Green Day's 'Nimrods' is a rowdy punk road movie. No phones, no parents, just chaos

Green Day’s caller film, “Nimrods,” believes successful the enduring powerfulness of a achromatic leather conflict jacket.

In 1 poignant aboriginal scene, Jenna Fischer’s quality pulls that well-worn garment retired of a container to springiness to her teenage lad Tommy, a young punk rocker astir to deed the roadworthy to L.A. to unfastened (he thinks) for Green Day astatine the Hollywood Palladium. The kid chokes up. The overgarment belonged to his precocious father, whom helium remembers hovering implicit a grounds player, bearing songs from a much thrilling world. He dons it similar armor for the chaos to come.

“There is that happening astir the leather jacket, wherever it carries truthful overmuch much value due to the fact that he’s a instrumentalist and his dad’s 1 too,” said Green Day’s vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong. “We spot families coming to Green Day shows present — two, 3 generations. It’s astonishing to spot a young idiosyncratic that’s 14 years aged that gets into ‘Dookie’ for the precise archetypal time, a grounds that’s implicit 30 years old. You’re ever trying to marque euphony that you’re capable to play successful the future. We were ever benignant of aged souls successful that way.”

Green Day’s caller diagnostic film, written and directed with Lee Kirk, is an old-soul roadworthy travel movie. “Nimrods,” retired Aug. 14 successful theaters, is simply a smitten, profane yet often moving snapshot of a young set striking retired connected their own, drawn from Green Day’s gritty beginnings successful the East Bay punk country of the ‘80s and ‘90s.

In a clip erstwhile teen beingness is subsumed by alienating integer exertion and an understandable risk-aversion, “Nimrods” takes the yearnings of its young punks seriously.

“You person to beryllium delusional to beryllium successful a band,” Armstrong said. “It takes a definite benignant of dreamer. I retrieve trying to get that archetypal gig. It was like, ‘Oh, my God, if we could lone get retired of this surviving country and past play our archetypal amusement astatine Gilman.”

“That was the happening we had that we could telephone our own,” added bassist Mike Dirnt. “When radical are playing euphony unneurotic astatine a young age, that whitethorn beryllium each that they have, but that’s their affectional vessel. That’s their out.”

Film manager and writer Lee Kirk, acold left, with Green Day’s Tré Cool, Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“Nimrods” is not a Green Day biopic, though the trio of young actors playing the set Analog Dogs (Mason Thames, Kylr Coffman and Ryan Foust) bash evoke the band’s wiseacre gestalt, and Green Day’s Armstrong, Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool marque a fewer knowing cameos.

It’s a narrative-driven communicative indebted to the Ramones’ “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” and the Who’s “Quadrophenia,” pursuing the teen set to L.A. arsenic its members naively judge they’ve scored the gig of a beingness (actually, a prank pulled by an older brother). The movie has the weed-stinky vibe of scruffy teen hangout flicks similar “Dazed & Confused” and “SLC Punk,” with surrealist, winking circuit play akin to Charli XCX’s caller movie “The Moment.”

Green Day’s decade-spanning catalog of spit-flecked pop-punk forms some the soundtrack and the bosom of the movie. “They constitute songs astir truthful galore antithetic emotions, truthful it truly lends itself erstwhile you’re gathering a story,” Kirk said.

“Some worldly similar ‘Basket Case’ would beryllium benignant of obvious, but I was truly amazed astatine however good the heavy cuts came in,” Armstrong said. “At 1 scene, the car is driving down the highway, and you perceive a opus called ‘Haushinka,’ which was unexpected, but it acceptable truthful perfectly. We really enactment that opus backmost into our acceptable list.”

Yet Kirk, a writer-director who antecedently formed Armstrong successful the 2016 aging-punk drama “Ordinary World,” wrote the movie arsenic a much cosmopolitan communicative of a young set throwing caution to the upwind portion trying to heal a fractured blue-collar household successful the suburban midwest.

“The movie was astir a household going done a crisis, astir this kid trying to find trying to find his assemblage and trying to reconcile with his family,” Kirk said. (He’s joined to Fischer, champion known from “The Office,” who nails a tiny but dryly comic relation here.) Armstrong’s lad wrote overmuch of the archetypal euphony for the movie, and Green Day’s catalog — particularly resonant present aft Armstrong’s caller sobriety astatine the behest of his household — binds the movie’s rebellions and reconciliations.

“When idiosyncratic says they had a unsmooth infinitesimal successful their life, similar a father-daughter concern wherever the begetter was sick, and they were like, ‘Your opus was maine and my dad’s song, it truly got america done a batch of stuff,’ it’s a large feeling,” Armstrong said. “It’s humbling. Music biz worldly is not the amusive part, but past thing volition travel up and you go, ‘OK, present that’s that’s wherefore I bash this.’ ”

Billie Joe Armstrong and Green Day execute arsenic headliners astatine Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival connected April 12, 2025.

(Amy Harris / Invision / AP)

The movie is seeded with nods to Green Day lore, scripted implicit agelong sessions riffing with the set implicit its circuit catastrophes. Cool recalled the mayhem of a 1991 European wintertime circuit erstwhile the set played 64 shows successful 3 months.

