Green Day's road-trip comedy Nimrods arrives in cinemas on 14 August, and the band says the fiction is stitched directly from their own history — a converted bookmobile, a robbed van, a stolen limousine and a hand puppet that went missing somewhere in Louisiana.

The film, written and directed by Lee Kirk, follows two friends and bandmates — Tommy (Mason Thames) and Fred (Kylr Coffman) — along with their bandmate Chad (Ryan Foust), forming a struggling rock group called the Analog Dogs. Tommy's brother and a friend trick him into believing Green Day heard the Analog Dogs' demo and invited them to open shows across the country on New Year's Eve. Green Day appear in the film as themselves, and the band produced it alongside Live Nation Studios, according to Billboard. The cast also includes Mckenna Grace and Jenna Fischer, per The Hollywood Reporter.

The movie is named after Green Day's 1997 album Nimrod, but the plot draws on the band's pre-fame years rather than the record itself. Billie Joe Armstrong told Billboard the film reflects how the group toured in a succession of vehicles — starting with a Dodge Omni, then a converted bookmobile that served as their first real tour van. Armstrong also said he once stole a limo, which inspired the scene where the protagonist steals his brother's car.

Bassist Mike Dirnt said the film contains Easter eggs paralleling real incidents from the band's van-touring days. One of the bleakest: in New Orleans, robbers broke into the van and stole all of Green Day's clothes and weekend gas money, leaving the band stuck. Drummer Tré Cool recalled that they played small shows after being robbed just to get far enough down the road. Armstrong separately remembered a house show in Alabama where attendees brought old t-shirts and passed the hat to raise cash for the band.

One detail from those years makes it into the film as a character of sorts. Gravy, a tattered hand puppet featured in Nimrods, was real — and was likely lost in that same New Orleans van robbery.

The film also gives shout-outs to two younger bands: the L.A.-based punk group The Linda Lindas and the Atlanta pop-punk outfit The Paradox. Armstrong asked The Paradox to open for Green Day in real life after seeing footage of the band, and The Paradox plays a set in the film.

Nimrods receives an international cinema release with special screenings beginning 11 August, ahead of the 14 August theatrical opening through Inaugural Entertainment. A companion soundtrack features 22 career-spanning Green Day songs, a new track titled "I'm Never Gonna R.I.P," and four unreleased live recordings, according to Green Day's official store.

The band also has a separate comedy film, New Years Rev, which was scheduled to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025, per Billboard Canada. Green Day described that project on Instagram as "a wild road trip coming-of-age" comedy.

For a band that has spent three decades writing about suburban disaffection on a grand scale, Nimrods pulls in the opposite direction — toward the unglamorous logistics of a group sleeping in a van and counting change for fuel. The fact that most of it actually happened is the joke, and the point.