This Is Spinal Tap · reception & legacy

1984 · Rob Reiner

How This Is Spinal Tap has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Modest box office in 1984 — and famously, some early audiences didn't get the joke, wondering why anyone would make a film about a band this bad — but it grew into the definitive mockumentary and was added to the National Film Registry in 2002.

What's debated

The perennial fan debate is whether any mockumentary since — including Christopher Guest's own films — has ever topped it, and whether musicians love it or find it too painfully accurate to laugh at.

Its footprint

'These go to eleven' became so ubiquitous that 'up to eleven' entered the dictionary, and IMDb famously rates the film on a scale out of 11. Real bands from Metallica to U2 have described watching it on tour and wincing in recognition.

Where it stands

The undisputed template of the mockumentary — a 'you must have seen this' comedy touchstone that every band-doc parody since gets measured against.

★ Did you know? Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer wrote and performed all the songs themselves, largely improvised their dialogue from an outline rather than a script — and later toured and released albums as Spinal Tap for real.

Named by the director

Influences Rob Reiner has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

The Last Waltz (1978) — Reiner has said his director character Marty DiBergi was modeled on Martin Scorsese's on-camera presence in his Band concert film.