“The van caught connected fire, but that doesn’t deter you from conscionable wanting to leap successful and get to the adjacent town,“ helium said.

One country astatine a menacing biker barroom was inspired by a van breakdown successful San Luis Obispo, wherever Green Day had to play 2 impromptu shows successful 3 days to wage backmost the crusty punk mechanic who fixed it. Another harkens to Green Day’s famously mud-soaked Woodstock ’94 set.

“People had been miserable for similar 3 days, stuck successful the mud. Then it became this amusive enactment with the crowd, throwing mud and hay backmost and forth. Then it became a melee. Then it became a elephantine brawl connected stage,” Dirnt said. “That was the constituent wherever I was like, ‘Oh, wow, we’re truly large now.’ That was the happening that enactment it implicit the edge.”

With its young set cutting demos connected a four-track cassette recorder, “Nimrods” could person been acceptable successful 2026, 1996 oregon 1976 — phones and societal media are practically nonexistent successful the plot. One pivotal infinitesimal comes erstwhile Mckenna Grace’s punk-singer quality hands Tommy a charmingly Xeroxed flyer to a warehouse gig and gives retired her telephone fig alternatively than a Snapchat handle.

“The situation was to marque a movie for generations of Green Day fans, truthful I decided that a amusive mode to bash that is if Tommy is into analog. He’s into vinyl, helium records connected a four-track, he’s not connected societal media,” Kirk said. “I was trying to fig retired however to get escaped of the phones. It opened the doorway for america to person this movie that is acceptable successful contiguous day, but feels similar it’s possibly 1992 and 2026. The thought was to marque a movie that feels benignant of timeless, that a feline who’s 58 tin subordinate to arsenic good arsenic a 14-year-old kid.”

After days of seedy mayhem getting to L.A. (one gruesome country with Fred Armisen astir takes it into fearfulness terrain), the set ends up astatine a Green Day gig astatine the Palladium: Not the 1 Analog Dogs had hoped for but a life-changing nighttime nonetheless. It’s hard not to locomotion retired of “Nimrods” with a small spark of tendency to commencement a punk set and deed the roadworthy with your buddies.

Hopefully the procreation of Gen Z musicians depicted successful the movie inactive lust implicit the accidental to try, adjacent arsenic a wretched system makes road-dogging harder contiguous portion integer fame beckons instead.

“That’s benignant of the mode a DIY web is expected to enactment — everybody’s helping each different out,” Armstrong said. “We would ever inquire arsenic we were connected stage, ‘Does anybody person a spot that we could stay?’ And, definite enough, idiosyncratic would measurement up, each azygous time. But I’m definite it’s harder now. Gas was a batch cheaper then.”

Green Day performs astatine Super Bowl LX successful Santa Clara connected Feb. 8. The set caught a small flak for its “American Idiot” performance.

(Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)

The modern satellite is off-stage successful “Nimrods,” but Green Day has been much astatine the forefront recently. They headlined Coachella successful 2025, a uncommon dense stone set to apical the astir influential festival successful the U.S., delivering a raucous and thrashing acceptable dissimilar immoderate successful the past decennary of Coachella headliners.

“We conscionable wanted to spell up determination and footwear everybody’s ass, and that was what we did, comprehensively,’ Armstrong said, laughing.

Armstrong volition pb a Ramones 50th day all-star set (with Travis Barker, Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, and Ramones bassist C.J. Ramone) astatine a tribute amusement astatine Hollywood Forever Aug. 30. Green Day precocious opened the Super Bowl conscionable extracurricular its Bay Area hometown, kicking disconnected earlier Bad Bunny played a historical halftime show. Green Day caught a small flak for its “American Idiot” performance, wherever the outspoken left-leaning enactment typically updates the lyrics to lambast President Trump, arsenic they did George W. Bush 2 decades ago, but demurred connected there.

The set members said they considered what to bash astatine that infinitesimal of nationalist prominence but that they hoped the euphony would talk for itself.

“It’s a platform, but besides sometimes, it conscionable doesn’t consciousness right,” Armstrong said. “I didn’t privation to get successful the mode of Bad Bunny due to the fact that of what was going connected with ICE, wherever his connection was overmuch much powerful. I deliberation we would person travel crossed arsenic being a spot much belligerent.”

As the U.S. slinks toward the midterms during ongoing crises with the Iran war, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ostentation and beyond, Green Day is atop a dwindling people of stadium bands capable to credibly talk to younger and older audiences. It’s a relation they didn’t question retired but volition clasp if the kids of “Nimrods” are going to person a future.

“When we archetypal started, we were not astir authorities astatine all, adjacent though we came from a precise outspoken scene,” Armstrong said. “But past ‘American Idiot’ came up retired of nowhere, done with bosom from a spot of full disorder astir wherefore the satellite is changing into this acheronian and disfigured place. I deliberation that rings true, particularly close now. It’s like, ‘We went to the parkland today, we brought the dogs, it was truthful great, and, oh, yeah, Trump conscionable bombed Iran.’ How tin everything beryllium truthful mean and perfectly insane astatine the aforesaid time?”