The 113 Best Comedy Movies Ever

How does one even approach making a list of the best comedies? Of all genres, this is the one that's the most difficult to pin down. First of all, comedy is entirely subjective — everyone's sense of humor is different. What works for one person will fall completely flat for another. Plus, how do we account for a comedy that has aged poorly, but has had a huge impact on the genre, influencing cinema for decades after its release?

Really, embarking on this whole undertaking is like opening up a can of worms (and subsequently having one of those gag snake springs pop out of the can). Nevertheless, we've resolved to give it a try. Consider this list a primer of the best comedies released over the course of cinematic history — with any luck, you'll find more than a few laughs in the films listed here!

If anything, "9 to 5" has only grown more relevant in the years since its release. Who can't relate to the feelings of rage and powerlessness that one experiences when dealing with a particularly monstrous boss at work? 

In "9 to 5," three secretaries have had enough with their infuriatingly misogynistic boss, and they hash out a revenge scheme with hilarious consequences. Aside from Dolly Parton's iconic opening theme, each of the film's three leading ladies are given an opportunity to shine. Tara Brady of the Irish Times says that the film, "retains a barbed relevance beneath its capering and unflattering hairstyles, not to mention one of cinema's most badass trios."

• Starring: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton

• Director: Colin Higgins

• Year: 1980

• Runtime: 110 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

Judd Apatow's later run of big-screen comedies would earn a reputation for being a bit too long and self-indulgent, but one of his earliest efforts, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," remains as sweet and hilarious as ever — thanks to a breakout central performance by Steve Carell as the titular virgin. When Andy (Carell, who co-wrote the movie with Apatow) starts hanging out with his coworkers David (Paul Rudd), Cal (Seth Rogen), and Jay (Romany Malco), he's forced to admit his status as a guy who's gone four decades without doing it, and they only make fun of him a little bit before deciding they have to help him lock down a lady.

The path definitely isn't straightforward for Andy, who has a series of horrifying dating experiences — including one where Leslie Mann, Apatow's real-life wife, gets so drunk during their evening out that she pukes partially into his open mouth — but when he meets Trish (Catherine Keener), it seems like things really turn around for him. Despite Trish's headstrong daughter Marla (Kat Dennings), Andy and Trish fall for each other while keeping things PG (Andy requests that they wait 20 dates, an ask that initially makes Trish think he's a gentleman but eventually concerns her), until the truth finally comes out.

In lesser hands, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" could be entirely mean-spirited, but Apatow's big-hearted approach works incredibly well, and the supporting players, including Jane Lynch — as an electronics store manager untethered from reality — make the movie feel heightened and real at the same time somehow. In the end, though, the movie rests entirely on Carell's sweet, unassuming, and often baffled performance as a guy who missed a milestone and simply moved on with his life, not a guy who's alone at 40 because of any actual personal failings. Plus, Carell actually waxed his chest hair on-screen for one of the movie's most memorable scenes, and if that's not commitment to comedy, then what is? (Nina Starner)

• Starring: Steve Carell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd
• Director: Judd Apatow
• Year: 2005
• Runtime: 116 minutes/132 minutes (unrated edition)
• Rating: R
  
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

One of the rare sequels that vastly surpasses the original, "Addams Family Values" is a delicious ode to the macabre. When a serial husband killer named Debbie (Joan Cusack) gets her hooks in the hapless Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd), the Addams children immediately see through her and are subjected to the worst possible torture as a result: summer camp. Wickedly funny throughout, "Addams Family Values" owes its classic status to Cusack's performance as the melodramatic, self-involved antagonist — her villain monologue, which comes complete with a slide show presentation, is one for the ages.

• Starring: Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd

• Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

• Year: 1993

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 77%

With an all-star cast that includes Monty Python alums John Cleese and Michael Palin, Kevin Kline, and Jamie Lee Curtis, "A Fish Called Wanda" was one of the premier comedy events of the 1980s. When a group of misfit criminals embarks on a carefully planned diamond heist, everyone just can't stop double-crossing one another. "A Fish Called Wanda" has some of the best comedic dialogue of the era, earning itself an Oscar nomination for best writing and best director, as well as a win for Kevin Kline for best actor.

• Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, John Cleese

• Director: Charles Crichton

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 107 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

Long before Friedberg & Seltzer ruined spoofs, the trio of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker delivered one of the most masterful parodies of all time. The story, characters, and even dialogue in "Airplane!" run so close to the 1957 disaster thriller "Zero Hour!" that Paramount Pictures had to negotiate the film rights to create a remake of the movie in order to remain within the copyright law parameters of parody.

The genius of "Airplane!" lies in its deadpan delivery of the truly absurd. From Robert Stack's stern Captain Rex Kramer to Lloyd Bridges' frazzled, glue-sniffing airport tower supervisor Steve McCroskey, and especially Leslie Nielsen's classic turn as a doctor with the same repetitive well-wishes, the movie is packed with earnest yet hilarious dramatic performances that are masterfully executed to maximize comedic effect. But don't sleep on Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty as our leads, providing melodrama at an expert level without overplaying their hand.

Aside from the mocking drama that drives the story, there are brilliant visual gags and slapstick moments too, whether it's literal s**t hitting a fan or a mind-boggling mirror shot that you may have flat out missed even after several repeat viewings. And let's not forget that madcap oddity that is Johnny, a scene-stealing performance from Stephen Stucker, who pops into scenes for a quick but big laugh, and pops out of them just as swiftly. Also, did you ever realize that, despite the fact that the plane at the center of the movie is a Boeing passenger jet, the exterior shots always feature the audio of an old propeller plane? Damn, this movie is brilliant. They almost never make them like this anymore, though "They Came Together" comes really close. (Ethan Anderton)

• Starring: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Leslie Nielsen
• Director: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker
• Year: 1980
• Runtime: 88 minutes
• Rating: PG (though it should probably be PG-13, as it has some nudity)
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Back when the relationship between Will Ferrell and Adam McKay was firing on all cylinders, "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" gave birth to dozens of instantly quotable lines. Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) is the unquestioned king of 1970s San Diego news, but his supremacy is challenged when the network brings in a female co-anchor (Christina Applegate). Their rivalry leads to a hilarious fall from grace for Burgundy, as well as a wacky romance between the two leads. But Burgundy would be nothing without his news team, which is comprised of David Koechner, Paul Rudd, and Steve Carrell, all of whom make their mark on the film in endlessly entertaining ways.

