Writer-director Lyle Lindgren’s documentary, Mouth Full of Golds, has been years in the making. After meeting Eddie Plein in 2012, Lindgren set out to tell the forgotten and largely unknown story of the Godfather of Modern Grillz. It was always intended to be a documentary, but when the pandemic hit, all that research turned into a book, which he self-published in 2021. Since then, it’s had a reprint in 2023, and a third re-issue this year. And now, the completed film will have its world premiere at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival.
Set to Akira Woodgrain’s (Renaissance – A Film by Beyonce) hip-hop and funk-infused score, the five-chapter documentary opens with an old news report (featuring a comical amount of mouth/teeth puns) on the hot topic of grillz, interviewing teenagers proud to show off their gold fronts, while saying that dentists disapprove. It gives us a sense of the intentionality and psychology behind the phenomenon. People wear them as a status symbol, a form of self-expression, and/or a bold fashion statement of success and excess.
While talking about his own grillz and collaborations, A$AP Rocky introduces us to Eddie Plein, the true pioneer of removable grillz. The film then dives into Plein’s story, beginning with his family moving from Suriname in South America to Brooklyn, New York, in 1973. As a Pelé fanatic, he had dreams of playing soccer, but a trip to the dentist sparked the idea of creating sets of detachable gold teeth.
In the 1980s, Eddie and his brother, Orlando, set up shop inside the Colosseum Mall in Jamaica, Queens, alongside other Black-owned businesses, such as the Shirt Kings. His work for Just-Ice was the jumping-off point, and from then on, Eddie and his team handcrafted customizable pieces for the top rappers and artists of the time, including Salt-N-Pepa, Flavor Flav, and a young Jay-Z.
Lindgren takes us through the evolution of grillz, going chapter by chapter, giving each era and city their time in the spotlight. After Eddie’s chapter, we leave New York and turn to his brother and their multitalented friend, Goldie, as they talk about their time living in Miami. While the chapter spends a good amount of time on the city’s other trends, like airbrushing and hydraulics, it always comes back to grillz.
In the Atlanta section, we learn that, after operating out of the back of pawn shops and mall basements in New York, the removable gold fronts originator opened his own shop — Famous Eddie’s Gold Teeth. There, he started working with artists like Big Gipp, André 3000, and Ludacris (who featured the shop in his music video for “Southern Hospitality”). Business was booming until the mid-2000s when Texas-based jeweler Johnny Dang and rapper Paul Wall arrived on the scene, taking full advantage of the new millennium, promoting their work on this new thing called the internet (along with 2005 chart-topper “Grillz” by Wall, Nelly, Big Gipp, and Ali). And with growing competition, Eddie closed up shop.
The fifth chapter focuses on global grillmakers like Dolly Cohen in France, who has worked with various artists including Rihanna. I thought they’d get into even more contemporary trends like tooth gems and/or mention the ancient origins of gold teeth in general. But in the end, we learn everything we need to know about grillz and their place in hip-hop culture.
With its in-depth interviews and meticulous research, you can tell that Mouth Full of Gold was made with love and respect for the niche-ish subject. From grillmakers to grillwearers, Lindgren interviewed several cultural figures with a range of unique perspectives across music and fashion industries around the world, exploring what grillz mean to different people and cultures.
The film also uses a mix of news footage and home movies, some of which were filmed in Eddie’s shop. The former shows outside opinions (mainly police and journalists) about grillz, while the latter shows them as an art form and not just a dental accessory, all nicely edited by Lindgren.
Interspliced with archive footage are silent reenactments starring Patrick Decile, Phillip Norville, and Hugo Mendoza, as Eddie, Orlando, and Goldie, respectively. Decile also starred in Lindgren’s Channel 4 short 78 on 79th, featuring Lando Plein as himself (which I highly recommend). At first, I didn’t think the dramatized versions were necessary, since Eddie is such a captivating storyteller and we’ve already seen photos and videos of them when they were young and just starting out. But the visuals really add to the decades-spanning story, especially in the more dramatic moments that weren’t captured on camera.
Mouth Full of Golds is a well-crafted documentary that celebrates the history and artistry of grillz and the legacy of Eddie Plein and the significant impact he had on hip-hop culture, spanning from the 1980s to today. Whether it’s dramatic shorts or feature-length documentaries, Lyle Lindgren is an independent filmmaker to watch.
Mouth Full of Golds has its world premiere June 12 at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival.
