A.V. Club's "The 50 best comedies since 2000"

fucking hell, there's maybe 5 good films here. maybe 10

I've seen 28 of these. It's between Ghost World, High Fidelity and one of the two Coens, for me. You'd have to squint pretty hard at Force Majeure, I think, to consider it a comedy.

I count at least 33 good ones, 4 or 5 bad ones

I'm a well-known drag, so I've only seen 15 of these. With at least one, The Grand Budapest Hotel, I don't think I laughed once.

School of Rock or Ghost World would be my favourite, although I probably actually laugh more often during Zodiac.

what a weird list. not all that many lols really. i mean, scott pilgrim was enjoyable if you went with its sensibility, but not exactly a gut-buster. voting tenenbaums as one that made me laugh and also made me Feel Things which seems a reasonable goal. pretty sure i laughed harder at some other things in the last sixteen years but who knows, i'm a curmudgeon. original kings of comedy was a riot in the theater, not so much on video. i should probably see shaun of the dead at some point.

i've seen 26 of these films, these are the ones i'd condone

3. In The Loop (2009) <- not as good as its parent tv show but well done
12. Adaptation. (2002) <- decent but not a comedy
17. In Bruges (2008) <- not sure i'd like it so much the second time
22. Burn After Reading (2008) <- legit hilarious
25. What We Do In The Shadows (2014) <- saw this recently, it was heartwarming
26. Ghost World (2001) <- good but not a comedy
35. Kung Fu Hustle (2004) <- this might be the winner, it's kind of extraordinary
46. Bad Santa (2003) <- old ilx
47. Force Majeure (2014) <- this was great & utterly savage, another winning candidate
50. Four Lions (2010) <- also file under 'heartwarming(ish) homicide'

the only one i haven't seen but want to is Songs From The Second Floor

You'd have to squint pretty hard at Force Majeure, I think, to consider it a comedy.

Definitely had some hearty lols iirc, mostly from - or at - the heavily bearded friend.

School of Rock in the running for me too, yeah.

The only things on this list that I've seen that I actively hated are Scott Pilgrim and Borat, but both are novel and iconoclastic enough that I get why they're here. I don't get the cults for In Bruges or Josie and the Pussycats at all, though.

Maybe you've got to be Scandinavian or descended from/raised by Scandinavians to really tune into its wavelength, but Force Majeure was fucking hilarious.

i can't see how it could have been anything other than hilarious tbh

i thought about voting kung fu hustle. that really is a hoot and holds up totally. one case where the cheap-lookingness of the bad CGI adds more charm with time rather than being distracting. thing is i think i did like shaolin soccer better. hmm.

saw bad santa in the theater on a first or second date and had a fantastic time, but have always been hesitant to revisit it in case the lols were you-had-to-be-there.

Is Offside the Panahi film? If so, that's a pretty inspired choice. Will probably vote for 12:08 though. But no Amour Fou = no credibility.

You'd have to squint pretty hard at Force Majeure, I think, to consider it a comedy.

Eh, I thought a lot of it was pretty funny.

I think a number of these are fantastic. I'm leaning pretty patriotic with this one, actually. Maybe In the Loop, maybe In Bruges. For out and out volume of laughter in a cinema though, I have never seen a film that matches Borat.

I've not seen Wet Hot American Summer.

12. Adaptation. (2002) <- decent but not a comedy

It's half a comedy, unlike synecdoche ny which is all comedy.

And yeah, Kung Fu Hustle is amazing.

Only ones I've seen and actively disliked are Bridesmaids, Punch-Drunk Love and I Heart Huckabees.

1-3 should be all Jackass possibly followed by In the Loop.

Looked at the intro. Obviously a fine line that deems Ghost World a comedy and Lost in Translation not, but that's understandable.

Love State and Main.

Feel like very few of these would match three top-drawer episodes of 30 Rock in a row.

I've seen a terrifying 37 of these films...

Offside is a lovely inclusion, but I'm torn between Ghost World and...actually no, I'm just going to vote for Ghost World. Pitch perfect transposition of the comic book. Its satirisation of contemporary art class is one of the best things, and Illeana Douglas is amazing as a new age art teacher.

High Fidelity is my least favourite on this list by a mile.

that is definitely a list of fifty movies

Also, no Smiley Face? That should be topping this imo.

omission of Eternal Sunshine and Dogtooth means there's nothing more to say about this listicle, really

"Making people laugh is the lowest form of comedy." - Michael O'Donoghue

I might choose Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and burn the rest in a garbage dump.

obvious child is really funny imo, but you really need to enjoy jenny slate for it to work

like I think I watched some of the extras on the dvd and the orig script dialogue was super clunky and unfunny

Seen 23, the only omissions I regret:

In The Loop
Frances Ha
In Bruges*
Obvious Child
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Force Majeure
Four Lions*

* = I have actually had these on my PC at some point, fuck's sake, Farrell.

Bad Santa possibly the funniest movie here. I like several of these quite a bit but not many among my all-time faves. This century has produced way funnier TV than it has movies.

