The Funniest Comedies Ever

Throw Momma from the Train
      1987 | USA | Laughs: 2.1 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 6.3
      wikipedia | who was involved?

You know these self-absorbed movies about people making a movie? This movie is not about making movies, but it's written by a writer who seems more interested in writing about writers than about making people laugh. A writing instructor wants to get rid of his ex-wife, one of his students wants to get rid of his mother. The actors are well-intentioned, but what can they do without a script? I picked this up because I realized the site didn't have anything with Danny DeVito, who is supposed to be funny. (Get Shorty might be fun, but it's not a laugh-out-loud comedy.) I will persevere. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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Bliss
      1985 | Australia | Laughs: 0.1 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 6.8
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In the 1980s, a few of the Australians I met seemed a little bit odd. If people are a product of their culture, films such as Bliss help explain that. It feels like an extended film school project with a bit of a budget. Though it's classified as a comedy, it's certainly not funny. Bliss is about a man waking up to the "system" and eventually leaving for a simpler life. The ending in a rainforest community resembling those of the Nimbin region is excellent—the movie should have started there. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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Rush Hour
      1998 | USA | Laughs: 5.0 (Watch Once) | imdb: 7.0
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A Hong Kong detective and a LAPD cop must rescue the daughter of a foreign dignitary. The line between action and comedy is a worthy one to walk, as laughter periodically releases the dramatic tension (a fine example is Beverly Hills Cop). But no great magic happens in this film. I am a bit biased because I have sensitive ears and Chris Tucker's high-pitched voice grates me (I just realized that he was also in Friday and had the same effect on me there). Yet does make me smile, and the two actors definitely manage to produce some good chuckles. If you feel like scraping the bottom of the "watch once" category and you like fight scenes, then this is for you. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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No Strings Attached
      2011 | USA | Laughs: 0.1 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 6.2
      wikipedia | who was involved?

After enjoying Ashton Kutcher in several comedies, I was disappointed by this film. My expectations were not high as "romantic comedies" rarely have strong writing, especially in the laughter department. Even so, I'd say that most tragedies have more humor than this movie. I chuckled once, a few minutes from the end, when Kutcher lightens up and tells Portman that she eats her breakfast like a baby dinosaur. It confounds me how this movie can rate higher than Dude, Where's My Car or My Boss's Daughter. These were the films that introduced me to Ashton, and where his innocent smile had a way of putting me in a good (and forgiving) mood. For most of this movie, Ashton is barely recognizable—he barely smiles, so that his face, normally so expressive, turns into a neutral mask. Not good for comedy unless you have an excellent deadpan script. Ashton was 22 in Dude and 33 in this film, and I realize that physiognomies change as we age… But I hope you don't lost your smile, Mr Kutcher! Bottom line: don't waste your time with this one. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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Friday
      1995 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 7.3
      wikipedia | who was involved?

A day in the neighborhood of an African-American man who has just lost his job and gets caught in a misunderstanding over two hundred dollars a friend of his owes to a dope dealer. Apart from the slow start, I sometimes found it hard to watch because the shrill voices of two of the characters were hard on my ears—but it's a good movie. It's often fun and occasionally funny, but certainly not a laugh-out-loud comedy. More of an interesting watch with strong characters, where the humor makes the drama more bearable, in the footsteps of Do the Right Thing six years earlier. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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What Happens in Vegas
      2008 | USA | Laughs: 7.1 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 6.1
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

Two strangers get married on a crazy night in Vegas. Back in New York, a judge forces them to live together for six months (the result of a dispute over a three-million-dollar jackpot). I discovered recently that I enjoy comedies with Ashton Kutcher, and this one is no exception. Diaz is a perfect counterpart to his engaging smile. It's not brain science but it's good clean fun, and by clean I mean that you don't hear all the foul language that seems to litter so many comedies nowadays. Still smiling the morning after. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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Bridget Jones' Diary
      2001 | U.K. | Laughs: 5.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 6.7
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A 32-year-old London woman struggles in her quest to find the man who will pop the question. There is a lot to cringe about in this movie, but in a good way—you cringe because you recognize situations that happen in real live, as in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Although this is not a laugh-out-loud comedy, you will probably smile throughout, thanks largely to Hugh Grant's dry humor. (Off-topic: when I first noticed Hugh Grant, I wondered whether he was Rupert Everett, another excellent British actor, who seemed to have disappeared shortly after starring in Another Country.) The other male actor (Colin Firth) is also excellent, and the lead actress (Renée Zellweger) does a great job. If you've held off on Bridget Jones' Diary because you thought it was a "girl's movie", give up now and give it a try. It's pretty good! On the other hand, you can give the sequel (Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason) a miss. (Last viewed: Jun 2003 September 2012)

