Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie

"Every year Hollywood makes hundreds of movies. This is one of them!"

1996 1h 13m EN

👍

6.6

SOLID

🍅

80%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.2

IMDB

★6.6TMDB · 237🍅80%Rotten Tomatoes●65Metacritic★7.2IMDB · 19,144

Science FictionComedy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

In the not-too-distant future, the evil Dr. Forrester forces a temp named Mike into a series of experiments, where he's forced to watch cheesy movies so the mad scientist can monitor his mind. However, as Mike can't control where the movies begin or end, he'll try to keep his sanity with the help of his robot friends.

“Every year Hollywood makes hundreds of movies. This is one of them!”

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Where to watch · US

Cast

Michael J. Nelson
Mike Nelson
Trace Beaulieu
Crow T. Robot (voice) / Dr. Clayton Forrester
Kevin Murphy
Tom Servo (voice)
Jim Mallon
Gypsy (voice)
John Brady
Benkitnorf
Rex Reason
Dr. Cal Meacham (archive footage)
Faith Domergue
Dr. Ruth Adams (archive footage)
Jeff Morrow
Exeter (archive footage)

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Jim Mallon
Writers: Paul Chaplin, Jim Mallon, Michael J. Nelson
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

RUNTIME

Did you know

Tight 73-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Earned back only 20% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

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

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Jim Mallon, shot by Jeff Stonehouse. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

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

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

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

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Michael J. Nelson and Trace Beaulieu and Kevin Murphy carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Every year Hollywood makes hundreds of movies. This is one of them!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Jim Mallon directs. Jeff Stonehouse behind the camera. Billy Barber scores. Bill Johnson cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. A commercial under-performer on release. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Tight 73-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.
2Earned back only 20% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.
330 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
4Directed by Jim Mallon, shot by Jeff Stonehouse. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Billy Barber. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Bill Johnson shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Michael J. Nelson and Trace Beaulieu and Kevin Murphy carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "Every year Hollywood makes hundreds of movies. This is one of them!".
9IMDB entry: tt0117128 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 15 themes, including "telescope", "cinema on cinema", "satire", "puppet".
11Released under 10 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Jeff Stonehouse
Original score: Billy Barber
Editing: Bill Johnson
Production design: Jef Maynard
Makeup / hair: Robert I. Phillips
Sound: Ken Hahn
Runtime: 73 min · 1h 13m
Status: Released
Budget: $5,000,000
Box office: $1,007,306
Return: 20% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996)
Rotten Tomatoes: 80% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 65/100
IMDB rating: 7.2/10 · 19,144 votes
MPAA: PG-13

Awards

1 nomination total

Also by

Jim Mallon

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

Filipe Manuel Neto2023-02-10
★ 1/10
It might be really funny to a lot of people, but it didn't work for me. I know there are a lot of old movies that are painfully bad. Some of them are so bad they're funny. This is quite well known. What I didn't know was that there had been a TV series in the past that made fun of these movies. “Mystery Science Theater 3000” was a series that never aired in Portugal and that I only became aware of when researching this film. Now I understand better certain things that I didn't realize when I was watching it, but even so, I feel that it is a film that is not for me. Before writing, I went to see an episode or two of the original series to compare. What the film did was, essentially, a movie episode. The differences are minimal, and that seems a bit lazy to me right off the bat. There are lots of films based on good TV series, and it's not uncommon for the opposite to happen, but generally there is an effort, on the part of those who make the films, to give us something different, even if the base is there. That didn't happen here. Also, the film tries to make witty jokes based on the older film, but it splatters roundly on the floor with each one. First, because there is a bad placement of the jokes, which happens before we even realize why, as if it were a spoiler. And then, because they are dull jokes, a type of humor that seems like it would only have a chance to work at the expense of a few very alcoholic drinks. I just don't like humor like that, and therefore the movie didn't have any jokes. Luckily, it was a fairly brief movie, just over an hour, or I would have stopped and moved on to something really more interesting.

Production companies