Hot Fuzz might be the one on the list that got me to laugh the most. I'd say it was the best of the slapstick style comedies.

There is some dark and funny stuff in Bad Santa too. Billy Bob Thornton is good in that one.

Pineapple Express seems to be one missing that I like much better than some of these movies. That fight scene at Danny McBrides characters house is a classic.

putting all three of Hot Fuzz/Shaun of the Dead/World's End on here is o_0 - I mean they're all basically the same sorta entertaining movie but no way are all three of them great comedies

seen 37 of these. out of 33 38 43 46 49, 46

MacGruber and Hot Rod are the most glaring omissions IMO.

(And another that I have gotten inordinate amounts of shit about in the past and will surely get inordinate amounts of shit for naming.)

a Harold & Kumar probably belongs on here - but which one?

xp hah I was going to say there was at least less BroComedy than I was fearing - removing Danny McBride from history seems to unshockingly have a salutory effect.

i see oldlunch, you like yr film comedies as tv sketches draaaaaged out to feature length

thank you Lorne

My omissions--either of which would have gotten my vote over anything here--are Ratatouille and The Way Way Back, but I'm assuming they didn't consider animation of the non-puppet-sex variety (though Team America isn't even the best puppet-sex movie of the last 16 years) or even see TWWB (since very few people did).

The Edgar Wrights are very different movies, you might be confused by the accents?

xp my "it's not great but I love it" missing would be Blades of Glory.

biggest omissions are Eternal Sunshine (Morbz otm) and This is the End imo

I've seen all three movies AF, they are v similar in cast, tone, structure, joeks, etc.

oh Kung Fu Hustle should be on here too, for sure

i see oldlunch, you like yr film comedies as tv sketches draaaaaged out to feature length

thank you Lorne

― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Monday, July 11, 2016 12:04 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lorne (or, more accurately, the Lonely Island dudes) only figured out a workable formula in the past decade. Which involves, notably, making something that resembles an actual movie rather than exhaustively riffing on something that barely worked in five-minute increments.

I liked all of these:

2. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
4. Best In Show (2000)
5. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
7. Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004)
8. High Fidelity (2000)
9. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)
10. Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan (2006)
11. Superbad (2007)
13. Hot Fuzz (2007)
14. Bridesmaids (2011)
15. Team America: World Police (2004)
16. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
18. Mean Girls (2004)
20. The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
28. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
32. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
35. Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
36. A Mighty Wind (2003)
37. School Of Rock (2003)
38. I Heart Huckabees (2004)
40. Zoolander (2001)
41. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
42. Knocked Up (2007)
46. Bad Santa (2003)
48. Josie And The Pussycats (2001)

voting Kiss Kiss Bang Bang because it's awesome and underrated

(although I probably should vote Kung Fu Hustle or Josie)

WHAS is a good #1 pick but all of these would get a thumbs up from me.

1. Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
2. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
3. In The Loop (2009)
5. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
6. Frances Ha (2012)
8. High Fidelity (2000)
10. Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan (2006)
13. Hot Fuzz (2007)
17. In Bruges (2008)
27. Idiocracy (2006)
28. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
29. The Informant! (2009)
31. The World’s End (2013)
35. Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
46. Bad Santa (2003)

oh sorry missed that KFH is up there my bad

good call above on Pineapple Express being omitted. I definitely have a strong bias towards some of these films after having watched them on cable 9,000 times, hence my top ten from this list would be:

2. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
3. In The Loop (2009)
4. Best In Show (2000)
5. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
7. Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004)
14. Bridesmaids (2011)
17. In Bruges (2008)
18. Mean Girls (2004)
28. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
40. Zoolander (2001)

really hated to cut Hot Fuzz there. speaking of which, my #1 would be Shaun of the Dead.

i like all of the edgar wright films i've seen but SOTD is pretty clearly the funniest and the tightest film, narratively speaking.

No Wedding Crashers?

frances ha is a pretty damn good movie i think. also i enjoyed its humor, i was thinking it would be more dour than it was.

I guess I should probably finally watch Kung Fu Hustle and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

they might be overhyped at this point but I love both of them to death

KFH has so many memorable aspects and the Ax Gang is super dope. the knife/snake scene is probably the funniest scene of any scene in any of these films (possible competition from the Tim Robbins murder fantasy in High Fidelity)

Seen 41, haven't heard of two.

I think the hardest I've laughed at a movie made in the last 15 years was that one scene about ten minutes into The Other Guys. Too bad the rest of the movie didn't measure up.

12:08 East of Bucharest, guys.

the only times I laugh at movies are during rematches of The Naked Gun

sounds kinky

I guess the indifferently received sequels really damaged The Hangover's cultural standing (I always thought it was terrible but it was a pretty big deal at the time)

first Jump Street should probably be on there

Elf for sure

never actually watched the movie version of The Trip, but I'm sure it's better than half this list

surprised Super Troopers isn't on here

and yeah 21 Jump Street is a good call. I couldn't believe how funny that one was. (22 was good too but...yeah)

v likely I Heart Huckabees is one of the 5 best here

(RIP Russell)

and you people deserve Jonah Hill and Rogenthing.

