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King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, The
EMAILPRINTPicturehouse Entertainment

Universal acclaim
Based on 23 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 38 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by:
Directed by: Seth Gordon
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 17, 2007
DVD: January 29, 2008
Running Time: 79 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for a brief sexual reference
Starring Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe, Walter Day, Todd Rogers, Steve Sanders, and Doris Self
A middle-school science teacher and a hot sauce mogul vie for the Guinness World Record on the arcade classic, Donkey Kong. (Picturehouse Entertainment)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Four Christmases
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
It's all true--every magical, exhilarating, infuriating, dumbfounding, jaw-dropping second of Gordon's miniature masterpiece.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A funny and madly arresting new documentary.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
It’s not just one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen, it’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Period.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Scott Schueller
Gordon's documentary proves better than 90 percent of the manufactured stories out this summer. One can breathe a sigh of relief that it was done right and not cobbled into another bad fictional comedy.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Gordon's feature directorial debut mostly stops being about video-game obsession and turns into a film about what it takes to make it in America.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
This film about fierce competition among classic video-game players is a comic action epic in documentary form. It captures fear -- and heroism -- in a handful of dusty video games.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
Very entertaining (and doesn’t overstay its welcome) but it’s a little depressing to contemplate.
Read Full Review >Premiere Eric Alt
If you don't play at all, you may find yourself enjoying this film more than anyone, because you'll at least get all the laughs with none of the cringing self-recognition.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Like "Air Guitar Nation," the stranger-than-fiction cast of characters is fascinating, and their high-stakes machinations are nothing short of mind-boggling.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
A portrait of two different men whose compulsion for Donkey Kong is hilarious.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
One of this year's funniest movies -- and its most inspirational sports drama -- is a documentary.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz
The movie’s “Rocky” formula proves irresistible anyway; unsurprisingly, New Line has commissioned Mr. Gordon to remake this story with actors.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Luke Y. Thompson
It may seem overblown when one of the gamers calls Donkey Kong a metaphor for life, but The King of Kong is just that -- a reminder of how we all have to prove ourselves to others, and the extent to which the odds are often stacked against outsiders and newcomers.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Ultimately Gordon's movie becomes both a hilarious story about an unbelievable collection of arrested-teenage morons and, yes, an inspiring fable of persistence and redemption. I haven't mentioned this movie's fabulous addition to the English language yet, so here it is: the verb "to chumpatize."
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Obsession creates its own fascination, and never more so than in King of Kong, a sprightly new documentary that's as compulsively watchable as the vintage video game it focuses on is addictive.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Not since "300" have I seen such manly mano-a-mano-ing as the iron clash of wills in the docu mentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
A documentary that is beyond strange, follows two arch-enemies in their grim, long-term rivalry, which involves way more time than any human lifetime should devote to Donkey Kong.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Who would have guessed that a documentary about gamers obsessed with scoring a world record at Donkey Kong would not only be roaringly funny but serve as a metaphor for the decline of Western civilization?
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
As impressive as it is geeky. Most of the principal characters look like they haven't seen daylight since "Pac-Man Fever" was on the charts.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
A nuanced study in obsession, dedication, manipulation, ethics and how the all-American need to be the best at something -- anything -- can shape a life.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
It's a depressing little kingdom, even when Gordon tries desperately to goose the drama with the requisite "Eye of the Tiger" riffs and some junior high-level palace intrigue.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 38 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Alec E. gave it a7:
well made documentary. you really feel yourself rooting for the under dog. shows how serious even the most absurd interests are to those unfortunately involved.
Jumper M. gave it a10:
A fine movie! Who thought documentaries could be so good? Complete with champions, villains and nerds. Very nicely done.
Chris S. gave it a9:
Wonderful movie if you have any (and I mean any) interest in the subject. If I can thoroughly enjoy this movie on a cruise ship, on a crappy 14" TV, while the boat rocks harshly from a nearby storm, it has to be darn good.
Alex K. gave it a10:
Extremely compelling! Billy Mitchell is an excellent villain, a cowardly, arrogant jerk with horrible fashion sense.
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Amazing movie. Not as funny as I thought it was going to be but very nicely done. It was just so frustrating.
Chad S. gave it a9:
Seen together as a collective, the guys from Stacy Peralta's "Dogtown and Z-Boys" and Seth Gordon's "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters", are like the two outsider cliques in Judd Apatow's "Freaks and Geeks". Freaks win, hands down; at least their labour of love led to fame and fortune, while the geeks will just have to make do with this absolutely mesmerizing doc about being a beautiful loser(the film uses Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows"; the Canadian singer/songwriter wrote a novel called "Beautiful Losers"). Hot-sauce impresario Billy Mitchell(or what I like to call him, evil Kenny Loggins) is the sort of guy who relates with the evil sensei from "The Karate Kid", you know, the guy who tells his pupil to "sweep the leg", Danny's leg, Ralph Macchio's leg, at the climactic karate tournament(the movie uses the immortal "You're the Best" to spectacular effect). Why nice-guy Steve Wiebe feels the need to measure up to this megalomaniac is beyond comprehension. Even worse is Wiebe's need for validation by the corrupt people who run Twin Galaxies, a monolithic organization with a rulebook that's fluid just like the NCAA's(these jackasses stripped the University of Hawaii's men's volleyball of its title in 2002). When official Walter Day mispronounces Wie-be's name like a monosyllabic cognomen, we get the old coot's gyst; this gamer from the Northwest is a "dweeb". You really feel for Steve's wife, "the first-lady of Donkey Kong", who is the ultimate armchair quarterback's wife. If Steve ever buys a Frogger coin-op, she should file for divorce. "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" does for the eighties what "Dogtown and the Z-Boys" did for the seventies, the soundtrack and cultural signifiers from both films make you want to relive the decade of your childhood. "You're the best!/around!/nothing's ever gonna keep you down...
Dan (nirv) gave it an8:
This is a very good movie. I call it a movie and not a documentary because as you'll find on the official Twin Galaxies forums, a lot of important facts are left out in the movie to dramatize it. It may or may not be intentional, but any documentary should not leave out important facts to make the story more interesting than it really is.
