King Corn is a fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial, pesticide-laden, heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom – corn. Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naiveté, two college buddies return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa to figure out how a modest kernel conquered America. With the help of some real farmers, oodles of fertilizer and government aide, and some genetically modified seeds, the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the hilarious absurdities and scary but hidden truths about America’s modern food system in this engrossing and eye-opening documentary.
Writing
Michael Pollan's cameo blesses this with credibility.
Direction
Balances buddy-comedy warmth with systemic horror.
Production
That one acre becomes genuinely unnerving protagonist.
Director
Aaron Woolf
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released during the 2007 farm bill debates, this helped spark the 'eat local' movement and Michael Pollan's subsequent food empire. Your kale obsession? Partially their fault.
That feedlot scene where the cows are literally eating their corn—stomachs designed for grass, forced into grain—remains one of documentary's most quietly devastating images. The cows' liver damage is the film's unspoken martyrdom.
US