I'm by no means averse to Brit comedy but I thought The Trip was very dull.

great call on Super Troopers, that's finely distilled idiocy right there.

anyway I voted for Step Brothers :)

Also, I haven't seen them, but I've only heard good things about the Magic Mike films - seems like an odd omission.

I... do not think the Magic Mike films are comedies

i'd say the second very much is, in the Shakespearean sense!

also Step Brothers fans, really, don't watch 12:08 or Offside, there's no point.

I haven't seen them so my perception is 100% based on the promo material and secondhand accounts

go back to the Jerry Lewis thread Morbs

there's nothing for you here

but Jerry Lewis is kinda like Adam Sandler, except funny.

I loved the Trip. Several on here and suggested by some I would not consider comedies (including, possibly, the Trip). The way I see it is if I leave a movie with a general sense of melancholy or sadness, a la Lost in Translation (which is basically just a lighter remake of non-comedy In the Mood for Love) or Eternal Sunshine or even Royal Tenenbnums/Grand Budapest Hotel, I dunno if I think of them as comedies. List def. needs Pineapple Express/This is the End, or Harold and Kumar or a few others. Love that What We Do In The Shadows is here, that movie was hilarious.

Nice to see The Informant! on here. I'd read the book, so the tonally different movie was a really pleasant surprise.

categorizing the ones I haven't seen...

very little interest:
13. Hot Fuzz (2007)
15. Team America: World Police (2004)
23. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
30. Young Adult (2011)

maybe if it's on tv:
18. Mean Girls (2004)
22. Burn After Reading (2008)
48. Josie And The Pussycats (2001)

possible rental:
43. State And Main (2000)
47. Force Majeure (2014)
49. Songs From The Second Floor (2000)

? look these up on imdb:
44. The Color Wheel (2011)
45. 12:08 East Of Bucharest (2006)

also Step Brothers fans, really, don't watch 12:08 or Offside, there's no point.

I liked Step Brothers and Outside

Offside I mean.

If animation is ok, then how is the LEGO Movie not on here?

very few romantic comedies on there but I'd also have Enough Said on my personal list

and Adventureland

Songs From The Second Floor

Remains one of my favorite films, Bergman by way of Month Python. I saw it blind at Toronto International fest back in I guess 1999 or 2000, and it totally took me by surprise, so much so that I caught a second screening just to watch the audience react to it.

Roy Andersson needs more explosive diarrhea gags

apparently, his last one was originally titled A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Shitting on Adam Sandler, but Roy got cold feet

i wish I'd seen You the Living in a theater just for the tablecloth scene.

Hot Fuzz is my favorite movie on the list, but Bad Santa was probably the one that made me laugh the hardest. Decisions, decisions...

Movie that made me laugh the hardest in recent years (and which I omitted in my earlier list of omissions, much to my shame): Appropriate Behaviour.

Young Adult is p great tbh, and I am far from a Reitman stan

It's good. Best Charlize Theron work though.

anyway one of these:

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
A Mighty Wind (2003)
School Of Rock (2003)
I Heart Huckabees (2004)
Knocked Up (2007)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
Frances Ha (2012)
Superbad (2007)

Adaptation is totally comedy wtf.

Top ten is genuinely awful.

Oh wow Black Dynamite is in there, jeez that might have my vote. I laughed pretty fuckin' hard

I think Black Dynamite has almost Airplane-level lols-per-minute but I also liked Nacho Libre so ymmv

black dynamite is amazing, def voting for it

yeah the first 20 minutes of that are all-time if you ask me. but then again I loved Kung Fury so yeah it's my kind of movie

Moonrise Kingdom & The Fantastic Mr. Fox are funnier Wes Anderson movies than the two they picked.

Yeah actually The Lego Movie would have been my pick.

Yes to Lego Movie.

Also yes to Young Adult, which had an awful lot working against it on paper but which I thought was actually a legitimately good movie. That I'm not sure I think of as a comedy. And Theron was indeed fantastic.

I hated Young Adult

something about that whole dynamic between Theron and the Patton Oswalt character really bothered me, the redemption-via-sex thing was just gross

mean girls prob

Dan: the second Magic Mike is legit funny.

Force Majeure was a comedy?!?

I haven't seen so many of these.

FRANCES HA at #4?????????????????????????

voted Zoolander. perfect movie shot for shot, word for word. sequel was dogshit. lots of great movies here though

Force Majeure was a comedy?!?
--Crazy Eddie & Jesus the Kid (Raymond Cummings)

I think the premise and character are meant to be funny although it's not Airplane! LOLs, it's not an Ordinary People drama remotely either.

I didn't care much for Frances Ha as a movie, but "Ahoy, sexy!" is deserving enough of comic catchphrase immortality.

