Dying is easy. Comedy is hard. Making a great screen comedy is darn near impossible.
Yet the following 25 films manage to do just that, either with uproarious slapstick, sly word play, or in the case of the number one selection below, the removal of some stubborn chest hair.
WWTW’s top comedy comes with a caveat. Humor can age rather badly, and putting a film from 2005 in the top slot might seem unwise in a few years. But it’s so good I couldn’t place it anywhere else.
- “The 40 Year Old Virgin” (2005) – Bawdy and sweet in blissful harmony, Judd Apatow’s directorial debut is an instant classic, a film so packed with highlights it bears repeated viewings just to soak them all in.
- “Raising Arizona” (1987) – My heart ranks “RA” first, but for the sake of objectivity I let the “Virgin” take the number one slot. The Coen brothers’ best comedy is such a hoot I’ll never tire of its humor, its madcap characters and the best slapstick sequence – the diaper chase – ever committed to celluloid.
- “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986) – Teen rebellion with heart, soul, moxie and boundless imagination. The best of the John Hughes canon by a mile, and that’s saying plenty.
- “This is Spinal Tap” (1984) – The mockumentary format peaked early with this note-perfect comedy.
- “The Graduate” (1967) – It defined a generation, gave us a one-word catch phrase (“plastics”) and cemented Dustin Hoffman’s star status. It’s also wise and wonderful and the ultimate movie for a rainy Saturday afternoon.
- “Annie Hall” (1977) – Bittersweet hardly captures the romance at the heart of Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning feature, and while it unfairly robbed “Star Wars” of a Best Picture statuette, it’s still a great movie teeming with classic Allen touches. Best bit? Christopher Walken’s rant while driving Alvy Singer to what he fears is an early grave.
- “A Fish Called Wanda” (1988) – Sometimes you mix all the right ingredients together and you make mush. But, once in a glorious while, those same ingredients create something wonderful. Kevin Kline’s bravura turn is just one of many pleasures to be found in this daffy, politically incorrect romp.
- “Airplane!” (1980)- The first and arguably the best of the “kitchen sink” comedy parodies. Stuff as many gags as possible in under two hours, line up a host of eclectic but killer comic actors and get ready to laugh.
- “Sleeper” – Woody Allen’s best silly comedy, a peek into the future through the director’s sardonic lens. The jazzy score makes every laugh bigger.
- “Borat” (2006) – Can Sacha Baron Cohen ever duplicate the comic wonders on display here? Who cares? “Borat” remain s a joyful collage of “Candid Camera” stunts and scripted fare with a wrestling match that needs to be seen to be believed.
- “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein” (1948) – The comic duo’s cinematic tour de force married to a daffy monster chase. Best line: Larry Talbot: You don’t understand. Every night when the moon is full, I turn into a wolf. Wilbur: Y ou and twenty million other guys.
- “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” (1963) - If the film only had Jonathan Winters tearing down a gas station with his bare hands it would still make this list. But “World” packs so much more into its gloriously bloated running time, enlisting nearly ever comic actor of consequence in a race for that big “W.”
- “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986) – Allen’s transformation into a More Serious Director continues with “Hannah,” but his knack for human comedy makes the story as riotous as it is revealing.
- “Parenthood” (1989) – It’s sweet and sad, truthful and revealing and very, very funny. Steve Martin’s first big foray into parental comedy lets him tap his manic side – watch him limp away from that horse while playing Cowboy Gil – while proving he can be a tender galoot, too.
- “Young Frankenstein” (1974) – Pitch perfect parody carried out by an incomparable comic troupe. Too many priceless moments to count, but let’s go with “What hump?” as a personal favorite.
- “When Harry Met Sally …” (1989) – The best modern rom-com doesn’t skimp on the laughs. But it’s that New Year’s Eve reunion that brings the waterworks.
- “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975) – So sublimely silly it’s impossible not to laugh.
- “The Producers” (1968) – “Springtime for Hitler?” Only Mel Brooks could get away with such comic blasphemy.
- “Terms of Endearment“ (1983)- Humor and tragedy make wonderful bedfellows in this James L. Brooks classic. Nearly every line out of Jack Nicholson’s mouth is a comic gem.
- “Bull Durham” (1988) – The most satisfying sports comedy ever speaks to larger truths than just the poetry of stealing home.
- “Broadcast News” – A smart, sophisticated news dramedy with a love triangle guaranteed to break your heart.
- “Knocked Up” (2007) – Apatow’s follow-up to “Virgin” proves slightly inferior, but it nails the tortured lag time between adolescence and manhood with the appropriate yuks.
- “Tootsie” (1982) – Drag comedy doesn’t do much for this film critic. Dustin Hoffman’s days in a red spangly dress showed me the beauty in the genre.
- “Office Space” – (1999) A workplace comedy that made us want to call in sick Monday morning just to watch it again. And again.
- “Swingers” (1996) – Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn captured the male ego circa the late 1990s with all the appropriately painful humor intact.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
What? No Caddyshack? Philistine!
I laughed harder at There’s Something About Mary than most of these movies you listed, but for some reason I get the feeling that’s more a me issue than a Toto issue.
After the first 40 minutes of Office Space it really drops off…but that’s probably why it’s 24th instead of 1st. That first half was genius.
I would add “Office Space” and “Blazing Saddles.” And you are correct about the diaper chase in “Raising Arizona.” The movie was pure directorial genius.
what crushes my soul about “Raising Arizona” was a quote attributed to the Coen brothers. They essentially said they re-watched it recently and were disappointed in how it held up. Say it ain’t so …
Am on the lookout for the film’s Blu-ray release … hopefully it’ll come soon.
No comedy list is complete without “Slap Shot” and “Used Cars”.
>>Ferris — The best of the John Hughes canon by a mile, and that’s saying plenty.>>
Sixteen Candles for this Hughes fan, who is admittedly one of those rare birds for whom Ferris and Breakfast Club haven’t aged as well.
Also, please tell us Animal House was your #26.
Films like Caddyshack and Animal House are great, no doubt. I tried to juggle a few factors here, and as the premiere slob/frat/college comedy Animal House is one film that could easily be here.
and those were 1959 dollars!
I like this list a lot.
However, I would put The Jerk on this list. I laugh so hard during the oil cans scene that I end up with tears running down my face every time.
But I truly I heart Steve Martin.
I love Office Space and was glad to see it made the list. I love the entire movie, not just the first part. Damn it feels good to be a gansta!
I think I’d also put Drunken Master on the list, because I love me some Jackie Chan.
While some of these comedies are, to a degree, comedic, most are vastly overrated as “classics” because of memorable performances, directors, scenes, or lines. For whatever the reason, comedy seems to translate flawlessly to TV, but with few exceptions fails to find the funny in features.
Ghost Town
Agreed on “Virgin” and “Arizona”- they’d be in my Top 5 comedies, too. I’d also add “Top Secret!”, which would easily be my #1, and “Hot Fuzz”.
I’m with Eric on Ferris Bueller, though. The movie just never came off particularly funny or endearing to me, mainly because the main character is such a narcissistic jerk (and I still can’t figure out why we’re supposed to find Principal Rooney’s suffering funny).
If I were to go decade-by-decade:
1920s: The General
1930s: It Happened One Night
1940s: His Girl Friday
1950s: Some Like It Hot
1960s: Dr. Strangelove
1970s: Annie Hall
1980s: This Is Spinal Tap
1990s: There’s Something About Mary
2000s: Team America: World Police