• Starring: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd

• Director: Adam McKay

• Year: 2004

• Runtime: 95 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 66%

The gender politics of "Animal House" may not have aged particularly well (and neither have the frat's hazing rituals), but its influence on raucous R-rated comedies is too significant to ignore. A pair of freshmen pledge Delta Tau Chi after being rejected by the more prestigious fraternities on campus. There, they find there a community of misfits singularly committed to the college party lifestyle, led by the laidback Eric (Tim Matheson) and the iconic Bluto, played by John Belushi at the height of his fame. Over-the-top and full of raunchy humor, "Animal House" would serve as the definitive college comedy for generations.

• Starring: John Belushi, Tom Hulce, Tim Matheson

• Director: John Landis

• Year: 1978

• Runtime: 109 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) works in the most boring office building in the world. His desk is one of thousands in a faceless typing pool, and he plugs away at his job every day. Baxter dreams of bigger success and feels he's on the right track. It also helps that his bosses — among them Fred MacMurray — have struck a special, shady deal with him. They are permitted to come to his apartment anytime they want and have affairs with their mistresses. Baxter feels he's doing them all a favor and that his arrangement will help him professionally.

Baxter eventually begins interacting with Fran (Shirley MacLaine) when her affair with MacMurray goes foul and she attempts to take her own life. He revives her and she recovers in his apartment for several days. Baxter, a bachelor through and through, isn't a great housekeeper, but he is certainly attentive. Baxter soon sees a human face to the affairs he's been facilitating and begins to have a moral reckoning. Naturally, he also begins to fall in love with Fran, as she works in his building. She is alive, caring, and humane — all the things Baxter never encounters in his workday.

The astonishing thing about "The Apartment" is how sad it is. The film is undeniably a comedy, but it's not afraid to look at infidelity and moral shakiness right in the eye. Wilder does a masterful job of finding the humor in the sad parts of humanity, ultimately finding that love will rise above it all. "The Apartment" is not just one of the best comedies of all time, it's simply one of the best movies ever. (Witney Seibold)

• Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston
• Director: Billy Wilder
• Year: 1960
• Runtime: 125 min
  
• Rating: PG
  
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Although Cary Grant was primarily known for his romantic comedies throughout the '30s and '40s, romance takes a backseat in the pitch black "Arsenic and Old Lace." Just before he departs on his honeymoon, Mortimer Brewster (Grant) pays a visit to his kindly aunts, only to learn that they have been cheerfully murdering people and burying them under their floorboards. As a much-put-upon nephew whose aunts just don't seem to grasp the enormity of their actions, Grant plays one of the most legitimately hilarious straight men in comedy history.

• Starring: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Peter Lorre

• Director: Frank Capra

• Year: 1944

• Runtime: 118 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

A delightful parody of 1960s spy films, "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" packs more gags into a minute than most movies manage over their entire run time. Mike Myers stars as Austin Powers, a shagadelic English spy from the swinging '60s who is cryogenically frozen and unthawed in the '90s to battle his greatest enemy, Dr. Evil (also played by Myers). But Powers doesn't just have to face off against Dr. Evil: He has to learn the ways of an entire new world. With a cheeky grin, Mike Myers puts all of his considerable comedic talents into the dual roles.

• Starring: Mike Myers, Elizabeth Hurley, Michael York

• Director: Jay Roach

• Year: 1997

• Runtime: 89 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 73%

Released in the thick of the pandemic, "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar" as a balm for the weary soul. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo play a pair of Midwestern best friends who go on vacation to Florida, leaving their small hometown for the first time ever. Unfortunately, things don't go exactly as planned — as soon as they arrive at the Vista Del Mar resort, the two quickly become embroiled in a villainous plot to release a horde of lethal mosquitos. Aside from the two delightful lead performances, the film features a hilarious turn from Jamie Dornan, who is given a rare opportunity to display his surprising comedic prowess.

• Starring: Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo, Jamie Dornan

• Director: Josh Greenbaum

• Year: 2021

• Runtime: 106 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

There aren't many films that straddle the line between horror and comedy as well as "Beetlejuice." When a young, strait-laced couple (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) die in a car crash, a new family moves into their home. The only problem? The recently deceased homeowners are still occupying it, and are horrified by the changes made by the cosmopolitan Deetzes, who are played by Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones. That's where Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), a demonic figure guaranteed to scare away the humans, comes in. Keaton delivers a frenetic performance in the titular role, and a young Winona Ryder steals the show as the deeply morbid Deetz daughter, Lydia.

• Starring: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Geena Davis

• Director: Tim Burton

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 92 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

A dynamite collaboration between director Hal Ashby and actor Peter Sellers, "Being There" satirizes both class and the world of politics. When a humble gardener (Sellers) is mistaken for an eccentric gentleman with courtly manners, he finds himself bemusedly hobnobbing with the country's elite. "Being There" would earn an Oscar nomination for Sellers, as well as a win for his costar Melvyn Douglas. Richard Combs of Sight & Sound referred to the film as "one of the boldest of commercial comedies, for the way it turns on passages of dead time, the dreadful pauses while other characters struggle to see the significance in each of Chance's cryptically meaningless remarks."

• Starring: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas

• Director: Hal Ashby

• Year: 1979

• Runtime: 130 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

By the time "Best in Show" came out in 2000, director Christopher Guest had long developed a reputation for being one of the leading voices in improvisational mockumentary comedy. Here, he brings together some of his most frequent collaborators to capture the epic highs and lows of the competitive dog show. Complete with overbearing pet owners and larger than life characters, "Best in Show" has a lovably chaotic energy that perfectly showcases the spirit of these well-intentioned oddballs.

• Starring: Michael McKean, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy

• Director: Christopher Guest

• Year: 2000

• Runtime: 90 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

Most kids are impatient to grow up. Few are actually able to will themselves into becoming an adult overnight with the help of a mysterious Zoltar machine. But that's exactly what Josh Baskins (Tom Hanks) does in "Big." Suddenly forced into the world of adults while still having the mind of an adolescent, Josh is bereft — until he lands a great job working at a toy company and starts dating his coworker, that is. Set aside the weirdness of this poor woman coming to terms with the fact that she's inadvertently fallen in love with a child, and you've got a charming comedy with a winning performance from Tom Hanks.

• Starring: Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, John Heard

• Director: Penny Marshall

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 104 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) is one of the most beloved movie leads of the past 30 years, and for good reason: he's a chill, content guy, someone who represents a style of life that's been left behind in our hustle culture world. He's not a totally passive character — he's still spurred into action by two goons soiling his rug, which really did tie the room together — but his go-with-the-flow ways still serve as a charming counterpart to the strict rule-following of his good friend Walter (John Goodman), who will shoot you if you step over the line.

Like a lot of Coen Brothers movies, "The Big Lebowski" is a crime film about guys who aren't very good at committing crime. It's weird, meandering, and takes us through a conspiracy that seems so impossibly complex it might give you a headache on the first watch. It's a movie that forces you to embrace the main character's outlook; the moment you stop trying to make sense of all the chaos and just take things as they come, the sooner you can appreciate this film for the charming, funny masterpiece it is.