Seen 24 of these. I probably laughed more at Bad Santa, but voted Kung Fu Hustle. What We Do in the Shadows is the only one I've seen that I think is overrated poot.

surprised Adventureland isn't here.

people really came around to High Fidelity didn't they? reviews were pretty sniffy on release iirc.

Half of these aren't comedies. They should split off the dramedies for a separate list, but some of them don't even fit that category. And Ocean's 11, for fuck sake? Just because Patton Oswalt is in Young Adult...that makes it a comedy?

It's between these for me):

3. In The Loop (2009)
4. Best In Show (2000)
5. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
11. Superbad (2007)
17. In Bruges (2008)
18. Mean Girls (2004)
23. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
27. Idiocracy (2006)

Shaun of the Dead is the best film of the bunch, but I laughed the hardest at In the Loop. Walk Hard is the most quotable.

But really it's between Superbad and Mean Girls for me: two generational touchstones. Prob gonna go with Superbad cause I was the same age as the characters when the movie came out.

List needs Klown too.

I've seen everything on here except Offsides, Obvious Child and Young Adult. I think Bad Santa is probably the funniest film on here. Lot of these films are barely worth one laugh if that though and the three foreign films in the forties definitely don't belong with garbage like Zoolander.

mean girls ~~ iconic, quotable, really watchable as a movie and story, great characters, funny

it's weird to pit character comedies vs jokebook comedies

so you're the one they call ILE Morbius!

idg anyone who laughs at wes anderson movies, the most he has ever made me laugh was bcz of this
http://www.theonion.com/video/wes-anderson-reteams-with-favorite-objects-for-gra-34340

IMO Napoleon Dynamite is the most glaring omission.

Mean Girls & Superbad are the best as far as what makes a classic movie, regardless of joke-quality or lolz-per-pound.

Black Dynamite & Wet Hot American Summer are the lolz-per-pound winners IMO, as far as what fits best with my sense of humor anyway.

Punch-Drunk Love is also great, but I don't think it's a comedy at all.

Freddie Got Fingered and Pootie Tang seem to me to be the most glaring omissions not yet mentioned.

Voted Bad Santa since I have watched it the most of any movie on this list and I'm still not sick of it.

Enjoyed all of these:

Best In Show
Shaun Of The Dead
Frances Ha
Anchorman
Superbad
Adaptation
The Grand Budapest Hotel
In Bruges
Ghost World
Idiocracy
Bad Santa

Voted for Ghost World

xp Yeah true, Freddie Got Fingered was strangely ahead of its time and is pretty amazing although there should probably be a separate category & list for most wtf/bizarre/absurd/adultswim-style comedies since 2000 since very few are included here.

I mistakenly thought Freddy Got Fingered came out in the late '90s. I would rep for its inclusion but I doubt somehow that you'd have very many other takers.

the bizarro version of this list that would include Wrong Cops and Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie would place FGF pretty close to the top.

that version of this list would have The Room at #1

Yes.

imo the big omission is "pirates! band of mistfits"

As a big Will Ferrell fan, I would rank Talladega Nights above Anchorman, though the former doesn't appear on this list at all.

The movie where he speaks all his lines in Spanish was great too, even moreso because it alienated much of his audience. I'd rank that somewhere up there.

Also The Campaign is worthy of the list.

I've never seen Best In Show but it's the one in this list that's immediately made me think that I need to rectify that.

I've seen most of this list though, don't get the #1 pick at all.

the bizarro version of this list that would include Wrong Cops and Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie would place FGF pretty close to the top.

WHAS would still be #1 I think

I agree that it's a strange pick for #1 but it's definitely one of those movies that's nonstop laughs and makes the audience feel smart for getting some of the jokes so I guess I understand why AVClub would consider it as such. For some reason it was the Asia (the band) poster on Paul Rudd's wall that sealed it as a great movie for me, for whatever reason it was hilarious to me that the dumb jock character would be into Asia. And it is like, infinitely rewatchable.

It doesn't travel very well, in space or time.

I'm surprised at all the love for Ghost World here - felt that it totally failed to catch that monochrome limbo zone between adolescence and adulthood that the comic portrayed so well, and by making Enid much more the central character the film sacrificed a lot of the narrative poignancy of two friends drifting apart ("you've grown into a very beautiful young woman") in favour of some rather cheap yocks about nerdish collectordom (ie the Buscemi character, who doesn't figure at all in the comic).

I concur w/ chap that Borat - especially the first half hour or so - got the heartiest audience response I've seen for a comedy film since Airplane!

If they were going to throw in one token Romanian comedy Tales From The Golden Age would have been a better choice, although I loved 12:08 as well.

I concur w/ chap that Borat - especially the first half hour or so - got the heartiest audience response I've seen for a comedy film since Airplane!

I never saw an entire theater laugh as loud as they did during Borat, especially during the hotel scene, you know the one.

xxpost I generally agree that, while it's a fine movie on its own terms, Ghost World is a fairly poor Clowes adaptation inasmuch as it fails to capture what I find appealing about his work. Although it's nowhere near as failed as Art School Confidential.

