Project X is a 2012 American found footage teen comedy film directed by Nima Nourizadeh, written by Michael Bacall and Matt Drake and produced by Todd Phillips.

The film follows three friends—Thomas (Thomas Mann), Costa (Oliver Cooper) and J.B. (Jonathan Daniel Brown)—who attempt to gain popularity by throwing a party, a plan which quickly escalates out of their control.

Kirby Bliss Blanton, Dax Flame, Brady Hender, Nick Nervies, Alexis Knapp, and Miles Teller also star.

In Pasadena, high-school students Costa and J.B. plan to throw a party for their friend Thomas Kub's 17th birthday, aiming to increase their popularity.

The trio then visits drug dealer T-Rick to buy marijuana, and Costa steals his lawn gnome to use as a party mascot.

After J.B. admits how the party was advertised, Thomas demands an answer from Costa, forcing him to confess that he put ads on Craigslist and on a local radio station, worried that no one would attend which infuriates him.

Miles Teller smashes T-Rick's gnome, revealing that it contains large amounts of ecstasy tablets, which the partygoers quickly consume, including Thomas and his friends.

The party has now escalated into violence, property damage and vandalism, which has now spilled into the surrounding neighborhood, receives televised news coverage with helicopters flying over the house.

T-Rick arrives armed with a flamethrower, setting fire to trees, cars, and houses in the neighborhood in search of Costa and in an attempt to reclaim his gnome, forcing the guests to flee and the party to end.

The epilogue reveals that T-Rick survived the explosion and is arrested for his actions; Thomas is convicted for disturbing the peace, contributing to the delinquency of minors, and inciting a riot, but is also voted most likely to succeed by his classmates.

[15] Writer Michael Bacall developed these stories into an outline scenario in one night with the goal of creating the "gnarliest high school party of all time".

[24] Nourizadeh explained to the producers how he would want to develop the script and how he would want the film to look and feel, and he was eventually brought from London to Los Angeles, for what he believed would be two weeks, but stretched to two years.

[26] Adding to the secrecy, producers decided to not send full scripts to any prospective cast member, instead providing only watermarked individual pages.

[27][25] Phillips stated that the goal of the open call was to cast "unknown actors" and "real people of all ethnicities," who would not normally be given a chance to star in a film.

[25] To prepare for the role and create a believable friendship between the leads, Brown, Cooper, and Mann were sent to Disneyland together and spent a weekend in a cabin at Big Bear City, California.

[30] Mann described the filming as a "party atmosphere", with New York disc jockey Jesse Marco on set performing music even when the cameras stopped rolling to maintain the energy of the cast and extras.

Project X held its world premiere on February 29, 2012, at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, followed by an after party with performances by Kid Cudi, Tyler, The Creator, and The Hundred in the Hands.

[34] Project X was released on DVD, Blu-ray, the UltraViolet cloud storage service and digital download on June 19, 2012 by Warner Home Video.

The Blu-ray version contains an extended edition featuring approximately 6 minutes of additional footage, the theatrical cut, and presents the film in 1080p/AVC with DTS-HD Master Audio sound.

The website's critical consensus reads: "Unoriginal, unfunny, and all-around unattractive, Project X mines the depths of the teen movie and found-footage genres for 87 minutes of predictably mean-spirited debauchery.

[4] Empire's Chris Hewitt gave the film one star out of five, and referred to the central characters portrayed by Mann, Cooper, and Brown, as "spectacularly unlikable".

Hewitt labeled the characters "unrepentant, nihilistic, vile, venal, animalistic, avaricious, charmless, entitled, sub-Kardashian, stunningly irresponsible brats".

[49] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter was similarly critical, calling it "grimly depressing, glumly unfunny teensploitation", but admitted that it would "enthrall a portion of the high school/college age demographic it depicts, just as it alternately outrages, confounds and disgusts other, presumably older audiences.

[53] Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times said that the funny script and skilled editing potentially made it the "Animal House of the iPhone generation".

[55] Gleiberman accused negative reviews of "fulfilling the role of all those uptight parents in '50s news reports about the dangers of rock & roll", by applying moral judgments to the events of the film.

[57] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised the film as "gut-bustingly funny" that appealed to a base youth element to become "shitfaced and run amok", and said that it puts its own spin on Animal House.

[66] A second Houston party attracted between 500 and 1,000 guests, but resulted in the death of one person after an attendee started firing a gun when police attempted to break up the event.

[72][73][74] On August 16, 2014, in Mexico in the state of Jalisco in the city of Zapopan a party called La Fiesta de los 4 mil got out of control after a young man named Alejandro Chassin Godoy made an event on Facebook.

[80] On March 12, 2023, Dax Flame released a concept trailer for Project X 2 featuring Jonathan Daniel Brown on his YouTube channel daxflame.

Subscribe to my newsletter, party people…" On February 24, 2024, a teaser trailer was uploaded to a YouTube channel named "ProjectxDose," starring lead actors Oliver Cooper, Thomas Mann, and Jonathan Daniel Brown (voice), alongside Miles Teller and Dax Flame.