Super Size Me

Premiered at Sundance in January 2004 (it won the best director prize), and released in the UK in a version updated to May 2004, this crosses the Nick Broomfield/Michael Moore first-person documentary with the Jackass approach to self-harm. Spurlock sets out to eat nothing but McDonald's fast-food for 30 days, working his way through the entire menu and accepting 'supersize' portions when asked; a small army of doctors, nutritionists and personal trainers monitors his rapid physical and mental decline, while his girlfriend Alex (a vegan cook) watches in horror and reports the fall-off in his sexual performance. Travelling around as he stuffs himself (one stop-off is Houston, the 'obesity capital of the US'), he pauses to look at school meal policies, stomach tuck operations, food addictions and other related issues. None of this tells you anything you didn't already know, but it's consistently amusing and often disgusting. And it does demonstrate in the most graphic way possible that a solid diet of salt, sugar and saturated fats will send the liver into toxic shock.