I liked Frances ha but it would never have occurred to me to class it as a comedy

There are so many movies that didn't make the list which you'd think would be mortal locks....pootie tang, super troopers, adventureland etc

Fucking abhor Borat

yup

baffled at praise for garbage like Napoleon Dynamite and Freddie Got Fingered as well

Pootie Tang also a mess of a film

The Boss of It All would have been a great addition to this list

If we're going for 'art movies that caused me to laugh more than anything else ever' then Hard To Be A God is the best comedy maybe of all time except for the Bunuel ones

We are watching Smiley Face tonight. Also maybe Josie and the Pussycats because you'll like it maybe even more than you liked Pitch Perfect.

'whiplash with mascara' i called it

the joke is that it is a better film than whiplash

I'd put Sound of Noise somewhere on this list, it's very lightweight but consistently funny and enjoyable and some of the musical set pieces are fantastic.

Pootie Tang is wonderful IMO

Freddie Got Fingered OTOH is one of the worst movies I've ever tried to watch and one of the only ones I've ever refused to finish

Freddy Got Fingered is at times actively unpleasant and repellent. Pretty sure that's a large part of the reason I enjoy it (see also: Meaning Of Life).

(Which is not to suggest that I think FGF is in the same league as MOL.)

Fucking abhor Borat

― imago, Tuesday, July 12, 2016 11:47 AM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yup

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, July 12, 2016

I'm not either but I still laugh at the "wizard's sleeve" line.

*not a fan either

I've still never seen the movie but feel like I have after years of Austin Powers-esque non-sequitur quote recitations by various office jokesters.

I'm not either but I still laugh at the "wizard's sleeve" line.

there are some funny lines in there ("wizard's sleeve" is one, "I follow the hawk" is another) but the basic conceit doesn't work for me

Pootie Tang is odd in that all of its seams show, it's really obvious where the production broke down and how it got edited to shit, where the direction was lacking, etc. There are good ideas and gags in there and then the execution gets fumbled/muddled and it doesn't really deliver.

There is a deleted scene from Borat in a supermarket where he makes the general manager walk through a gigantic display of cheeses by picking up each one and asking "What is this?" that made me laugh harder than almost anything else I've ever seen.

baffled at praise for garbage like Napoleon Dynamite and Freddie Got Fingered as well

i barf at your baffle.

josie and the pussycats hits a wall in the last ~25 mins as it gets around to resolving its plot, but it probably takes place in my favorite corporate dystopia in movies

borat was surprisingly ephemeral; people really did laugh Very Hard at it in the theater but nobody's dared to go back to announce their "funniest movie of all time?" thinkpieces have been vindicated.

Baron Cohen worked day and night to fuck up any legacy, in fairness.

i barf at your baffle.

we are friends again, hey!

the movie i laughed at the hardest in this period was probably wizard people, dear reader

i reckon they;re trying to do a bit of a re-assessing of the recent cult classics canon; deliberately putting Bad Santa, Zoolander, KFH really low down in the list as they haven't 'aged well' or w/e. not saying they're wrong mind!

Yeah, that was funny, but probably doesn't count. Whoever mentioned Klown probably otm, iirc I liked that a lot more than I thought I would.

this list makes a horrible argument for modern american comedy

jackass 1, 2, & 3 are the funniest movies of this time period

also: meet the parents

Meet the Parents just makes me feel bad. If I were the protagonist the whole back half of the movie would be me having a pity party and watching movies by myself.

Surprised first Hangover not on here actually....

Biggest snub is Hot Rod

xp good call. I wonder if the sequels dampened everyone's enthusiasm for the original

also this:

jackass 1, 2, & 3 are the funniest movies of this time period

dlh otm

How High should be on there if only for the whole digging up and smoking the corpse of John Quincy Adams sequence.

How High rules.

My personal list would include Observe & Report and 21 Jump Street, and even though it's not a "good movie" by any stretch, I'd also put Grandma's Boy just for being so quotable. And iirc I learned about all 3 of those from ILX bc at the time I didn't have any TV or cable signal, so I had virtually no access to movie ads.

over time i've come to realize that i never really liked rogen/apatow movies in the first place but of that slice of the canon i accept superbad as pretty great

pineapple express is their best tho

cosign except "over time"

I can't think of any movies from the Rogen/Hill/Apatow crew that I rate particularly highly. Certainly nothing I'd call a favorite. The ones I've seen have been okay at best.

of the movies on this list i would say bridesmaids is pretty easily the funniest

Snatch was on cable last night, listed as a 2000 release so it oughta be here too. style over substance, sure, but really fucking funny and quotable.

fwiw Borat is astute about America, and yes, pretty funny.

https://www.comedy.co.uk/images/library/comedies/300x200/t/trigger_happy_tv.jpg

i've seen 35 of these, and only have a seething hatred for Punch-Drunk Love, and an intense dislike for Knocked Up. Superbad was OK but ruined by too many Rogen-Hader cop scenes.