Deserving a shout out here is Steve Buscemi as Donny, the Dude and Walter's good friend who they sort of take for granted. Poor Donny stays out of the main story throughout most of the film, but tragically (and hilariously) life comes at him just the same. It's an understated role that turns out to be the heart of the film, putting things back in perspective for Walter and the Dude after their chaotic adventures conclude. Some viewers might not like this movie; in fact, it's got its fair share of haters who don't appreciate its comedic sensibilities. But to those naysayers we can always reply, "Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man." (Michael Boyle)

• Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston
• Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
• Year: 1998
• Runtime: 117 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

One might recall how, back in 2020, Disney attempted to earn progressive Brownie Points by including a queer supporting character — a background cop with maybe two lines of dialogue — in the Pixar film "Onward." If one sneezed at the wrong moment, they might have missed that the cop mentioned her girlfriend.

It's astonishing to think then, that in 1996, Hollywood was already making legitimate blockbusters with queer lead characters, one of which was played by one of the biggest movie stars of the day. Mike Nichols' "The Birdcage," an adaptation of "La Cage aux Folles," follows a 50-something queer couple (Robin Williams and Nathan Lane) who run a drag club in Miami. The Williams character has a 20-year-old biological son from a drunken fling, and has been raising him his whole life. The son (Dan Futterman) announces that he wishes to marry his college sweetheart (Callista Flockhart), which poses a problem. It seems her parents are ultra-conservative Clinton-era bigots who would disapprove of their son-in-law having queer parents.

Williams and Lane panic when they are asked to "present" as straight for one evening, as their son hopes to secure his potential in-laws' blessing. The dads are both aghast, unsure as to how they should pull it off. As the film progresses, they begin to question why they should have to pull it off. "The Birdcage" presents a story of, essentially, Hollywood coming out. We no longer need to hide queer characters behind coding. We can have queer characters star in a mainstream comedy, and no one should complain. It's painful to think that some companies still feel the need to cover up their queerness when "The Birdcage" was already uncovering it nearly 30 years ago.

The film may deal in stereotypes, yes — Lane's character is a bit of a caricature — but for 1996, it was progressive. (Witney Seibold)

• Starring: Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest
• Director: Mike Nichols
• Year: 1996
• Runtime: 117 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

There's really no such thing as a bad Mel Brooks movie, but "Blazing Saddles" stands among his very best. Starring Cleavon Little as Bart, the first Black sheriff in the dusty western town of Rock Ridge, the parody skewers the Western genre and its inherent racism as Bart and his cowboy friend (Gene Wilder) team up to protect the town from local criminals. Roger Ebert called the film a "crazed grabbag of a movie that does everything to keep us laughing except hit us over the head with a rubber chicken."

• Starring: Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Cleavon Little

• Director: Mel Brooks

• Year: 1974

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

An ode to high school overachievers everywhere, "Booksmart" stars Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein as two graduating seniors who are horrified to realize that they've followed the rules their entire academic lives, never once letting loose to have fun. So, they resolve to make their final night before graduation count by hitting up some last-minute ragers, but their adventures hit quite a few speed bumps. From the girls' awkward attempts to flirt to their drug-induced transformation into dolls, "Booksmart" gives its teen heroines the opportunity to be strange, codependent, and neurotic in a way that few films do.

• Starring: Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Skylar Gisondo

• Director: Olivia Wilde

• Year: 2019

• Runtime: 102 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

By the time "Borat" made its way to the big screen, Sacha Baron Cohen had already turned his fictional reporter from Kazakhstan into a moderate success as a recurring bit on his successful HBO series "Da Ali G Show." But the character was given a massive shove into pop culture history with a leap to the big screen that combined masterful improvisational comedy with a documentary style, as Borat was sent to America to learn everything he could in order to show his people what makes the "US and A" the greatest country in the world. From etiquette coaches to cowboys, from politicians to fraternity bros, Borat gets a taste of many facets of America, for better and for worse.

Created just a few years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 sparked a rise in prejudice and paranoia, particularly regarding Muslims and citizens of the Middle East, "Borat" offers more than just mockumentary jokes and impromptu gags with unsuspecting subjects. It also holds up a mirror to the darker side of America, providing social and cultural commentary at a time when Americans let fear dominate their perspective of the rest of the world. It's both hilariously shocking and concerning to see everyday Americans agreeing with some of Borat's woefully misguided, painfully inaccurate, and downright bigoted views on women, the Jewish population, and more. But it's also just plain funny to see how others react to Borat's unrefined and inappropriate behavior. That's not even touching upon how Pamela Anderson ties into the story. We can't help but conclude that "Borat" is, indeed, very nice. High five! (Ethan Anderton)

• Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian, Luenell, Pamela Anderson
• Director: Larry Charles
• Year: 2006
• Runtime: 84 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

When it comes to cinematic comedy duos, few have as much chemistry as former "Saturday Night Live" co-stars Kristin Wiig and Maya Rudolph. In "Bridesmaids," Wiig stars as Annie, a woman who feels threatened by the idea that her best friend Lillian is pulling away from her, especially as Lillian embraces a more grown-up life and prepares for her wedding. Believing that the seemingly perfect Helen (Rose Byrne) is taking her place, Annie acts out in ways that have wildly hilarious consequences. 

In addition to the charming lead performances, "Bridesmaids" proved that a comedy film starring an ensemble of women could not only be genuinely funny, but successful at the box office. It even garnered two Oscar nominations, including one for supporting actress for Melissa McCarthy.

• Starring: Kristin Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne

• Director: Paul Feig

• Year: 2011

• Runtime: 125 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

The on-screen collaboration of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn is one of the best that classic Hollywood has to offer, and "Bringing Up Baby" shows why. Grant plays an exasperated paleontologist who is searching for the last bone to complete the skeleton of his beloved dinosaur. Hepburn is a kooky socialite with a pet leopard in tow, and a delightful little dog who has inconveniently buried said bone. Hijinks ensue. "Bringing Up Baby" was not a major financial success at the time, but it has since gone on to serve as the quintessential screwball comedy.

• Starring: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Charles Ruggles

• Director: Howard Hawks

• Year: 1938

• Runtime: 102 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

With some of the biggest comedy stars of the late 1970s signing on for "Caddyshack," it was pretty much guaranteed to become a classic. The film follows the goings-on at a local country club, where teens and college students work as caddies for entitled golfers. "Caddyshack" lives and dies on the performances of its stars, especially Bill Murray as a groundskeeper locked in a battle with a rogue gopher and Rodney Dangerfield as a gregarious, loud-mouthed golfer. In the years since its release, it has become a comedy staple, and remains one of the most quotable films to come out of the 1980s.

