Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a 2010 American comedy film directed by Thor Freudenthal and based on Jeff Kinney's 2007 book of the same name.

[5][6][7] The film stars Zachary Gordon, Robert Capron, Devon Bostick, Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn, and Chloë Grace Moretz.

[8] An animated reboot of the same name was released in 2021, which was followed by two sequels of its own: a second adaptation of Rodrick Rules (2022) and Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever (2023).

On Greg's first day of middle school, he quickly discovers the ups and downs, such as the missing stall doors in the boys' bathroom and the difficulties of obtaining a seat during lunch.

During physical education, Greg and his childish best friend, Rowley Jefferson, escape from a game of Gladiator and meet Angie Steadman, a seventh-grader who isolates herself from the other students to "survive".

On Halloween, when Greg and Rowley go out trick-or-treating, a group of teenage boys drive by in a pickup truck, and spray a fire extinguisher at them.

During a Safety Patrol assignment, Greg walks kindergartners down a neighborhood street without Rowley, but panics when he encounters a truck identical to the teenagers' from Halloween and hides himself and the kids in a construction zone.

To his bewilderment, Rowley is suspended from Safety Patrol, but Greg eventually confesses his guilt to him, foolishly offering it as a joke and saying that they could both learn "lessons" from the incident.

The teenagers from Halloween arrive at the scene and force Rowley to eat part of the cheese after the other kids, except for Greg, are chased inside the school.

They flee the scene when the school's physical education teacher, Coach Eduardo Malone, arrives, but when the other kids come back out and notice the cheese has been eaten, Greg takes the blame to save Rowley's reputation, and they reconcile.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Unlike its bestselling source material, Diary of a Wimpy Kid fails to place a likable protagonist at the center of its middle-school humor – and its underlying message is drowned out as a result.

"[19] Glenn Whipp of the Associated Press was less positive, saying, "In transferring the clean, precise humor of Kinney's illustrations and prose to the big-screen, the material loses just a bit of its charm.

"[21] OregonLive.com gave the film a C+ grade, criticizing it for being "too often dull, unappealing and clumsy, hobbled by unnecessary changes and inventions that add no charm, energy or, truly, point.

"[22] Despite a lack of distinctive marketing, Diary of a Wimpy Kid drew a decent crowd, opening to $22.1 million on approximately 3,400 screens at 3,077 sites, in second place at the weekend box office behind Alice in Wonderland but beating out the heavily hyped The Bounty Hunter.

A film based on The Long Haul was released in May 2017 and features a new cast starring Jason Drucker, Alicia Silverstone, and Tom Everett Scott, but received generally negative reviews.