The paucity of foreign films is typical. The Lobster, which I like very much, is only there bcz it's mostly in English, has Anglo-American movie stars in it, and came out 2 months ago.

Thought Bridesmaids was really poor (ditto Spy). Perhaps because both were over hyped. Of those sort of movies, Knocked Up is pretty funny but from the list it's a straight up choice between KKBB or TGBH for me.

borat was surprisingly ephemeral; people really did laugh Very Hard at it in the theater but nobody's dared to go back to announce their "funniest movie of all time?" thinkpieces have been vindicated.

― le Histoire du Edgy Miley (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, July 12, 2016 11:48 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ppl are worried abt being problematic

movie is great tho

bridesmaids is 1000x funnier than knocked up

think you forgot to include "less" before funnier

Unless you're saying both suck but Bridesmaids sucks less. The movie was endless and that airplane scene -- ugh

The paucity of foreign films is typical

Wow, you and I actually agree on something. Would love to have seen the two OSS 117 movies on there, of course they're hugely "problematic."

yeah those >>>> The Artist, by a lot

watched offside last night thanks to this thread. did not disappoint at all, loved it.

"God...This is Jonah Hill...from Moneyball..."

The price of being a middlebrow pseud is having to pretend a bunch of snoozy late era Christopher Guest movies and wack Apatow shit is somehow funnier than like actually funny movies like MacGruber, Pootie Tang, Freddy Got Fingered, Jackass 3, How High, Let's Go to Prison, etc

I see this has been covered

Echoing upthread, where's "The LEGO Movie"? I'm a pretty highbrow guy but my daughters came out of the cinema and said "dad you laughed harder than any of the kids in there".

I really hated Borat and Napoleon Dynamite in the theater, but I won't say this isn't a personal distaste for humor built around awkwardness.

Between In The Loop, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Bad Santa for me.

49. Songs From The Second Floor (2000)

51. Children of Men
56. The Road
74. Time of the Wolf

Obviously none of us are letting our personal tastes interfere - for shame, Milo!

"God...This is Jonah Hill...from Moneyball..."

^^^^

movie is so underrated

Okay I just noticed that somehow Burn After Reading (which has a few funny bits) is on here and A Serious Man (which has more huge laughs than almost anything on here) is not. Sad!

^otm

Burn After Reading was entertaining alright but not really all that funny, IMO of course

Serious Man is def funnier

Probably a bunch of goys at the Onion.

i seem to like Soderbergh's experiments more than the avg ilxor, but The Informant! was almost disaster-level.

49. Songs From The Second Floor (2000)

51. Children of Men
56. The Road
74. Time of the Wolf

― Wes Brodicus, Thursday, July 14, 2016 7:16 AM (9 hours ago)

Eh, Songs From the Second Floor definitely has comedy as one of its genres, though personally I love it for its bleakness. Basically I have the same argument about Andersson as I do about Beckett, which is that yes, I do know their work is funny, but overplaying the funnies just ruins the whole point about the desperate and horrific absurdity of existence.

Obviously I voted for it.

in before somebody's point about [some proper comedy] also being about the desperate &c

Obviously I voted for it.

So did I.

Only half-kidding about Children of Men, that movie is funny as hell; it's just that the lulz make things worse for the viewer.

Hot Rod is funnier than like 90% of these. Criminally underrated.

OK, finally watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and its a lot of fun. I probably like it better as an action movie than a straight-up comedy, but that is mostly because I like even fewer action new movies these days than I do new comedies (honestly, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is the only other action pic from the last decade that I can think of that I even liked). Extra credit for its genuine and non-condescending empathy for its female characters. Kilmer's character needs his own series.

*new action movies

have seen most, but far from all, of these. reading the list these are the only ones ive seen that i would watch this evening:

Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
In The Loop (2009)
Adaptation. (2002)
Mean Girls (2004)
Ghost World (2001)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Bad Santa (2003)

I guess I'll vote for Wet Hot American Summer. I would not be comfortable calling it the funniest movie of the century though.

I went with Superbad because the question is asking "best," not "funniest."

I need to watch Kung Fu Hustle and Smiley Face

I think people are higher on the idea of Smiley Face (arthouse director does dumb stoner comedy with Anna Faris in the leading role) than the reality. It's only ok

Watched Offside the other night because of this list, seriously great movie, deserves to be about 40 places higher.

Offside is screening at the state art gallery in a few months and I've been pumped bcz of this thread

Smiley Face is deeply unfunny, a wierdly anti-stoner stoner comedy.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Best in Show. Please, anything but Wet Hot American Summer.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

the ILXiest of results

So nobody voted for Offside... And only I voted for 12:08.