• Starring: Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield

• Director: Harold Ramis

• Year: 1980

• Runtime: 98 minutes

• Rating: R

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 73%

Films like "Clerks" and "Empire Records" owe a significant debt to "Car Wash," which really got the ball rolling on the modern ensemble comedy about a bunch of hard-done-by employees just trying to get through the day. The film takes place at a car wash in Los Angeles, where workers try to navigate obnoxious customers and an overbearing boss. Perhaps worst of all, however, they also have to contend with the boss' son, a well-intentioned but patronizing twenty-something who has just returned from college as a self-professed man of the people, but who is nonetheless happy to take on a managerial role. 

• Starring: Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Franklin Ajaye

• Director: Michael Schultz

• Year: 1976

• Runtime: 97 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

A pitch-black satire based on the classic novel by Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" exemplifies the inherent absurdities of warfare. It stars Alan Arkin as a World War II pilot whose efforts to get sent home are stymied by the titular catch-22: a discharge order would require evidence of mental instability, but the mere act of requesting a transfer away from death and constant warfare is, if anything, proof of sanity. Of Mike Nichol's directorial efforts, Time said, "It is the book's cold rage that he has nurtured. In the jokes that matter, the film is as hard as a diamond, cold to the touch and brilliant to the eye. To Nichols, "Catch-22" is 'about dying'; to Arkin, it is 'about selfishness'; to audiences, it will be a memorable horror comedy of war, with the accent on horror."

• Starring: Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, Bob Newhart

• Director: Mike Nichols

• Year: 1970

• Runtime: 121 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

When a trio of Manhattanites take a "relaxing" trip to a dude ranch in "City Slickers," comedy ensues. A grizzled cowboy, Curly (Jack Palance), tries (and frequently fails) to teach the trio of well-meaning doofuses the ropes, and their ill-fated efforts put a comedic spin on concepts of traditional masculinity and vitality. While the entire cast turns in note-perfect performances, Palance's memorable turn was singled out for acclaim, taking home the Academy Award for best supporting actor in a rare win for a comedy.

• Starring: Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby

• Director: Ron Underwood

• Year: 1991

• Runtime: 112 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

An ultra-low budget independent film reportedly made for under $30,000, "Clerks" single-handedly put director Kevin Smith on the map. Its premise is simple: The film revolves around two underachieving store clerks, Dante and Randal, and the long conversations they have at work to avoid dealing with the customers that plague their days. A major box office success, "Clerks" launched the View Askewniverse (the name given to Smith's films that take place in the same narrative universe) and introduced the now-famous characters of Jay and Silent Bob.

• Starring: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes

• Director: Kevin Smith

• Year: 1994

• Runtime: 91 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

How many great comedies are adaptations of popular board games? Possibly just this one. Set in a spooky mansion in 1950s New England, "Clue" takes place over the course of one dinner party with an extremely high body count. The murders begin to pile up, as the hapless guests desperately try to figure out who is responsible and keep themselves alive. "Clue" features kooky, fast-paced dialogue and a troupe of talented comedic actors who demonstrate an unshakeable commitment to playing it straight.

• Starring: Tim Curry, Michael McKean, Madeline Kahn

• Director: Jonathan Lynn

• Year: 1985

• Runtime: 96 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 68%

A modern take on Jane Austen's "Emma," "Clueless" stars Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz, an entitled Beverly Hills teen determined to play matchmaker for the people in her life, even though her schemes often get her into trouble. Cher's most recent project is Tai (Brittany Murphy), a transfer student who she deems badly in need of a makeover. An icon of mid-1990s cinema, "Clueless" not only reflects the teen culture of the time, but successfully influenced it, with Cher's very specific speech patterns and slang effortlessly becoming part of the zeitgeist.

• Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Brittany Murphy

• Director: Amy Heckerling

• Year: 1995

• Runtime: 97 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

By the late '80s, there was no one bigger in the comedy world than Eddie Murphy, and "Coming to America" is one of his best films. He stars as Prince Akeem, who travels to America from the African nation of Zamunda in an attempt to escape an arranged marriage and ends up falling in love with a girl from Queens. Although it received mixed reviews when it was initially released (Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times referred to "Coming to America" as a "hollow and wearying Eddie Murphy fairy tale"), it was enormously successful at the box office, becoming one of the highest grossing films of the year.

• Starring: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, John Amos

• Director: John Landis

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 116 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 73%

"Cooley High" is a coming-of-age story that serves as a counterpart to the more suburban nostalgia of George Lucas' "American Graffiti." It's Chicago in the 1960s, and two best friends are attempting to navigate their senior year, with frequently humorous but sometimes tragic consequences. When it was released in 1975, "Cooley High" stood in sharp contrast to the blaxploitation films that were popular at the time, and it has long been considered hugely influential on directors such as Spike Lee and John Singleton.

• Starring: Glynn Turman, Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs, Garrett Morris

• Director: Michael Schultz

• Year: 1975

• Runtime: 107 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

As cynical as we can be about politics, deep down we often have an idealistic desire to believe that our leaders are honest people who could be forces for good if they were given the opportunity. In "Dave," Kevin Kline plays a morally upright actor who bears a striking resemblance to the president — a similarity that comes in handy when the president suffers a debilitating stroke and urgently needs a stand-in. Dave takes advantage of his time in the White House to make a difference, and while there are a few comedic growing pains as he acclimates to the role, he quickly proves himself up to the challenge of running the nation. With warm, earnest performances from Kline and his co-star, Sigourney Weaver, "Dave" is an unbelievably likable production.

• Starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella

• Director: Ivan Reitman

• Year: 1993

• Runtime: 110 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

All that Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) wants to do is give his father a nice, respectable funeral, but it seems like the entire world is conspiring against him. Between his famous brother shirking his familial responsibilities, his cousin accidentally giving her strait-laced boyfriend (Alan Tudyk) heavy-duty hallucinogens, and his father's secret lover (Peter Dinklage) turning up out of nowhere to demand hush money, Daniel has his hands full. A relentlessly funny comedy of errors, "Death at a Funeral" takes the concept of an emotionally restrained upper-class British funeral and turns it on its head.

• Starring: Alan Tudyk, Peter Dinklage, Matthew Macfadyen

• Director: Frank Oz

• Year: 2007

• Runtime: 90 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 62%

When Stalin dies in his sleep, his inner circle is less grief-stricken and more flummoxed. What are a group of yes men supposed to do when their leader isn't around anymore, forcing them to grapple with one another for scraps of influence in the midst of a major power vacuum? 

With the television shows "Veep" and "The Thick of It" under his belt, director Armando Iannucci built his career around political satire, and "The Death of Stalin" should feel familiar to fans of his unique brand of comedy. With a strong ensemble of supporting actors who are each (unlike their characters) willing to share the spotlight, "The Death of Stalin" is side-splittingly hilarious.

