Jeff Tremaine makes people hurting themselves funny because their friends are there to enjoy it. His producing and directing keep that companionship visible, though Jackass: Best and Last leans too heavily on our fondness for the past.
Fi1m perspective
In Jackass: Best and Last (2026), men volunteer to get hurt while their friends laugh, then old footage shows them doing much the same thing when they were younger. Jeff Tremaine trusts that this will be enough. Often it is: he understands that the friends finding this funny are as important as the person getting hurt. We rate that judgement, though it does not excuse the shortage of strong new material here.
That group was the basis of Jackass (2000), the television series Tremaine co-created with Johnny Knoxville and Spike Jonze. Jackass: The Movie (2002) took the format into cinemas, and Tremaine has directed and produced every feature in the franchise. His raw, documentary-style approach suits performers such as Chris Pontius and Steve-O: too much polish would put distance between the pain and the people enjoying it. As a producer, keeping that ensemble together has been at least as important as finding the next stunt.
A story was added for Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013), while The Dirt (2019), his Mötley Crüe biopic, took him outside the franchise. Jackass Forever (2022) resumed the main series after a long gap. By Best and Last, the interesting change is that the same comic routine now makes us think about how long its performers can keep going.
We were moved by Best and Last, because the older men are still willing to suffer for the amusement of the same friends. Tremaine lets the earlier footage make their ageing apparent without stopping for a solemn explanation. He keeps the tone comic, leaving us to notice how much more those familiar stunts ask of bodies that have been doing this for years.
His weakness here is expecting recognition to do the work of a fresh idea. The new stunts in Best and Last are not strong enough to give the film much of its own, and the outtakes cannot make up the difference. That leaves a modest farewell, though the affection is worth an evening. If there is another reunion, it should come with better reasons to leave the archive alone.
Biography
Jeff Tremaine is an American director, producer and screenwriter. He co-created the MTV reality series Jackass with Spike Jonze and Johnny Knoxville, and has directed every main feature film in the franchise.
He previously edited the skate culture magazine Big Brother and worked as art director of GO magazine and as a professional BMX rider. Tremaine directed Jackass: The Movie (2002), Jackass Number Two (2006), Jackass 3D (2010), Jackass Forever (2022) and Jackass: Best and Last (2026); on the latter he also served as writer and producer and appeared as himself. He directed The Dirt (2019) and has executive produced several MTV series including Ridiculousness.
