The world of YouTube is a weird place, as it’s full of wild celebrities who are famous for nothing in particular. YouTube stars are like world buffets, as they seemingly dabble in everything, whether it’s boxing, comedy, music production, or acting. However, that isn’t to say the internet personalities aren’t massively entertaining, and they have made some strangely fascinating movies that were either written, directed, or produced by themselves, and sometimes, all of the above.
The results can be pretty varying, as the movies range from comedies with 0% on Rotten Tomatoes to movie documentaries with an 8.3 on IMDb. And unsurprisingly, it’s the YouTube movie pundits that have had the most success, including one who has gone on to direct superb blockbuster movies.
Joe Sugg & Caspar Lee
Joe Sugg and Caspar Lee are entertainers at heart, as Lee was formerly in a boyband, and Sugg has starred in the UK version of Strictly Come Dancing. YouTube is the perfect platform for them, but it wasn’t long until they starred in a movie together.
Joe and Caspar Hit The Road follows the two as they travel through Europe with no money, meaning they have to take on some bizarre jobs, and it comes off as a kind of millennial version of The Simple Life. The boys don’t hesitate to collaborate with fellow YouTubers either, as they even shot another movie with their peer KSI, Laid In America.
Lilly Singh
Being nicknamed the Superwoman of YouTube, Lilly Singh made a name for herself by vlogging and rapping and is best known for various series including Giving Back Glam and Lana Steele: Makeup Spy.
She has built her own empire as she even has a number one New York Times bestseller, and has made her own music videos, but 2016 saw her launch the biggest project in her career, which was the YouTube Red movie, A Trip to Unicorn Island. The movie is a documentary that follows Singh on her world tour, and it surprisingly has some huge guest features including Dwayne Johnson.
Roman Atwood
Though he first started out by vlogging on YouTube, Roman Atwood is now most famous for his pranks, often pulling them on random unsuspecting victims. And though pranks don’t usually translate all that well to the movie format, that’s exactly what Atwood did, as he wrote, directed, and starred in the 2016 movie Natural Born Pranksters.
The movie is flooded with cameos from other YouTube personalities including Jenna Marbles, Furious Pete, Dave England, and many others, and it comes off as a Jack-Ass-lite
Shane Dawson
Shane Dawson is best known for his docu-series on YouTube, particularly the one he filmed with make-up artist Jeffree Star. He has been involved in a ton of projects, including even having his own line of make-up, but in 2014 he attempted to direct his own movie, Not Cool.
The movie is a romantic comedy and Dawson gave himself the lead role, which may have been his biggest mistake as the director. The movie lost all of its money and was panned by critics.
Casey Neistat
Though Casey Neistat’s primary source of income is YouTube, as he has over 12 million subscribers, he has been around much longer than the video platform. Neistat first made waves for his short film, iPod’s Dirty Secret, which criticized Apple’s policy towards iPod battery replacements.
His YouTube videos follow the same path, as Neistat criticizes big companies and law enforcement, but one of the YouTuber’s biggest achievements, though it wasn’t financially successful, was executive producing Daddy Longlegs. He made the movie in collaboration with the now sought-after directing duo, Josh and Benny Safdie, who is best known for Good Time and Uncut Gems.
Logan Paul
Being a man of many different trades, as he’s made pop songs, is an amateur boxer, a documentarian, and a YouTuber, Logan Paul also wrote and starred in his own movie. Airplane Mode is one big homage to the 1980 movie Airplane, whether it’s the movie poster or all of the repeated gags.
Though Airplane Mode has a ton of cameos, the movie was released following a slew of controversies surrounding the YouTuber, which led to it becoming a huge bomb at the box office and getting critically panned.
Ian Hecox & Anthony Padilla
Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox are known as Smosh, a duo that creates comedy sketches, and the brand has become something of a conglomerate on YouTube with several different channels. It wasn’t long until Smosh: The Movie was made, and though Padilla and Hecox didn’t direct it, they both star in it, both produced it, and it’s based on their real-life selves.
The movie follows the YouTube stars literally going inside of YouTube virtually to edit an already uploaded clip. Smosh: The Movie was actually a massive success when it was first available on-demand too.
John Campea
John Campea has lived on YouTube for a long time, as he had a large presence on Collider and now has his own channel, The John Campea Show, where he talks about movie news and has over 200,000 subscribers, and if there’s anyone to make a movie about trailers, it’s him.
Movie trailers have evolved so much since their inception in 1927, and Movie Trailers: A Love Story breaks down that evolution along with getting other movie pundits’ opinions on where the industry is headed. The movie gives insight into the trends that have come and gone, whether it’s slowed down pop songs soundtracking the trailer or all of the trailer “reactions” that don’t seem to be dying down any time soon.
John Schnepp
Superman has had its fair share of canceled movies, whether it’s the follow up to The Quest For Peace or the Superman Returns sequel, but one reigns much more supreme than any other.
The late, great John Schnepp became a popular personality on the platform due to his contributions to AMC Movie Talk and various Collider shows, but he went on to create the documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? The documentary follows the troubled production of the movie, which got pretty far into development with director Tim Burton at the helm and Nicolas Cage playing the titular superhero.
Dan Trachtenberg
Being the only YouTuber who has been able to make the jump into making Hollywood blockbusters, Dan Trachtenberg started out reviewing video-games and movies on The Totally Rad Show. He went on to direct 10 Cloverfield Lane, which was also written by Damien Chazelle, and it’s the best movie in the Cloverfield series.
Due to the success of the movie, Trachtenberg is getting offers left, right, and center, has directed a couple of episodes of Black Mirror, and he’s now going on to direct a Predator movie.