• Starring: Steve Buscemi, Jason Isaacs, Simon Russell Beale

• Director: Armando Iannucci

• Year: 2018

• Runtime: 107 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

From the king of surrealism himself, Luis Buñuel, "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise" is a French comedy about a group of upper-middle-class friends who attempt to share a meal, despite a constant barrage of interruptions. Willing to play fast and loose with reality, the film is less one coherent storyline and more a series of intertwining vignettes. It was tremendously popular upon its release, earning an Academy Award for best foreign language film. Vincent Canby of the New York Times said of the film, "In addition to being extraordinarily funny and perfectly acted, 'The Discreet Charm' moves with the breathtaking speed and self-assurance that only a man of Buñuel's experience can achieve without resorting to awkward ellipsis."

• Starring: Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Stéphane Audran

• Director: Luis Buñuel

• Year: 1972

• Runtime: 100 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

The Wayans brothers have a long history with parody, beginning with "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka," a 1988 film riffing on the blaxploitation genre. In "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood," they turn their comedic gaze to the Black coming-of-age films that came out in the early 1990s, including "Boyz N the Hood" and "Do the Right Thing." When Ashtray (Shawn Wayans) moves in with his father, he learns all about life in the hood — in the funniest way possible. Although it was not particularly well-received by critics at the time, it has since become a cult classic.

• Starring: Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Tracey Cherelle Jones

• Director: Paris Barclay

• Year: 1996

• Runtime: 88 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 30%

In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, audiences likely did not need a reminder of how close they were to nuclear war and destruction. Nevertheless, that's exactly what "Dr. Strangelove" offers. It's a chilling, subversive satire that skewers the American military and political structures as being full of buffoons, yes men, and dangerous megalomaniacs whose existence is the only thing standing between us and nuclear winter. It's also a comedy. That's the genius of "Dr. Strangelove" — it doesn't pull its punches. It develops its characters with ludicrous absurdism that we can't help but laugh at.

• Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Keenan Wynn

• Director: Stanley Kubrick

• Year: 1964

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

With "The Edge of Seventeen," director Kelly Fremon Craig ushers in a new era of high school comedies in which teenage girls are allowed to be as weird and horny as their male counterparts. Hailee Steinfeld stars as an awkward student whose world is rocked when she learns that her best (and only) friend has been secretly dating her brother. To make matters worse, she accidentally sends her crush a graphic message on social media about all the raunchy things she'd like to do to him in the backroom of the pet store where he works. A perfect mix of the funny and the heartfelt, "The Edge of Seventeen" is one of the best teen comedies in years.

• Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Haley Lu Richardson, Woody Harrelson

• Director: Kelly Fremon Craig

• Year: 2016

• Runtime: 105 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Comedy on film has evolved a great deal since the mid-'90s, as the Judd Apatow/Adam McKay era of the early 2000s still, in some ways, casts a shadow over everything that has come since. That being the case, a lot of the lowbrow, for-the-masses humor of the '90s can feel dated. Be that as it may, Peter and Bobby Farrelly's "Dumb and Dumber" still stands tall as arguably the greatest achievement of this era. It's great precisely because it is of its time. Over-the-top, not afraid to be silly, and utterly ridiculous, this is a two-hander that is somehow both incredibly smart (despite its title) and delightfully stupid all at once.

The film centers on two down-on-their-luck bozos named Lloyd (Jim Carrey) and Harry (Jeff Daniels) who can't hold down a job and have nothing to live for. One day when Lloyd comes into possession of what he believes to be a lost briefcase belonging to a beautiful woman named Mary (Lauren Holly), they set out on a cross-country road trip to get it back into her hands. Unwittingly, this puts them in the midst of a ransom scheme, with high stakes hijinks ensuing. The end result is full of quotable moments that can make one chuckle at the mere thought. "Why you going to the airport? Flying somewhere?"

This is Jim Carrey firing on all cylinders with Jeff Daniels, often known for playing a straight man, serving as his perfect comedic opposite. It's a dream pairing that makes this movie sing. From amusingly macabre moments such as Carrey selling a dead bird to a blind kid to Daniels fully committing to that legendary bathroom scene, this movie is still gut-bustingly funny 30 years later. While some comedies of the '90s feel like dated relics that don't hold up to modern scrutiny, this remains a hilarious monument to a time long since passed capable of making us nostalgic for what was. (Ryan Scott)

• Starring: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Lauren Holly
• Director: Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly
• Year: 1994
• Runtime: 113 minutes
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 68%

The charming tale of an upper-middle-class teenager who's spent his entire life avoiding the consequences of his actions, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" succeeds in large part due to Matthew Broderick's charismatic turn in the role of Ferris. He decides to play hooky from school one day, dragging his neurotic best friend, Cameron (Alan Ruck,) and his easygoing girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara), along for the ride. A series of misadventures ensues, as the trio makes their way across Chicago, narrowly evading their principal (Jeffrey Jones) and Ferris' sister (Jennifer Grey), who are both trying to catch them in the act.

• Starring: Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, Alan Ruck

• Director: John Hughes

• Year: 1986

• Runtime: 103 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

Among the big three silent comedians (Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd), Lloyd was the most charming in a romantic comedy context. In "The Freshman," he tackles the 1920s trend of college-themed movies, playing an awkward first-year student who resolves to join the football team in a bid to win his crush's affections. All of Lloyd's performances are intensely physical, but "The Freshman" is particularly punishing, as he puts his body on the line to achieve a variety of pratfalls on the football field that holds up to this day.

• Starring: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, James Anderson

• Director: Sam Taylor, Fred Newmeyer

• Year: 1925

• Runtime: 70 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Arguably best known for introducing the internet meme, "Bye, Felicia," "Friday" is a stoner comedy starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker. Taking place over the course of one Friday, it's a slice-of-life narrative about two friends who find themselves in over their heads with a drug dealer. "Friday" was created in part as a response to the many dramatic films released in the early 1990s that focused primarily on violence in urban communities. Its production team sought to bring a comedic, lighthearted sensibility that more closely resembled their own experiences.

• Starring: Ice Cube, Chris Tucker, Nia Long

• Director: F. Gary Gray

• Year: 1995

• Runtime: 91 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%

A note-perfect sendup of "Star Trek" (and more importantly, "Star Trek" fandom), "Galaxy Quest" stars Tim Allen as a washed-up '70s TV star who milks science fiction conventions for all their worth. The rest of the cast from his popular TV show can barely hide how much they loathe him as they're forced to rehash old grievances at every public appearance. Still, they have to work together when they're recruited to mediate between two alien races who have received old transmissions of their show and believe them to be real historical records. Funny, heartfelt, and exciting, "Galaxy Quest" is nearly perfect.