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Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
      2004 | U.K. | Laughs: 2.5 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 6.0
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Although not awful, this sequel is only half as good as the original, and not really worth watching unless you are enamored with one of the actors. The plot has a lot less humor, and a lot more drama about Bridget losing and regaining her perfect man (whose character, despite the actor's excellent performance, is unrealistic, so patient is he with Bridget). There are funny moments, but also others when the script writers throw you some low balls (Bridget on mushrooms; Darcy's attractive female workmate turns out to be fond of women) that earn the movie a firm spot on the "skip" list. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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The Big Chill
      1983 | USA | Laughs: N/A (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 7.2
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

After many years apart, a group of friends are thrown back together for a weekend after a member of their group kills himself. At first, this is more a soundtrack than a movie, as the pace is slow to pick up. You may or may not relate to the characters' musings on life, but there are good actors, such as William Hurt and the too-rarely seen Jeff Goldblum, and it's probably worth watching once. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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Horrible Bosses
      2011 | USA | Laughs: N/A (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 6.9
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Three friends afflicted with unbearable bosses resolve to help one another get rid of their superiors. Despite the promising premise, the film fails on execution, probably for lack of a skilled writer. The cast and production are decent, but the humor is very low-grade. That one of the three buddies has a cartoon-like strident voice doesn't help. I guess I'm allergic to loud comedians: I want the script to make me laugh, not a tone of voice that might have been funny when we were ten years old. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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Wedding Crashers
      2005 | USA | Laughs: 3.1 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 6.9
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

Two buddies have perfected a routine whereby they crash weddings and hit on attractive singles. The beginning was a bit hard to watch because the two men kept referring to a list of rules (e.g. "rule number 21"), which was both idiotic and instantly unbelievable. Apart from that, this is a decent romantic comedy (as that largely appalling genre goes) that will probably make you smile and perhaps laugh once or twice. Things get interesting when the friends board a boat to spend the weekend with the bride and her wealthy family, evoking a distant taste of Meet the Parents, which also featured Owen Wilson. (Last viewed: August 2012)

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Home Alone
      1990 | USA | Laughs: 3.1 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 7.6
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

I resisted watching this much-liked movie for over twenty years. (Please don't burn me for saying this, but I'm just not interested in kids.) After several people on the site recommended it, I finally buckled up to see if it would make me laugh. This was not a case of "wow, what have I been missing all this time". No, it was exactly what I had been expecting (for once)—a cute kid trying to defeat some not-particularly clever baddies. This is really a kid's movie. If you're into kids, then by all means, give it a shot. (Last viewed: August 2012)

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Four Lions
      2010 | U.K. | Laughs: 3.1 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 7.3
      wikipedia | who was involved?

The adventures of four incompetent would-be theorists desperate to join Al-Qaeda and make their mark in London: a daring subject full of promise. But the promise stays unfulfilled. This could have been funny. Sadly, it isn't. I suspect the film gets its decent imdb rating on the sole strength of its risqué premise. The pace and drama stays on a level of a bad TV series—the kind of material you really don't want to watch any longer than ten minutes. I had to stop halfway. (Last viewed: August 2012)

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Secrets & Lies
      1996 | U.K. | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 8.0
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

A cute U.K. light-drama about an educated woman who sets out to meet her biological mother, who turns out to be far from her both socially and ethnically. If you can stand another lesson about transcending social and racial boundaries, this is a good pick. (Last viewed: July 2012)

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What Women Want
      2000 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 6.4
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

After an electric shock, a macho ad executive acquires the gift of hearing the thoughts of all the women he comes across. He goes through the predictable phases: horror at his predicament, glee in light of its potential benefits, reform from macho-man into sensitive guy, loss of the gift. Highly recommended if you're desperate to see a lot of Mel Gibson without a shirt and you really wish men would change. Otherwise, I wouldn't rush to the video store, but if someone wants to make you watch it, it's not a bad piece of entertainment. If only they had cast Paul Hogan—another Australian, not much seen outside of Crocodile Dundee. (Last viewed: July 2012)

