Jackass: Best and Last Review: One Final Hilarious and Terrifying Ride

The boys are back for allegedly one final run, and the results are par for the course in all the very best ways. Jackass: Best and Last may set the expectations exorbitantly high for Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, and company, but I find it almost impossible to conjure up a scenario where I wouldn’t have a great time with one of these movies. This one is certainly more somber and sentimental than any of the films that came before it, which may invite some cynicism from people wondering if the guys have lost a step and are padding out the runtime with callbacks, replays, and greatest hits from the movies before it. But if anyone has earned the opportunity to reminisce, it’s the madmen who have spent the last two decades slingshotting themselves through the air via porta potty, getting prostate exams from a more-than-eager robot, and, from the franchise’s inception, shooting themselves point-blank in the chest with nothing protecting them but a bulletproof vest and a stack of porno magazines.

As sad as it is to see them potentially going away, the fact that the Jackass crew has made it through five feature-length movies is more astonishing than just about anything else currently happening in movies, maybe only competing with Tom Cruise’s ongoing refusal to die while filming Mission: Impossible. And they’re honestly pretty close. Cruise may jump out of a HALO at 25,000 feet, but Knoxville gets flipped and knocked unconscious by a bull, while Poopies – who I genuinely feel for because he committed himself to being the Steve-O for another generation, and I am pleading with this group to return just to torture this poor hopeful soul for another movie – gets lip injections and straps a shock collar around his dick before slowly walking across a balance beam. There is something deeply admirable about the consistency of this stupidity. These guys have spent more than 20 years asking, “What if we did this?” and apparently never once following it up with, “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

The jokes come fast and furious, with contemporary skits mixed in alongside throwbacks and callbacks to some of the best moments in the franchise’s history. I can understand anyone who feels like there is maybe 60 minutes of material here that has been stretched into a 90-minute movie. But I’m not sure how much I care when the individual bits are still this funny. They could literally cut the Silence of the Lambs bit into anything and I would cry laughing. Put that thing directly in front of Matt Damon returning home in The Odyssey and I’d probably bump my rating of that movie up. It will never not work.

The one place where I found myself wanting more was with the newer members of the crew. When the franchise expanded its cast, I hoped that would eventually mean a natural transition toward new individuals carrying the torch. And kudos to them for trying that with Jackass Forever, which felt like they had found a groove where they weren’t just torturing themselves for a fourth time, but bringing in a new generation to torture for the first of potentially many movies. Best and Last awkwardly side-steps some of those people, though, and I’m not entirely sure why. Rachel Wolfson is given basically nothing to do, and neither Jasper nor his father Dark Shark get much of an opportunity to leave their mark either. It would always feel strange to have a Jackass movie without Knoxville and the original gang, so maybe I’m just coping here, but there was a lot of untapped potential in this Murderer’s Row of newcomers who seemed more than willing to take on the full responsibility of what it means to be a Jackass member.

But you won’t catch me criticizing the franchise too much. Like the previous four, I had a great time with this, and I may have even wept at the end. Because beneath all the injuries, bodily fluids, prosthetic penises, explosions, and whatever the hell they did to Poopies this time, there is something genuinely remarkable about what this group has managed to capture on film. Nobody has better documented themselves growing up while simultaneously remaining a bunch of adult middle-schoolers. We watched these guys in the early 2000s, watched them age, watched some of them nearly die, watched them bring in younger members, and somehow ended up here in 2026 with the same basic group of idiots still willing to put themselves in harm’s way for a laugh.

The mainline Jackass franchise never received recognition from the Academy Awards, and on one hand, I understand why. On the other hand, it feels like maybe it’s about time we acknowledge just how singular this whole thing has been. Five movies, more than 20 years, countless injuries, and a group of people who somehow turned reckless stupidity into one of the most recognizable cinematic bodies of work of the century. It is genuinely remarkable that they’re still around, still kicking, and still seemingly cerebral after spending their adult lives doing everything physically possible to prevent themselves from being either of those things. If this really is the last one, I’m going to miss them. I’m going to miss the stupidity, the friendship, the escalation, and the knowledge that somewhere out there Johnny Knoxville is probably preparing to do something that no responsible human being would ever consider, only this time off-camera. I’m gonna go hug a beehive in memory of these dudes.