• Starring: Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman

• Director: Dean Parisot

• Year: 1999

• Runtime: 104 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

An ultra-competitive couple (played by Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams at their most charming) live and die by their organized game nights with their friends. But one day, Brooks (Kyle Chandler) shows up and introduces an element of danger to the festivities, and a murder mystery party ends up involving the gang in actual crime. A perfect blend of action and comedy, "Game Night" takes the audience through a series of hilarious twists and turns. Jesse Plemons gives an incomparable supporting performance as Gary, the oddball neighbor.

• Starring: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler

• Director: John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein

• Year: 2018

• Runtime: 100 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

In "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell play two showgirls and best friends on a cruise. Lorelei (Monroe) is bubbly, obsessed with diamonds, and way smarter than she looks. Dorothy (Russell) would take a bullet for her friend, even when her social-climbing hijinks get in the way of her opportunity to ogle the entire U.S. men's Olympic team (in a musical number that is probably one of the most hilariously horny ever committed to celluloid). "Gentlemen" may be in the title, but the biggest joke of the film is that at no point does it seem that Lorelei or Dorothy particularly care what they prefer.

• Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Charles Coburn

• Director: Howard Hawks

• Year: 1953

• Runtime: 91 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

When New York City is suddenly plagued by a scourge of malicious ghosts, a trio of misfit scientists start their own small business to meet an obvious need. Thus, the Ghostbusters are born. Although some of the spirits featured in the film are more spooky than others, the efforts of Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and Harold Ramis to keep them in line are always funny. "Ghostbusters" was a massive hit when it was first released, earning nearly $300 million at the box office and spawning several sequels and reboots that stretch to the present day.

• Starring: Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis

• Director: Ivan Reitman

• Year: 1984

• Runtime: 107 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

When four friends decide to embark on an epic road trip to reconnect in "Girls Trip," things don't go exactly as planned. Their various misadventures see them get in scrapes with one another and accidentally hallucinate while drinking absinthe, but their wildly comedic journey only serves to bring them closer together. When speaking with the Hollywood Reporter, writer Tracy Oliver said that she wanted to show "Black women being carefree and having fun just like everybody else," adding, "I think we need to show all aspects of black lives. I love 'Moonlight,' I love 'Hidden Figures,' but I also want to see some people who are having fun and just showing female friends hanging out."

• Starring: Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith

• Director: Malcolm D. Lee

• Year: 2017

• Runtime: 122 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

There's not much funny about the Berlin Wall falling as your mother has a debilitating heart attack that leaves her in a coma. However, "Good Bye Lenin!" manages to find the humor in a son's desperate, increasingly manic attempts to preserve a slice of East German life for his mother when she wakes up, believing that the shock of a rapidly Westernized, reunited Germany will finish her off. Daniel Brühl puts in a star-making performance, creating a miniature world for his mother to not only shield her from reality but also capture the last melancholy remnants of the flawed but familiar country that has always been his home.

• Starring: Daniel Brühl, Katrin Saß, Chulpan Khamatova

• Director: Wolfgang Becker

• Year: 2003

• Runtime: 121 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

"The Grand Budapest Hotel" is the most unimpeachable of Wes Anderson's films. Every time you watch it, it's impossible to not be awed and your smile won't stay uncracked for long. The film walks such a specific and thin tightrope; candy-colored mise-en-scene, whimsical and verbose dialogue, and comedy that is both absurd and dry.

Take when concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), confronted with a murder accusation, runs away. Even the arresting soldiers are baffled by his blatant escape and Anderson lets the shot hold for another 10 seconds or so as the chase continues at the deepest depths of the frame's background. Alexandre Desplat's score, composed in the classical style with European string instruments, drops out at that moment and only underlines the unexpected comic shift.

The heart and humor of "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is Gustave and his protege Zero (Tony Revolori), who does a great job standing silently alongside the concierge acting as befuddled and enchanted as we are. The film's comedy often indulges in repetition (e.g. a montage of concierges receiving calls from each other in a chain message). What should test your patience instead becomes even funnier with each addition.

I had a lovely good time with Anderson's subsequent "The French Dispatch" and "Asteroid City," operating in similar moods and aesthetics as"The Grand Budapest Hotel." The 2014 film feel like Anderson's ultimate statement as an artist, though, the trunk from which his other films extend their roots even if it will go down as a mid-career work. (Devin Meenan)

• Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Tilda Swinton
• Director: Wes Anderson
• Year: 2014
• Runtime: 100 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

"Groundhog Day" is proof that the wish of having all the time in the world is not all it's cracked up to be. When a grumpy weatherman (played by Bill Murray, of course) is sent to cover a fluff piece about Groundhog Day, he isn't exactly thrilled about the assignment. But things get considerably worse when he is forced to relive this single day thousands of times — to the point where he has memorized the actions of every single person in town and learned a host of new skills to pass the time. We've seen plenty of time loop movies since, but they all owe a debt of gratitude to the one that started them all.

• Starring: Bill Murray, Andie McDowell, Chris Elliot

• Director: Harold Ramis

• Year: 1993

• Runtime: 96 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Adam Sander hadn't made a name for himself as a bankable comedy star on the big screen when "Happy Gilmore" came around. "Billy Madison" had arrived the year before to mostly unfavorable reviews, and a few months later, he was fired from "Saturday Night Live." Even though "Happy Gilmore" wasn't a massive hit, making over $41 million on a budget of roughly $12 million isn't anything to scoff at. But more importantly, over the years, "Happy Gilmore" has not only become one of the best comedies of Adam Sandler's career, but it's also one of the most beloved sports movies of all time. 

"Happy Gilmore" follows a washed up wannabe hockey player who realizes that he has a miraculous golf swing. When his shocking skills get him into country clubs and on a professional tour, he brings blue collar sensibilities and unruly crowds to the stuck-up elite world of golf and shakes things up significantly. Of course, this rubs snobby pro Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald) the wrong way, creating a raucously funny, all-time great rivalry. Combining Sandler's penchant for amusing immaturity and gut-busting bouts of rage, not to mention a surprisingly hilarious performance from the legendary Carl Weathers, this is one of the great slobs vs snobs comedies. Plus, let's not forget that incredible fist fight with "The Price is Right" host Bob Barker. Who would have thought such a knockout punch was hiding behind all those pricing games? (Ethan Anderton)

• Starring: Adam Sandler, Carl Weathers, Christopher McDonald, Julie Bowen, Frances Bay, Bob Barker
• Director: Dennis Dugan
• Year: 1996
• Runtime: 92 minutes
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 62%

"There are two ways to live well: You can be smart or pleasant. I've been smart for years, and I recommend pleasant." This is the philosophy of Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart), the quirky lead of "Harvey." His family is horrified by his intimate friendship with Harvey, a seemingly imaginary six-foot-tall rabbit that only Dowd can see. The plot descends into screwball comedy as they attempt to have him committed, but "Harvey" has a surprisingly wise and heartwarming message that even in the conformist 1950s, normal is overrated.

