Just when it seemed like the stoner comedy had finally puffed its last breath, a Hulu hit from one of the stars of Stranger Things proves that viewers should not count the genre out just yet. Although Cheech and Chong’s iconic 1978 movie Up In Smoke is often hailed as the earliest stoner comedy, the so-called “Stoner movie” actually dates back all the way to the swinging sixties. 1968’s Peter Sellers vehicle I Love You, Alice B. Toklas and Ralph Bakshi’s infamous animated comedy Fritz the Cat both predated Cheech and Chong’s cinematic misadventures, although the cult comedians did popularise the sub-genre.
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In the decades since, the stoner film has grown and waned in popularity until recent years saw the genre all but vanish up in smoke. That is, until 2026’s Hulu hit Pizza Movie, starring Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo and The Goldbergs’ Sean Giambrone, proved that the genre remains as beloved as ever. Written and directed by YouTube comedy legends BriTANicK, Pizza Movie follows a pair of nebbish college roommates as they succumb to increasingly intense and absurd hallucinations after accidentally ingesting hard drugs. The duo’s epic quest to find the titular food so they can sober up provides Pizza Movie with its comically low-stakes story.
Pizza Movie’s Critical and Streaming Success Proves Stoner Movies Are Back
With a 79% Rotten Tomatoes rating from critics, it is fair to say that Pizza Movie is a critical success. However, the comedy also managed to maintain a spot in the top 10 most-watched on Hulu throughout the weekend of its release, proving that Pizza Movie is equally popular with viewers. This is more notable than readers might assume, since stoner comedies have not been a multiplex staple for some time now.
Hits like the Scary Movie franchise, the Friday movies, Dude, Where’s My Car, Idle Hands, Half Baked, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Van Wilder, How High, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back ensured that stoner comedies were a massively popular sub-genre in the early 2000s. However, it was the Seth Rogen vehicles Knocked Up and Pineapple Express that brought the stoner comedy to mainstream blockbuster levels of fame, and massive hits like Ted, Paul, and This Is The End soon followed in the years after.
Stoner Comedies Fell Off In The 2010s
However, with this mainstream popularity came a number of costly stoner flops from 2011’s Your Highness to 2019’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot and the same year’s The Beach Bum. The end of the once-huge genre might have come about thanks to the increasingly widespread legalisation of cannabis and its subsequent cultural mainstreaming, but the streaming revolution also made mid-budget comedies like Super Troopers, Grandma’s Boy, and Without a Paddle a much less common sight at the multiplex.
Luckily, the tide is seemingly turning on this trend, as Pizza Movie’s success may just be the beginning of the stoner comedy revival. With the upcoming reboot Scary Movie, an Idle Hands remake, and Craig Brewster’s planned Snoop Dogg biopic all coming out soon, stoner comedies are now back in a big way. With any luck, the well-earned critical success of BriTANick’s Hulu hit Pizza Movie will help to bring back this beloved subgenre in the next few months and years.
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