I Am the Movie is the debut studio album by American rock band Motion City Soundtrack, released on June 24, 2003, through Epitaph Records.

The album was originally recorded in 10 days at Black Lodge Studios in Eudora, Kansas, with producer Ed Rose in February 2002.

Motion City Soundtrack was formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1997 by singer-songwriter Justin Pierre and guitarist Joshua Cain, who had previously played in a number of bands.

In late 2001, while touring in Milton, Pennsylvania with the band Submerge, they convinced two of its members—bassist Matthew Taylor and drummer Tony Thaxton—to join Motion City.

The members of the band Ultimate Fakebook, with whom Motion City would often play shows, suggested they employ producer Ed Rose.

Due to the short amount of time they had to record, several choruses on the album feature copy-and-pasted (or duplicated) vocal tracks.

"It was a combination because he had some weird sort of back surgery that week; we sucked as musicians and thought we could do the whole album in ten days," Pierre recalled.

[20] Meanwhile, Brett Gurewitz, founder of Epitaph Records, learned of the band from members of the group Matchbook Romance.

[20] Motion City became part of a slew of Epitaph signings, including Matchbook Romance Scatter the Ashes and From First to Last, amid concerns the Southern California label had strayed too far from its roots, and seemed "a little too emo.

[17] Taylor re-recorded the bass lines for the entire album, while Pierre recorded more vocals and Johnson added more keyboard parts.

[16] Prior to signing with Epitaph,[18] the band wrote and recorded three new songs—"Perfect Teeth", "Modern Chemistry", and "Autographs & Apologies".

Epitaph chose the aforementioned songs for inclusion on the re-released I Am the Movie, while also cutting "1000 Paper Cranes" from the track listing to repurpose as a B-side.