• Starring: James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Cecil Kellaway

• Director: Henry Koster

• Year: 1950

• Runtime: 104 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

A withering anti-social response to John Hughes' view of teen life in America, "Heathers" stars Winona Ryder as Veronica, a girl who finds herself part of a vacuous clique that she quietly loathes but can't seem to extricate herself from. That is until J.D. (Christian Slayer) moves to town. His counterculture vibes are a breath of fresh air in monotonous suburbia. However, his rebellion quickly takes on a homicidal edge, and Veronica unwittingly becomes entangled in an accidental murder spree. With its pitch-black, subversive humor, "Heathers" is an open rejection of Ronald Reagan's 1980s Americana.

• Starring: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty

• Director: Michael Lehmann

• Year: 1989

• Runtime: 102 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

When it comes to screwball comedies from the 1930s and 1940s, Cary Grant is unquestionably your man. In "His Girl Friday," he plays a cynical newspaper editor who goes a little bit off the rails when he finds out that his ex-wife (Rosalind Russell) is about to get remarried. He uses the promise of a juicy story about a murderer scheduled for execution to lure her back into her fast-paced life as a journalist and, he hopes, a renewed relationship with him. Grant's chemistry with Russell is off the charts. Together, they make a fine pair in this classic Howard Hawks comedy.

• Starring: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy

• Director: Howard Hawks

• Year: 1940

• Runtime: 92 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%

There's a lyricism to Edgar Wright's rural English action movie homage "Hot Fuzz" that makes it more like a two-hour spoken word poem than a traditional movie script. Phrases like "crusty jugglers," "a great big bushy beard!" and "murder, murder, murder" stick to the brain long after the credits roll. They haunt everyday conversations, conjuring an instinctive call-and-response to any mention of "the greater good" and tormenting any poor soul tasked with catching escaped swans. Being endlessly quotable isn't the only measure of a good comedy, but if it was then "Hot Fuzz" would be a lot closer to the top of this list.

It also played a crucial role in launching Wright's career as a film director. "Shaun of the Dead" was so special and unique that it could easily have been a one-hit wonder movie. With his immediate follow-up proving to not only be just as good but arguably even better, Wright cemented himself as a talent to watch. Like "Shaun" before it, "Hot Fuzz" succeeds as a parody because it's really a love letter, dripping with affection rather than disdain. Though Wright's knowledge of action cinema clearly runs deep, he chose "Point Break" and "Bad Boys II" as the two main reference points because, as the director explained at the time, "They both kind of represent gloriously unpretentious entertainment."

Like any good buddy cop movie, "Hot Fuzz" succeeds because of its contrasts: maximalist action movie clichés against the backdrop of a seemingly sleepy Somerset village. It's hilarious from start to finish, and it'll leave you wanting to fire your gun up into the air and go "aaaaahhh!" (Hannah Shaw-Williams)

• Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost
• Director: Edgar Wright
• Year: 2007
• Runtime: 121 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

When we talk about misunderstood masterpieces or movies that were ahead of their time, we often think of stuff like Orson Welles "Citizen Kane" or John Carpenter's "The Thing." I humbly suggest that 2007's "Hot Rod" deserves its place in such conversations, as director Akiva Schaffer's deeply hilarious, utterly ridiculous, delightfully nonsensical comedy is a prime example of a superb movie coming at precisely the wrong time.

Distilling The Lonely Island's very specific brand of humor into a narrative feature, "Hot Rod" is the inspirational tale of an amateur stuntman who wants to get his step dad a new heart just so he can beat the s*** out of him in a movie that clearly takes place in the '80s and the mid-2000s, all at once. While the movie was originally written for Will Farrell, Sandberg gets to flex his comedic chops here, showcasing his silly brand of charm as a man on a mission — an absurd mission at that.

This movie happened firmly in the Judd Apatow and Adam McKay era of studio comedies and, while "Anchorman" was certainly absurd, "Hot Rod" was on another level entirely. The masses weren't ready to embrace silliness such as brothers yelling "cool beans" at one another before it devolved into a song for no reason at all. Paramount didn't know how to market around the offhand brilliance of lines such as "I'm freakin' pumped! I've been drinkin' green tea all goddamn day!" or "You know, pools are perfect for holding water." The world wasn't ready to watch Samberg fall down the biggest mountain in the history of mountains.Thankfully, time has been extremely kind to this bizarre delight of a film, and its greatness is now more roundly recognized. (Ryan Scott)

• Starring: Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Isla Fisher
• Director: Akiva Schaffer
• Year: 2007
• Runtime: 88 min
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 39%

Released in 1990, "House Party" stars Christopher Reid and Christopher Martin (also known as the hip-hop group Kid 'n Play) as a pair of teenagers determined to throw a rager, even if parents and an inordinate amount of trouble stand in their way. The film features some familiar faces, including Martin Lawrence, George Clinton, and Robin Harris, who tragically died just a few days after the film's release. Roger Ebert had positive words for the film, writing "the musical is a canvas used by the director, Reginald Hudlin, to show us Black teenagers with a freshness and originality that's rare in modern movies."

• Starring: Robin Harris, Christopher Reid, Christopher Martin

• Director: Reginald Hudlin

• Year: 1990

• Runtime: 100 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

A frenetic adventure, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" features a cadre of Hollywood stars in a race to lay claim to a hidden fortune. When a dying man reveals the location of a $350,000 stash, the unlikely witnesses to his deathbed confession are left to fight it out. It's at times an unwieldy comedy, clocking in at nearly three hours (something practically unheard of for the genre), but it hits far more often than it misses. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times described it simply, saying that "So many excellent actors and stunt men do so much in this film that it is beyond my space allowance to begin to credit them."

• Starring: Spencer Tracy, Edie Adams, Milton Berle

• Director: Stanley Kramer

• Year: 1963

• Runtime: 175 minutes

• Rating: G

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 70%

"Hi, I'm Johnny Knoxville, welcome to Jackass." For people of a certain age, namely those raised in the early 2000s MTV era, these words are immortal. They carry genuine meaning. I say this with all sincerity: they usually meant something special was about to happen. Accuse it of being lowbrow if you must (because at times it is), but "Jackass" impacted pop culture in a way that few comedies have over the past 25 years. The experiment that was "Jackass" was unquestionably perfected in 2006 with the release of "Jackass Number Two," which is the "Empire Strikes Back" of "Jackass" movies.

