The highly praised comedy film Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie has finally landed an official UK release date.
The movie has been heralded as one of the films of the year by critics and audiences in North America and it was released in cinemas there back in February, but until now there had been no sign of a UK theatrical run.
Directed by Matt Johnson, the film is based on the Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s YouTube mockumentary series Nirvana The Band The Show and its subsequent Canadian TV adaptation Nirvanna The Band The Show, which ran from 2017 to 2018.
Now, the spinoff movie has been acquired by Vertigo Releasing and they have confirmed that it will be released in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on July 3, with some previews to begin on July 1.
It sees Johnson and McCarrol star as fictionalised versions of themselves as a struggling musical duo called Nirvanna The Band, as they attempt to book a gig at the Rivoli in Toronto. They accidentally travel back to 2008 and their attempts to fix the timeline spirals into a meta sci-fi comedy made up of pranks, parodies and escalating disaster.
The film premiered at the South By Southwest Film & TV Festival in March 2025, and it has been met with near universal acclaim. It currently sits on a 98 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, whose consensus reads: “Combining slyly skilful filmmaking with gut-busting laughs, Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie will be pure heaven for fans of the series while making happy converts of the uninitiated”.
Johnson and McCarrol co-wrote and produced the original web series independently, while the TV version aired on Viceland for two seasons. A third season was written and partially produced by it remains unaired.
Johnson went on to co-write, direct and star in the 2023 film BlackBerry, the dramatised story of the history of the phone brand, and he has also directed the upcoming film Tony, a biopic based on the life of celebrity chef and broadcaster Anthony Bourdain.
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