American Pie

"There's nothing like your first piece."

1999 1h 35m EN

👍

6.6

SOLID

🍅

62%

FRESH

😬

METACRITIC

⭐

IMDB

★6.6TMDB · 8,594🍅62%Rotten Tomatoes●58Metacritic★7IMDB · 463,213

ComedyRomance

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

At a high-school party, four friends find that losing their collective virginity isn't as easy as they had thought. But they still believe that they need to do so before college. To motivate themselves, they enter a pact to all "score" by their senior prom.

“There's nothing like your first piece.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Jason Biggs
Jim Levenstein
Chris Klein
Chris 'Oz' Ostreicher
Thomas Ian Nicholas
Kevin Meyers
Alyson Hannigan
Michelle Flaherty
Shannon Elizabeth
Nadia
Tara Reid
Victoria 'Vicky' Lathum
Eddie Kaye Thomas
Paul Finch
Seann William Scott
Steve Stifler

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Paul Weitz
Writers: Adam Herz
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $235M — a 21.4× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

27 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "American Pie Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

CAST

Did you know

218+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Paul Weitz, shot by Richard Crudo. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by David Lawrence. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Priscilla Nedd-Friendly shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Jason Biggs and Chris Klein and Thomas Ian Nicholas carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Paul Weitz directs. Richard Crudo behind the camera. David Lawrence scores. Priscilla Nedd-Friendly cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Grossed $235M — a 21.4× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
227 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Part of the "American Pie Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
4218+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
5Directed by Paul Weitz, shot by Richard Crudo. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by David Lawrence. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Priscilla Nedd-Friendly shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Jason Biggs and Chris Klein and Thomas Ian Nicholas carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "There's nothing like your first piece.".
10IMDB entry: tt0163651 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 15 themes, including "innocence", "graduation", "loss of virginity", "coming of age".
12Released under 11 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Richard Crudo
Original score: David Lawrence
Editing: Priscilla Nedd-Friendly
Production design: Paul Peters
Costume design: Leesa Evans
Makeup / hair: Voni Hinkle
Sound: Gary S. Gerlich
Stunt coordinator: Russell Towery
Runtime: 95 min · 1h 35m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $11,000,000
Box office: $235,483,004
Return: 2141% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: American Pie (1999)
Rotten Tomatoes: 62% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 58/100
IMDB rating: 7/10 · 463,213 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

9 wins & 14 nominations total

Part of

American Pie Collection

American Pie is a series of sex comedy films. The first film in the series was released in 1999, by Universal Pictures, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, cult following amongst young people. The second and third films were released at two-year intervals, whereas the fourth film was released in 2012. A spin-off film series titled American Pie Presents, which includes four direct-to-video films was released from 2005 to 2009. - Wikipedia

Also by

Paul Weitz

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

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Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2022-04-13
★ 5/10
The thing that got me about this film is that the four boys here would have no issue at all getting a playmate. My favourite was either Chris Klein ("Oz") or "Kevin" (Thomas Ian Nicholas) depending on my mood - but the fact they all get caught up into this almost puerile, faux-angsty existence really bored me. The girls are equally stunning most of the time, and just as (if not more) sexually curious - what's the beef? The script/humour plays to just about every stereotype imaginable: the sporty jocks and the dimwit broads; the parents who react to their offspring's sexual predilections as if they, themselves, had never had a shag in their lives. The characters are so shallow and have enough implausibly intense conversations about scoring that makes you want to reach for a pen-knife to put a notch on the bed-post (or a hole in your own left leg). Seann William Scott and Jason Biggs (OK, maybe I understand why he struggles to get laid) take "Carry On" style innuendo to a new level of cringe-making embarrassment and the ending really does makes the "Graduate" look like Fellini! The production is shamelessly chauvinist - there is no male nudity - but plenty of boobs and I thought it had dated really badly. Sorry, but much of this just made me squirm!
Andre Gonzales2023-04-16
★ 10/10
Ahh how it all started. I was a teen boy growing up when this movie came out. I related to this movie in so many ways. Love it!
AlfaVitaY2K2026-05-24
★ 10/10
This is a teen sex comedy that finally feels like it exists in the same universe as actual high school in real world. Where Porky's (1981) was crude, cartoonish, and embarrassingly detached from reality, with a pack of horny incels orbiting one token slut while treating girls like an alien species, American Pie gets it refreshingly right. It presents horny teenagers who are still human. The girls aren't props or fantasy objects; they're normal, articulate, and sexually curious without descending into caricature. They talk more like normal people, not like brain-dead incels in Porky's. What makes the movie good is its cheerful honesty. It doesn't treat adolescent horniness as pathetic or weird, but as a universal, awkward rite of passage. The infamous pie scene, the pact to lose their virginity before prom, and the parade of awkward hookups all land because they're rooted in relatable naivety rather than cartoon idiocy. Crude but never mean-spirited, American Pie struck the perfect balance: funny enough to be a massive hit, witty enough to feel like a genuine step forward for the genre. A surprising milestone in late '90s teen sex comedy.