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Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
      2002 | USA | Laughs: 1.0 (Just Awful) | imdb: 6.2
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

In the tradition of Woody Allen's What's up Tigerlily, this film lays new dialogue over a B-movie, in this case a Hong Kong martial arts flick. New footage was added. The film must have been very funny to make, but it's certainly not funny to watch, unless perhaps you are a fan of underground "cult" movies. Do yourself a favor and watch Enter the Dragon instead. It's not a comedy (though it has quite a bit of humor), but it's an excellent film for the martial arts, the characters, the 1970s costumes and the social commentary. (Last viewed: July 2012)

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Coming to America
      1988 | USA | Laughs: 6.7 (Watch Once) | imdb: 7.0
      wikipedia | who was involved?

This Eddie Murphy film may not be a roarer, but it had a few good laughs and a delightful premise. It might even be devoid of profanity (though I cannot vouch for that). An African prince delays his arranged marriage for forty days and travels to New York with his valet in the hope of finding a bride he can truly love. Insisting to live in a run-down room in Queens so that no one will know his royal status, he takes a job cleaning up at a fast-food restaurant. Not only did I find pleasure in the fairy-tale plot and the actors' performances, I also enjoyed the extravagant decor of the palace in the African scenes—the studio must have thrown a bit of money at this. Well worth a watch, just don't expect your jaw to cramp from too much laughing. (Last viewed: July 2012)

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Porky's
      1982 | USA | Laughs: 5.6 (Watch Once) | imdb: 6.2
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

Porky's is a movie about the obsession that lives in the underpants of male high-school seniors. It is probably the daddy of films such as American Pie, but I found it to be a lot funnier. I laughed quite a few times, partly by contagion, as the actors laugh a lot too. Although Porky's has a lot of graphic language, it doesn't feel excessive as in today's common swear-a-thons. Some of the scenes (as the one on the poster) are almost shocking in their audacity for the mainstream film medium. And yet it all feels natural, probably because it is. If you are allergic to adult themes, skip this. Otherwise, this piece of film history is well worth a watch. (Last viewed: July 2012)

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The Other Guys
      2010 | USA | Laughs: 5.4 (Watch Once) | imdb: 6.6
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Two cops from the C-list find themselves tackling a case that involves powerful and dangerous people. The film has occasional action scenes that I found loud, unnecessary and unpleasant. Apart from that, I enjoyed its offbeat humor and characters. For instance, one of the cops, who is portrayed as a nerdy, unattractive character, turns out to be living in a luxurious villa with a bombshell wife, who he keeps describing as plain. Will Ferrell (who is usually a tad too loud for my taste) shined as an accountant-cop, a role that kept him in check. His partner balanced him well. And it was a good surprise to see Steve Coogan from the British show I'm Alan Partridge. (Last viewed: July 2012)

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The Love Guru
      2008 | USA | Laughs: 5.0 (Watch Once) | imdb: 3.8
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This Mike Myers film is one of those comedies that starts very poorly but gradually improves—the opposite of Weekend at Bernie's. Perhaps the awful start explains the record-low IMDB rating (3.8 last time I checked). I got up after twenty minutes to grab a cup of tea, unsure of whether to persevere, and thought to myself, "this is the movie you make when you want to waste your public capital and tell the world you no longer want to make movies". But by the end, I felt that the writers had done a really good job researching the world of spiritual teachers, though not a great one at making us laugh. Largely, the Love Guru is an excuse for another extravagant character for Mike Myers to play, and he does a good job not relying on many tricks I never want to see again because of overuse, such as his peculiar way of raising his eyebrows. This is no Austin Powers in the laughter department (though it is almost as crass), but if you've had a passing acquaintance with the "guru business", you may appreciate many of the film's elements. (Last viewed: July 2012)

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Weekend at Bernie's
      1989 | USA | Laughs: 4.5 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 6.4
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This is one of those movies that starts out really well but runs out of steam before the halfway point is reached. Two grunts in a New York company's accounting department discover a large error. When they tell the boss, he invites them for a weekend at his house in the Hamptons—with sinister motives, having embezzled the missing funds. Sadly for him, he gets a lethal injection courtesy of his mafia boss before the young accountants arrive. To enjoy the weekend, they keep up the pretense that Bernie is alive. I really liked the beginning, and probably laughed, but the weekend itself was a grueling session of "more of the same". Too bad. (Last viewed: July 2012)

