King of Kong is just about the dorkiest movie you’ll ever admit to absolutely loving. You couldn’t find more nerds at an ALA (American Library Association) conference, well, maybe. King of Kong documents underdog Steve Wiebe’s attempt at breaking the world record hi-score in the classic arcade version of Donkey Kong. I told you, huge dorks.

Wiebe Family

Steve Wiebe is a high school teacher, father, husband, hard-working, and all around nice guy with just about the worst luck a guy could have. The current world record holder, Billy Mitchell, has been handed control of a restaurant chain from his parents, is shady, manipulative, and in desperate need of shaving that stupid beard and cutting the 80’s hair. Steve has video-recorded himself (which is standard in the video gaming world) shattering the world record. Normally, that would be good enough, however, Steve was taking on a monolith in the gaming community, Billy. So some of Billy lackeys come to Steve’s house and dismantle his game because they thought he had to be cheating (clearly no one is better than Billy). Steve then tries to face Billy on 3 different occasions, to which Billy makes excuses every time. In one instance they are in the same arcade but Billy won’t sit down and play or even acknowledge Steve’s presence.

Evil in Gaming: Billy Mitchell

King of Kong takes viewers into world they probably knew very little about. You don’t even have to like video games to love this movie, it has the likeable underdog and the evil champion plus a slew of very exotic characters. My personal favorite is Mr. Awesome, you have to see him to believe it. Add this movie to your short list of must see films!