Did You Know?

The name "Napoleon Dynamite" is a pseudonym used by Elvis Costello for his 1986 album, "Blood and Chocolate". Executive producer Jeremy Coon has stated that the similarity is a coincidence and that the producers were unaware of Costello's usage of the name until the film was in production.

Features one of the longest credited cast lists in movie history; all 181 student extras' names are listed in the closing credits.

Behind-the-scenes at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Fox Searchlight engaged in a bidding war with Warner Independent Pictures over the distribution rights to this movie, until Fox Searchlight put in a last-minute bid of over $3 million, and won. They would later join forces with Paramount Pictures and MTV Films to distribute the film, a mere 17 days before its release.

The scene where Uncle Rico hits Napoleon in the face took four takes.

Jon Heder's big dance scene was the last scene scheduled and film ran out while shooting it. The sequence was edited together from less than 10 minutes of his dancing.

Aaron Ruell (Kip) had braces put on his teeth for this role (two dentists are thanked in the credits).

Deb's photo studio is actually the basement of the interior version of Napoleon Dynamite's house.

In the second cafeteria scene, when Napoleon and Pedro discuss prospective dance dates, Napolean is wearing a Ricks College t-shirt. Ricks College was a junior college in Idaho that maintained close association with Brigham Young University up until 2000, when Ricks was formally named an official satellite of BYU, henceforth BYU-Idaho. Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess, the film's co-writers, both attended BYU.

In real life, the llama belongs to director/co-writer Jared Hess's mother, and its name is Dolly.

Jon Heder was paid $1,000 to play Napoleon Dynamite. The movie grossed over $40,000,000 in the United States.

For Napoleon's dance routine, director Jared Hess had Jon Heder improvise and dance to three different songs. Hess then took the "best" moves from each song and put them in one routine, using one song.

Jon Heder credits Tina Majorino (Deb) with helping to choreograph the dance scene. He also states that some of the dance moves were "borrowed" from Michael Jackson, Backstreet Boys, John Travolta, Soul Train, as well as some of his own moves.

When Kip is on the computer near the beginning of the film, all of the words he is saying were improvised by Aaron Ruell. If listened to closely, one can hear him singing a little bit right as Grandma comes in.

Despite playing high-school students, Jon Heder and Efren Ramirez were, respectively, 27 and 31 when this movie was made.

The opening title sequence was partially re shot due to some of the executives at Fox Searchlight not liking the look of the actors hands who place the food into the shot. They flew out a "hand model" to re shoot some of the shots with the director.

A "Napoleon Dynamite" festival was held every year from 2004-08 in Preston, Idaho, the city where the movie was filmed. The festival had events that included a tater-tot eating contest, a football throwing contest, look-a-like contests and other type of festival events based on scenes from the movie.

At the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, Jon Heder reprised his role as Napoleon during the parody of Batman Begins.

Both Jon Heder (Napoleon) and Efren Ramirez (Pedro), who play the lead characters in the movie, have an identical twin in real life.

Due to the film's surprise success at festivals and in its limited release, Fox Searchlight re-edited the film to add a 5-minute epilogue at the end. This epilogue, which was filmed after the initial theatrical run, features a surprise "wedding scene", which cost about half of what the entire feature cost to make.