John Wilson brings his inimitable style to his feature debut, The History of Concrete, a documentary about concrete that manages to be hilarious and profound.
Director: John Wilson
Genre: Documentary, Comedy, Historical
Run Time: 101′
BFI London Film Festival Screening: October 13, 2026
U.S. Release Date: September 18, 2026 in theaters
U.K. Release Date: TBA
Documentarian John Wilson has a style many would call eccentric. Roving his hometown of New York City, he films almost everything, capturing street-archive footage of mundane places and people. Wilson has honed this style across multiple short films and the HBO series How To with John Wilson (2020-2023), which provided tutorials on everything from scaffolding and risotto to throwing out used batteries. All with an essay approach and wry second-person narration. Those techniques are on display in his feature debut, The History of Concrete.
As the title suggests, this is technically a documentary about concrete. It’s the most widely used building material in the world, and the second most used material in the world behind water. Despite its importance, a film about the subject sounds drab. But Wilson has a trick up his sleeve to make this project stand out. It all started in 2023, with Wilson at a creative crossroads after ending How To (“The space between projects is hard”, he says). During the writers’ strike, he attended a workshop on how to write and sell a Hallmark Movie. Those direct-to-TV, holiday-based romcoms made with clockwork regularity and a clear formula for success.
One example that Wilson watches involves affordable housing, as the male lead is a developer who tries to unroot a small candle store owner (for those who are curious, it’s called ‘Twas the Date Before Christmas). And that is what inspires him to try to use those workshop lessons for his concrete documentary. However, with Wilson having to secure funding himself, he struggles to balance artistic freedom and the other stories he comes across with the new realities of the modern film industry.
Selling documentaries has become tough in this changing mediascape. Major companies are merging. AI and automation are creeping into common practice. Everything is now all about clicks and streaming and conditions from potential investors, some of whom urge Wilson to turn his prospective film into a music doc. All this will surely affect his unique creative process, where his journey through a particular subject is complicated and distracted by different rabbit holes, curiosities and characters.
Thankfully, these rabbit holes (a major feature of How To) are present here, whether it is Wilson travelling to the Pantheon in Rome or taking in concrete expos, public pools and sand mandalas closer to home. We see a man who removes gum from the pavement (and also sells wine), and joggers in Queens who run a 3100 mile self-transcendence race in honour of spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy. There are celeb cameos that will remain unspoiled, but Wilson wants to spend more with a small-time musician trying to make it but also battling grief.
In any other film, it would seem odd to segue from a driving school in Ohio to a business that preserves tattoos of the deceased. But the thing about Wilson and his detours is that they all piece together effortlessly, creating interlinking metaphors. For example, Wilson tours the Hallmark movie studios, where an employee remarks that they make the same movie over and over again. That is immediately compared to the self-transcendence race, and the runners travelling the same route over and over for 52 days straight. And the preserved tattoos can easily be linked to the need to preserve infrastructure that is cracking, corroding and falling apart everywhere in the concrete jungle that is New York City.
Crucially, in these human interactions, Wilson captures something very profound. At one point, he mentions a concept in Buddhism that the only thing guaranteed in existence is impermanence. In other words, everything will one day end or change. The sand mandalas we see being made are destroyed immediately afterwards. Concrete, an ever-present, seemingly permanent material in our lives, will crumble. This whole project was triggered by Wilson ending How To and the uncertainty he felt. This documentary is about more than just concrete. It is a film about our changing, hectic modern world, trying to cope with it and accepting change.
The History of Concrete is often completely surreal, perhaps a little too sprawling at points but also continuously hilarious. It is a fascinating, exploratory documentary that completely works because of John Wilson, a filmmaker who has once again proven he can make the ordinary captivating in his own inimitable way.
The History of Concrete (2026): Movie Plot & Recap
Synopsis:
Filmmaker John Wilson applies the lessons he has learnt from a Hallmark movie writing workshop to pitch a documentary about concrete.
Pros:
- Wilson’s inimitable documentary style carries over very well into feature-length documentaries.
- It’s a film about so much more than just concrete, and Wilson finds some profound moments of humanity here.
- It’s also extremely, continuously hilarious.
Cons:
- Perhaps it’s a little too sprawling – this is longer than Wilson’s usual shorts and TV episodes.
The History of Concrete was screened at the BFI London Film Festival on October 13, 2026. The film was released in U.S. theaters on September 18.