John Wilson, the host of HBO's 'How To With John Wilson', has turned his attention to arguably the least interesting subject imaginable: concrete. The result, 'The History of Concrete', premiered on the opening night of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and looks set to be one of the festival's most entertaining documentaries.
Wilson adopts his signature second-person narration, delivered in a nasal New York accent, and fills the film with ultra-specific details that often apply only to himself. He admits to blowing the entire film budget on a trip to Rome to see the 2,100-year-old concrete dome of the Pantheon. He also attends a class offered by the Writers Guild during the 2023 strike, titled 'How to Sell and Write a Hallmark Movie', despite having no intention of making one, and visits a Las Vegas convention for concrete industry workers.
Armed with a handheld Sony camera or his iPhone, Wilson seems to be constantly filming, using the device both as an invitation for strangers to engage and as a social buffer. In one memorable sequence, he muses that chewing gum is 'the bird shit of people', and tracks down a man dedicated to blasting discarded wads off the pavement. He also visits Bellefontaine, Ohio, to see the oldest concrete street in America.
While Wilson bemoans the end of his HBO series and the dwindling residual checks, he uses concrete as a flimsy excuse to explore random tangents and pose questions to strangers. The film functions as a DIY parody of nonfiction filmmaking, poking fun at itself and the notion of making a movie about nothing. It remains to be seen whether Wilson genuinely cares about concrete, but the subject provides ample opportunity for his trademark wit and digressions.
