Sausage Party is a 2016 adult animated black comedy film directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan (in his feature-length directorial debut), and written by Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. A co-production between Canada and the United States, the film features the voices of Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Nick Kroll, David Krumholtz, Edward Norton and Salma Hayek. The film follows an anthropomorphic sausage (Rogen) who lives in a supermarket and goes on a journey with his friends to escape their fate as groceries eaten by humans. The film's animation was handled by the Vancouver-based Nitrogen Studios. It is the first 3D computer-animated film in both United States and Canada to be rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. The film's rough cut premiered on March 14, 2016, at South by Southwest, followed by its general theatrical release in the United States on August 12, 2016, by Sony Pictures Releasing through its Columbia Pictures label. Sausage Party received generally positive reviews from critics but received negative reviews from audiences and grossed $141 million against a budget of $19 million, surpassing South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (1999) as the highest-grossing R-rated animated film at the time of its release. A sequel television series, Sausage Party: Foodtopia, was released in 2024.
Plot Unbeknownst to humans, a supermarket called Shopwell's is populated by anthropomorphic foodstuffs, as well as some other consumable items, that believe human shoppers are gods who take purchased groceries to a utopia known as the "Great Beyond". Among the groceries is a sausage named Frank, who dreams of living in the Great Beyond with his hot dog bun girlfriend Brenda. One day, Frank and Brenda's packages are purchased by a shopper named Camille Toh. On their way out of the store, a returned jar of honey mustard tries to warn the groceries that the Great Beyond is a lie, but nobody listens except Frank. Before committing suicide, Honey Mustard tells Frank to seek out a bottle of liquor named Firewater. Honey Mustard's suicide creates an accidental cart collision that causes Frank, Brenda and several groceries to fall out of the cart, including Jewish bagel Sammy Bagel Jr., the Arab lavash Kareem Abdul Lavash and an aggressive douche who swears revenge on Frank and Brenda after his nozzle is bent on impact. Seeking to verify Honey Mustard's warning, Frank leads Brenda, Sammy and Lavash to the liquor aisle where he meets Firewater and his colleagues, the Non-Perishables (a box of hominy grits named Mr. Grits and a Twinkie named Twink), who tell Frank that they created the noble lie of the Great Beyond to assuage the groceries' fear of being eaten. To their dismay, this has had the unintended effect of the various aisles developing divisive belief systems based on their own prejudices and interpretations of the original "revelation". Despite Firewater's warning that he will not be believed, Frank vows to reveal the truth and is encouraged to travel beyond the store's freezer section to find proof. Brenda, Sammy and Lavash are brought to the Mexican food aisle by a bottle of tequila, who is secretly working for Douche. Teresa del Taco, a lesbian taco, develops a crush on Brenda and helps them escape Douche. Meanwhile, at Camille's house, Frank's two best friends, Carl and Barry, are horrified to see the shopper cooking the foods. Carl is stabbed to death as he tries to flee through an open window with Barry. Afterwards, Barry encounters a human drug addict, who becomes able to communicate with his groceries (one of them being Gum a Stephen Hawking-like wad of chewing gum) after injecting himself with bath salts. The bath salts wear off and the addict prepares to cook Barry, but he accidentally burns himself and Barry yanks his shoelaces, making him slip and causing a hanging battle axe to fall and decapitate him. Frank reunites with his friends, but they separate again when they along with Brenda disapprove of his skepticism of the Great Beyond. He reaches the Dark Aisle, and discovers a cookbook beyond the freezer section. He reveals its contents to the store's inhabitants who panic at first, but Frank's condescending tone and failure to offer a positive alternative prompt them to cling even more strongly to their beliefs, and his claims and evidence are dismissed. Suddenly, Barry, Gum and the other groceries from the addict's home return with the man's severed head, proving that the humans can be killed. Barry apologizes to Frank for not helping him when he fell out of the cart. The group drugs the human shoppers and employees with toothpicks laced with bath salts, whereupon a battle begins. Several humans are gruesomely killed by the now unified groceries while Douche takes control of the store manager, Darren, and uses the human's body to take a bite out of Frank's torso. Brenda saves Frank as Barry and the other groceries catch Douche and Darren in a garbage pail strapped to propane tanks. They are then launched out of the store as the tanks explode, killing them both. Afterwards, the inhabitants celebrate their victory with a massive orgy. In an epilogue, Frank and his friends visit Firewater, who has had a psychedelic experience with Gum and discovered that their world is not what they think: they are merely animated characters voiced by actors in another dimension. Gum has constructed a portal to this dimension and the group travel there to confront their creators.
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