain his trust.
Sadly, this time, they fail because they enter a phase called ‘Nothing But The Truth,’ where they are rendered incapable of lying. After sharing some embarrassing but harmless facts about themselves, they end up exposing their true identities as non-RAs. Still, owing to Sydney’s incompetence, they manage to escape unscathed and find the delivery robot with their pizza.
As soon as they find the robot, Lizzy learns that she can have pizza with Logan and his clique. So, she ditches Jack and Montgomery to be with them. Before the two can eat the pizza, Blake finds them and throws them in the wellness lounge with a bunch of drowsy, intoxicated teenagers. While stuck in that room, Jack decides to confront Montgomery about something he learnt in their previous phase of the trip.
Montgomery said that he was hoping to switch rooms and live somewhere else. Jack took that personally, believing Montgomery was ditching him out of embarrassment, but Montgomery wasn’t being selfish. Instead, Jack’s self-centeredness made him overlook all the sacrifices Montgomery made for him.
After that argument, Jack is suddenly pulled out of the lounge and thrown into the study hall to be investigated by Blake. By then, Lizzy realizes that Logan lied to her about the pizza. He was only trying to get her on the bus so she could pay for it. So, she walks out to help the friends who value her presence.
Do Lizzy, Jack, and Montgomery find the pizza?
By the end of “Pizza Movie,” Lizzy, Jack, and Montgomery find the pizza and escape the horrors of the trip, but only after they face Blake. Shortly before, Lizzy leaves Logan’s bus to enter the wellness lounge. Montgomery tells her about Jack, compelling her to rescue him from the RAs. After stepping into the study hall, the three friends enter the final phase of their trip, called ‘We Are All One.’ It’s when they imagine themselves as a single entity to fight Blake, who was hoping to beat them up. The battle ends with the trio winning against the RAs. Yet, they still need to find the pizza to end the trip. On top of that problem, they need to face strange manifestations of their inner demons.
Luckily, they run away, find the pizza, and end the curse. As the demons leave their sight, Blake goes on a vivid trip, where he realizes a hyperreal version of his reality. He finds himself in a room with two creatives (writer-directors of the movie) working on their low-budget indie film. The duo wonders whether they haven’t developed Blake’s character well enough and whether it lacks nuance. Blake cannot understand any of it, but he remains stuck in that liminal space, wondering if he lacks the nuance to empathize with others. Meanwhile, Lizzy, Jack, and Montgomery return to their room after winning against the RAs. Even if they have another trip, they would stay by each other’s sides.
How do the MINTS change Lizzy, Jack, and Montgomery’s bond?
The MINTS offer Lizzy a chance to understand Jack’s life as a socially excluded student, and the pain she caused him and Montgomery by ditching them to be with Logan. During the trip, she acknowledges that Logan never accepted her as a part of their clique. So, instead of staying with the popular kids who exploit her niceness, she decides to be with Jack and Montgomery, who accept her with all her quirks and never take her for granted.
The trip makes Jack realize how he took Montgomery’s friendship for granted, and it makes Montgomery realize how much he means to Jack. In the end, they decide not to part ways. Montgomery’s feelings for Ashley change over the course of the trip, leading him to realize his feelings for Lizzy. The ending implies that he gets into a romantic relationship with Lizzy, and the trip strengthens the bond between the three of them.
