Boys Go to Jupiter
August 15 - 24, 2025
Set in the liminal period between Christmas and New Year’s, Boys Go to Jupiter follows the adventures of Billy 5000, a teenage gig worker with a rise-and-grind mindset whose quest to make $5,000 is derailed by the appearance of a gelatinous little dude from outer space. Dreamy, surreal, and filled with visionary animation and beautiful songs, Boys Go to Jupiter is the feature-film debut of acclaimed 3D animator Julian Glander, whose work has been featured everywhere from {adult swim} to video games to the pages of the New Yorker.
"Bizarre, hilarious, and boasting refreshingly distinct animation, Boys Go to Jupiter is a wonderfully absurd experience"—Mashable
It’s the day after Christmas in suburban Florida, and Billy 5000 (Jack Corbett) and his friends drift through the sun-bleached limbo between holidays by slacking, shoplifting, and beatboxing. In between sneaking into pools and zoning out on the beach, Billy hustles for tips on the food-on-demand app Grubster, determined to make exactly $5,000 before New Year’s Eve. As he zigzags across town on his hoverboard delivering fast food to a cast of oddball locals, a routine drop-off at the Dolphin Groves Juice Company leads to an unexpected reunion with Rozebud (Miya Folick), his childhood crush, and a mysterious alien creature named Donut that’s stowed away in his backpack. The surprise encounter sets off a surreal chain of events that puts Billy in the crosshairs of Dr. Dolphin (Janeane Garofalo), a ruthless juice mogul who will stop at nothing to reclaim her extraterrestrial property.
Directed by Julian Glander in his signature tactile, lo-fi CGI style, Boys Go to Jupiter transforms the sprawl of suburban Florida into a pastel purgatory of empty strip malls, algorithmic music, and adolescent yearning. What begins as a quest for financial freedom slowly evolves into an offbeat odyssey of love, labor, and late-capitalist absurdity, as Billy is forced to decide how far he’ll go to protect his friends—and his future. With its deadpan humor, musical detours, and deeply felt strangeness, the film reimagines the coming-of-age comedy as a vapor-soaked fable for the burnout generation.
- Director: Julian Glander
- Principal Cast: Jack Corbett, Tavi Gevinson, Elsie Fisher, Janeane Garofalo, Grace Kuhlenschmidt, Miya Folick, Julio Torres, Joe Pera, Sarah Sherman, Cole Escola, Eva Victor, Chris Fleming, River L. Ramirez, Max Wittert, Demi Adejuyigbe
- Country: USA
- Year: 2024
- Running Time: 90 min.
- Producer: Peisin Yang Lazo
- Screenplay: Julian Glander
- Language: English
- US Distributor: Cartuna