Bill Nye: Science Guy is a 2017 biographical documentary film produced and directed by David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg of Structure Films (The Immortalists, 2014), and produced by Seth Gordon and Kate McLean. The documentary concept was pitched to the film's subject, Bill Nye, by Alvarado, Sussberg, and Gordon at a hotel bar in San Francisco in October 2014.
The film documents the personal life and career comeback of Bill Nye, the star of PBS children's show Bill Nye the Science Guy. The documentary, which filmed from November 2014 through September 2016, follows Nye as he retires his kid show act in a bid to become more like his late professor, astronomer Carl Sagan. In his role as the CEO of The Planetary Society, an organization founded by Sagan in 1980, Nye sets out to accomplish Sagan's dream of putting a solar sail into space. In his more mature persona, Nye reaches out to a wider audience using his trademark enthusiasm for science advocacy and education, but he is pulled away when he is challenged by evolution and climate change contrarians to defend the scientific consensus.
Bill Nye: Science Guy premiered on March 12, 2017 at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. In April 2017, the film made its West Coast premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival, followed by an international screening at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in May 2017, and another May screening at the Montclair Film Festival in New Jersey.