Bad Santa is v funny the first time and gets tiresome on subsequent viewings ime

44. The Color Wheel (2011) 0
6. Frances Ha (2012) 0
43. State And Main (2000) 0
41. Ocean’s Eleven (2001) 0
47. Force Majeure (2014) 0
39. Offside (2006) 0
24. Obvious Child (2014) 0
14. Bridesmaids (2011) 0
30. Young Adult (2011) 0
31. The World’s End (2013) 0
20. The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) 0
33. Punch-Drunk Love (2002) 0
19. The Lobster (2015) 0
37. School Of Rock (2003) 0
38. I Heart Huckabees (2004) 0
50. Four Lions (2010) 0

otm

although I heard The Lobster was good.

48. Josie And The Pussycats (2001) 6

clutch

I've watched it J&tP twice now, the second time because it did so well on our comedy poll a few years back, and I still have no idea what people see in it. The boy band episode of The Simpsons did the same thing better like a year or two earlier.

Those results: sea level rise couldn't happen fast enough

Josie was a frustrating letdown after Kaplan & Elfont's first film, and for all its critical acclaim seemed to put them into movie jail.

I watched it recently with my girlfriend and was fearing bad eyes, but it's still got it - a funny film about the music industry with a great soundtrack - and everyone is pretty.

Josie was a frustrating letdown after Kaplan & Elfont's first film, and for all its critical acclaim seemed to put them into movie jail.

― Shakey δσς (sic), Saturday, July 30, 2016 5:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

makes sense, it was a huge commercial flop, it barely made back a third of its budget and iirc it was pretty well-marketed. It only got mixed reviews at the time, I feel like it's only been in the past 5 years or so that I've seen it critically rehabilitated, and even that's been on a fairly small scale.
Though it's possible it had a stronger immediate cult than I realized.

I was surprised to see it take this poll, it has its moments but it's just ok

ahem.

Josie and the Pussycats: Classic or Dud

borat was surprisingly ephemeral; people really did laugh Very Hard at it in the theater but nobody's dared to go back to announce their "funniest movie of all time?" thinkpieces have been vindicated.

― le Histoire du Edgy Miley (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, July 12, 2016 11:48 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i laughed a ton at this movie but have never wanted to revisit it -- doesn't feel like the kind of thing that rewards repeat viewings. like a lot of the films on this list but don't rly love a lot of them. ones i'd watch again: ghost world, in the loop, walk hard, josie, school of rock.

Those results: sea level rise couldn't happen fast enough

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

^^^^^

the josie soundtrack is pretty all time and as a whole it ages v. well

Think I found one joke in Josie and the Pussycats funny: "Du Jour, 2008-09." Tara Reid, sometimes--a little went a long way. The music was an okay (but clichéd) simulation of power pop.

josie and the pussycats is perfect. adam schlesinger wrote most of the songs so they're actual power pop instead of a simulation imo

Eh, he wrote one song, ""Pretend to Be Nice," which may be the best. He did produce a bunch, though.

I guess it's real enough all right--I read that the singing was done by someone from Letters to Cleo--but I'll stick by clichéd. It just struck me as the most generic kind of power pop.

matthew sweet on the soundtrack too, and jason falkner from the jellyfish.

and two pitch-perfect boy band pastiche tracks, with the whole thing executive produced by babyface

r/n i feel like "come on" is the best track on the album -- have we ever polled it?

Josie & The Pussycats fandom seems like a time capsule for treating fun pop (music and TV-wise at least) much more seriously than ILX currently does.

I agree that the boy-band song was spot-on.

Biggest lol on the list is lol @ no super troopers

I thought of something that isn't on the list

What We Do In The Shadows is excellent.

Not much love here for some reason.

ILX didn't much like Flight of The Conchords either though did we?

Sigh... in retrospect it really does seem like the '00s were a golden age of mainstream film comedy. Nowadays a clever idea for a comedy is remaking Mean Girls. Sad.

Lots of comedies not even listed here better than what we get these days: The Hangover, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, 2 Days in Paris, Elf, Dodgeball, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Zach and Miri Make a Porno, Napoleon Dynamite, Mamma Mia!, Meet the Parents, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, etc..

what exactly do we get these days? it feels like they don't make these kinds of movies at all anymore. unless there's a bunch of direct-to-Netflix stuff with Adam Sandler or whatever

They're pretty much all direct to streaming now, with the two most recent exceptions being Barbie and No Hard Feelings (which ended up on Netflix like six weeks after it opened anyway).

You Hurt My Feelings isn't exactly a guffaw-style comedy, but it was worth watching

Holofcener is possibly the secret best Comedy director of the modern era.

Add me to the three posters who lobbied for Adventureland.

Honestly I don't miss "let's get 20 takes of Will Ferrell and stitch it together afterwards" (for all that I love, for example, Zoolander and him in it)

From a dumb list of "best comedies of 2023", along with the ones already mentioned, there's Are you there, God?, Bottoms, Joy Ride, Cocaine Bear, Flux Gourmet - Poor Things is out just now, there's Argylle and Wicked Little Letters and Drive-Away Dolls dues later this year - the distinction made by Morbius about character comedies vs jokebook comedies is solid, and there's a lack of "I went in and was in shocked laughter for 90 minutes" (though Bottoms is closest), but again I'm fine with that.

