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Butt-Numb-A-Thon

former annual film marathon

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ5002755 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Butt-Numb-A-Thon (also known as BNAT) was a film marathon held in Austin, Texas every December from 1999 to 2016. It was hosted by Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News in celebration of his birthday. The festival showed 24 hours of vintage films, as well as premieres.

Following revelations of sexual assault accusations against Knowles in September 2017, the festival ceased.

Event admission

The marathon was invite-only via an application process. Before BNAT 5 in 2003, there were typically two ways to gain admittance – one for Austin residents that usually involved some event, such as BNAT 4 in 2002 having a costume contest at a horror movie screening at an abandoned mental institution on Halloween, then a separate one for those not in the Central Texas area. After BNAT 5, the application process was changed to internet-only involving several essay-style questions and submissions of pictures.

Films and notable guests

Films that were shown include the first public screening of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, as well as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Dreamgirls, Chicago, Black Snake Moan, Snatch, Magnolia, Knocked Up, Frozen, 300, V for Vendetta, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and the 2005 remake of King Kong. Guests have included Mel Gibson, Zack Snyder, Peter Jackson, Seth Rogen, Adam Green, Eli Roth, Craig Brewer, Bill Condon, Vin Diesel, Guillermo del Toro, Jackie Earle Haley, McG and C. Robert Cargill.

Some celebrity guests, such as Eli Roth, Rian Johnson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Laura Harris and Elijah Wood have attended the event, even though they may not have had any films exhibited.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Butt-Numb-A-Thon” as former annual film marathon. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Butt-Numb-A-Thon, former and annual.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1999, 2016, 2017, 2003—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1999-12. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Butt-Numb-A-Thon, former and annual providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5002755. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1999, 2016, 2017 and 2003.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Butt-Numb-A-Thon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.