BAFTA-winning comedian Mo Gilligan is heading to Netflix with his first documentary. Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy, a 96-minute feature produced by Louis Theroux’s award-winning production company Mindhouse, arrives on the platform globally on August 5, 2026.
In the film, Gilligan puts his body to the test by eating fried chicken three times a day for 28 days straight. What begins as a personal experiment quickly expands into a broader investigation, taking him from South London to the United States to trace the historical origins of fried chicken and examine the social, economic and industrial forces driving global consumption of it, from fast food chains to large-scale farming and the impact on health and the planet.
As a Black British comedian, Gilligan also uses the documentary to confront negative stereotypes associated with the dish, examining how it has been culturally appropriated and marketed in today’s food industry.
“Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy encourages Mo to reckon with the unsettling realities behind his favourite takeaway, sparking greater curiosity about the origins of our food and a more informed approach to the choices we make about what we eat,” the producers said.
The documentary is directed by Liana Stewart, with Aloke Devichand and Nancy Strang serving as executive producers. A trailer is set to drop July 22.
The premise will draw inevitable comparisons to Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 Oscar-nominated documentary Super Size Me, in which Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days, gaining nearly 25 pounds and experiencing serious health consequences along the way. Spurlock later made a follow-up focused specifically on the chicken industry, Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!, in 2017, before his death in 2024. Where Spurlock’s sequel saw him open a pop-up fast food chicken restaurant to infiltrate the industry from the inside, Gilligan’s approach centers on consumption and cultural examination rather than infiltration.
Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy arrives on Netflix August 5.