And yeah of course something as hard to audience-size as comedy is getting less time in cinemas in 2024.

I was probably one of the Josie voters, dlh otm both that it slows down towards the end (when it decides needs to be a romcom) and that it's a great corporate dystopia. I suspect that seeing it at #48 on the original list and WHAS at #1 would have affected that, and seeing it on top by one vote is sweet - absent such enjoyable pettiness, I'd probably pick Walk Hard.

Tbf, they didn't just remake Mean Girls, they made a movie based on the musical based on the movie. Not that you would know it from the trailer, tho.

Would add Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar as a good broad comedy of recent vintage. It wasn't a theatrical release but I think it was supposed to be if not for the pandemic.

Bottoms seemed to split the room pretty sharply. So yeah, perhaps the heir to WHAS

I remember Bad Santa being flat and not particularly funny, weird top pick.

I just couldn't believe how bad the Santa was

and then he got badder!

I feel like the absurdist, gags-upon-gags sort of comedy in the lineage of Airplane! & Mel Brooks has been missing from contemporary cinema since at least the Anchorman/Step Brothers days and it makes me sad. I love that garbage. No emphasis on story or character, no attempt at biting satire, just an endless buffet of escalating dumb jokes

I appreciated BASEketball for that reason

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B6ck7O6BBU

Bottoms had a not-insignificant quantity of that very brand of humor imo

I'll have to check it out! I thought it was more in the "serious" social-satire bracket for some reason.

Gonna ride for 'Barb & Star' and 'Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping' and that's really about it for our post-Farrell laffaverse

^style boy for life

I thought it was more in the "serious" social-satire bracket for some reason

There's what feels like a maybe obligatory amount of that in there too, but the movie's heart never really seems in that aspect

Barb and Star was wonderful.

i saw theater camp on a plane recently and imo it was a really solid endless-cascade-of-jokes movie that was also clearly angling for wet hot american summer cult status (bottoms seems more “improv” than either to me, tho i also enjoyed it)

oh my god, Theater Camp was amazing. it's enjoyable for all audiences but anybody who's done the theater kid experience will probably lose their shit.

the bit that went:

"I know this is an incredibly stressful process and it can kinda feel like life and death. It's designed to feel that way

"If you drop a line, if you crack, if you're a little flat, what does that say about you?"

slayed me

the making up the song on the spot part was great too.

and the kid auditioning with Better Now lmao

i’m not a theater person at all and thus approached the film with trepidation, but i lol’d at almost every joke! had to respect it

It definitely did feel like WHAS in many ways, you're right there

Bash brothers

Yeah, I'd say Bottoms is more working in 'modern society' than with much of a message about it (thinking particularly here of the "to me, being an ally is..." scene). It's basically a horndog hustle movie - Rachel Sennott is giving Peak Bill Murray Energy for a lot of it. Of course, two women in a horndog hustle movie now play differently from two guys 40 years ago, but that's modern society!

Moonrise Kingdom and WALL•E are probably my two favorites but they weren't included.

checked did i note the absence of super troopers previously, ok guess my work here is done

I feel like the absurdist, gags-upon-gags sort of comedy in the lineage of Airplane! & Mel Brooks has been missing from contemporary cinema since at least the Anchorman/Step Brothers days and it makes me sad. I love that garbage. No emphasis on story or character, no attempt at biting satire, just an endless buffet of escalating dumb jokes

― feed me with your chips (zchyrs), Tuesday, January 16, 2024 10:06 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

If you need a reminder of why this genre was likely rendered permanently radioactive, do a quick google for 'Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer'.

i see WHAS noted as a cult comedy by americans and i note once again that 'cult' in this context means "no jokes and no good line reads and no good performances' and honestly that's fine i spose

That can sucks its own dick, dude.

which movie called Wet Hot American Summer did you watch that had no jokes?

britishes and Irishers don't get Withnail and I either.

correct

every performance in Wet Hot American Summer is amazing wtf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6YR1EvOS78

I've seen a few British comedies. Brave flex there, darraghmac.

xps fair point on Friedburg & Seltzer, those guys have a lot to answer for :(

I started watching Barb & Star a while back and recall liking it, so it's due for a revisit. I'll put Theater Camp on the list too

can we maybe pull back on calling ppl british as a reflex

historically we have shot ppl for it and im not sure laziness will be accepted as an excuse if i start

Stop the presses, a new title emerges:

First poster for ‘RICKY STANICKY’, starring Zac Efron and John Cena.

Releasing March 7 on Prime Video. pic.twitter.com/RyEm9SWvso

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) January 26, 2024

The writing credits are as long as a Kanye track's.

Academy Award-winning director Peter Farrelly!

can we maybe pull back on calling ppl british as a reflex

Perhaps Eric assumed that, much like every US funnyman turns out to be Canadian, British comedies are secretly entirely made by Irish people?

an interesting thought- apart from graham linehan ironically who everyone thinks is irish but is actually from anywhere else