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Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
      2006 | USA | Laughs: 5.1 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 6.6
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This review is in two parts: the day I gave up, and the day I persevered. Part 1. Will Ferrell is often too loud for my taste, and in this movie he breaks all records. He plays a star race car driver. I hung on for as long as I could because of the Southern accents, but after 23 minutes of ear-busting chaos (and not a single laugh), I had to give up. Firmly in the unwatchable category. Part 2. After reading some glowing reviews, I gave it another shot. It turns out I had stopped at the low point of the movie (the bar scene). After that, the story twists, and the characters become more attaching. Perhaps worth watching once if you can handle loud acting. (Last viewed: July 2012)

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Big Stan
      2007 | USA | Laughs: 8.4 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 6.2
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Convicted of fraud, a wealthy scammer trains in the martial arts to prepare for his time in jail, where he becomes "Big Stan". If you can tolerate a moderate dose of adult themes, this movie will be a welcome surprise, not least because it reinvents the dynamics of situations often seen in movies, such as life in prison. The cast is excellent. The lead actor (Rob Schneider), who directed the movie, comes highly recommended via 50 First Dates, where he was the brilliant Ula. (Last viewed: June 2012)

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My Blue Heaven
      1990 | USA | Laughs: 4.8 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 6.3
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A New York mobster (Steve Martin) lands in a California town where he must live under the FBI's protection until he appears as a witness at a mob trial. In his new community, our mobster is a round peg in a square hole, and gives lots of work to the assistant district attorney and to the FBI agent charged with his protection. I laughed once and smiled a lot, but overall the rewards are too low to bother watching this instantly forgettable movie. (Last viewed: June 2012)

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Moonstruck
      1987 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 7.1
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Sure, this romantic flick is instantly forgettable. Yet it's a touch more watchable that the average, thanks to a decent plot and decent acting which nearly overcome the boring backdrop—yet another intimate window into an Italian-American family. Enough of that already! I was pleasantly surprised to find Nicholas Cage in one of his better roles, which made me realize that he should have stayed in the 1980s. (So should I, for that matter.) But don't get your hopes up too high, this is no Birdy or Wild at Heart. (Last viewed: June 2012)

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Johnny English Reborn
      2011 | USA | Laughs: 7.8 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 6.3
      wikipedia | who was involved?

This is one of the rare occasions when the sequel far surpasses the original—easy to do when the original was the atrocious Johnny English. Roy Atkinson is back as a comic James Bond, a role that suits him well. This time there's enough of a script, and the movie made me laugh a few times. In creating the main character, the writers found a fine balance between hero and anti-hero. Johnny English is sometimes succesful on his own merits, and that makes the movie much more enjoyable than parodies where the "hero" is a complete goof. (Last viewed: May 2012)

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Cedar Rapids
      2011 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 6.2
      wikipedia | who was involved?

A naive insurance salesman who has never left his hometown finds himself having to swim with the sharks at a conference in the big smoke—Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This movie is more of a light-hearted take on middle-class working life in middle America than a "proper comedy" in the laugh-out-loud sense. It did not really make us laugh, but we enjoyed it. (Last viewed: May 2012)

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Idiocracy
      2006 | USA | Laughs: 7.0 (Watch Once) | imdb: 6.6
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Humanity is getting dumber by the day, the opening sequence proposes. A "average man" who takes part in an experiment expects to be frozen for one year. When he wakes up 500 years later, he turns out to be the smartest man alive. The so-called "morons" of the future are frighteningly reminiscent of our contemporaries, of course, so this very funny film may have more of the documentary than of science fiction. (Last viewed: April 2012)

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Rocketman
      1997 | USA | Laughs: 5.2 (Watch Once) | imdb: 5.9
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The humor in this movie about an oddball astronaut is mostly on the ten-year-old level, and it's a relaxing watch if you're not expecting more. One gag made me laugh hard enough to feel my abs. Save this for a day when you're not in the mood to hear a lot of foul language. It made me curious to watch more Disney movies. (Last viewed: April 2012)

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The Hangover Part II
      2011 | USA | Laughs: 4.7 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 6.5
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It's hard to like a movie when you don't find any of the characters likable. I didn't love the first Hangover to start with. Perhaps it's age, but I don't relate to any of the activities depicted in the movie. But if you're a party animal, maybe you'll enjoy this. (Last viewed: April 2012)

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