After "Jackass: The Movie" became a hit, Paramount let Knoxville and the gang go bigger and better on the sequel. Director Jeff Tremaine felt more comfortable with the bigness of the big screen, Knoxville was letting his movie star quality shine, and everyone else was on their best/worst behavior. It made for 90-plus minutes of some true gut-busting hilarity that is just as funny now as it was in '06. Heck, even Steve-O still thinks it's the best "Jackass" movie. That counts for something.

From the sheer, simple disgusting hilarity of Steve-O wearing a fart helmet to the downright scary, foolish bravery on display during the riot control test, this movie truly has everything. Not only is it jam-packed full of laugh-a-minute nonsense, but it remains dazzling in the old-school Hollywood sense because these guys are actually doing the crazy s*** we see on screen. There's something special about that. It separates "Jackass" from just about everything else on this list. It's funny, but it's also real.

• Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Ryan Dunn
• Director: Jeff Tremaine
• Year: 2006
• Runtime: 95 min
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 66%

Every cinematic genre needs some anarchy introduced into the mix once a decade or so. Rules are made to be broken, conventions are meant to be challenged, and maybe art isn't meant to be taken quite so seriously. With that in mind, what better genre to address all these necessities but comedy? Nearly since cinema's inception, comedy movies had strongly borrowed from the stage, whether it was vaudeville, Broadway, or the stand-up circuit. In that vein, "The Jerk," the first starring role for Steve Martin, fits the pattern, given that Martin was looking to move from stand-up to feature films and was essentially given a deal with co-producer David Picker to do so any way he wished. After making a short subject proof of concept ("The Absent-Minded Waiter") and messing around with co-writers Carl Gottlieb and Michael Elias, Martin eventually met established director Carl Reiner. The two of them got on like a house on fire, they hit upon an idea to loosely base their film around the theme of wealth while obliquely referencing Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot," and thus "The Jerk" was born.

The cinematic career of Martin (along with the immortal pairing of himself and Reiner) seems like a given in hindsight, but when looked at through an objective lens, it's still a marvel that "The Jerk" works as well as it does. There's barely a semblance of a plot, so much incident that the movie almost devolves into a series of unconnected sketches, and Martin's leading character of Navin R. Johnson is somehow both a lovable underdog hero and the butt of every joke. Coming from a cinematic comedy tradition of tightly scripted films that saw artists like Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder rise to prominence, "The Jerk" seems genuinely anarchic. It's the bridge between the classic traditions of the genre and its heavily improvised future of the 2000s; "The Jerk" is not improvised, but it does seem barely under control. Barely, that is, until you realize just how well Martin, Reiner, and co-star Bernadette Peters have worked their winning charm over you, even while they never let up on the gags. Even though there's many, many great comedy films out there, all you really need is "The Jerk." Well, "The Jerk" and "Animal House." All you need is "The Jerk," "Animal House," "The Apartment," and "Austin Powers" — Note: see the rest of this list for everything else you need. 

• Cast: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters
• Director: Carl Reiner
• Year: 1979
• Runtime: 94 mins
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 82%

A pitch-black comedy with razor-sharp wit, "Kind Hearts and Coronets" shows the lengths to which someone will go when driven by a sense of pride and entitlement. Dennis Price stars as Louis, the son of a well-born woman who disgraced her family by marrying below her station. Raised with a powerful sense of his noble ancestry, Louis decides to take his rightful place as the heir to the family fortune — even if it means killing every relative ahead of him in line! Alec Guinness is especially impressive, playing each of Louis' many estranged family members. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times wrote of his performance, "The sly and adroit Mr. Guinness plays eight Edwardian fuddy-duds with such devastating wit and variety that he naturally dominates the film."

• Starring: Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Valerie Hobson

• Director: Robert Hamer

• Year: 1949

• Runtime: 104 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Who would have thought that a movie based around the little plastic bricks from LEGO would have resulted in such an imaginative film? Sure, LEGO allows for limitless building possibilities for kids and adults alike, but crafting a compelling narrative around a toy that doesn't have an established narrative or mythology felt like a fool's errand to sell toys. Thankfully, the directing duo of Phil Lord & Chris Miller ("21 Jump Street") brought their sharp sense of humor and meta storytelling sensibilities to the table and created a fantastic roster of original characters to take us on a hilarious and original building brick adventure brought to life with mesmerizing animation.

In "The LEGO Movie," an ordinary LEGO construction worker named Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) is thrust into adventure when he's prophesied to be "special," making him the one person who can stop the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell) from gluing the entire LEGO universe into a boring collection of plastic bricks that will be stuck together forever. With a mix of original characters like the confident and cool Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and the wise wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) and licensed characters with unique spins like Will Arnett's brooding bro version of LEGO Batman, we get an ensemble of misfit characters who are delightfully funny.

But what makes "The LEGO Movie" truly special is the third act twist where the entire story is revealed to a made-up story by a live-action boy just trying to connect with his distant, LEGO-obsessed father (also Will Ferrell), providing a truly imaginative take on the toy property that exceeds any previous expectations we might have had. It's not just a great comedy, it's also one of the best movies of the 21st century. 

• Starring: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Alison Brie, Charlie Day
• Director: Phil Lord & Chris Miller
• Year: 2014
• Runtime: 100 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

Set during the Korean War (although providing obvious political commentary on the then-ongoing Vietnam War), "MASH" revolves around the doctors and nurses who serve on the front lines at a military hospital. Despite its serious subject matter, Robert Altman's unique directorial style helps it to succeed as an irreverent comedy. The film proved so popular that it was quickly spun off into a television series. The version of "MASH" that starred Alan Alda and ran for 11 seasons on CBS is perhaps the more famous of the two iterations, but the film stands on its own as a subversive black comedy.

• Starring: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Sally Kellerman

• Director: Robert Altman

• Year: 1970

• Runtime: 116 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

Few things are scarier than an imperious teenage girl, and Tina Fey's brilliant high school comedy "Mean Girls" provides a pitch-perfect villain in the form of queen bee Regina George (played by Rachel McAdams, who specifically took her inspiration from Alec Baldwin in "Glengarry Glen Ross"). The story starts when Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) finds herself at a suburban Chicago high school after spending most of her life homeschooled in Africa, and though she immediately bonds with outcasts Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian Leigh (Daniel Franzese), she's also courted by Regina and her ruling cafeteria clique dubbed "the Plastics." Regina rules over her two Plastic acolytes Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried) and Gretchen Weiners (Lacey Chabert) with an iron fist — there are a lot of rules involved with being a Plastic, including but not limited to wearing pink on Wednesdays, limiting ponytails, and absolutely no donning of sweatpants. Cady does join their little gang, but mostly so that she can infiltrate it and ruin Regina's life (on Janis and Damian's orders).

Cady's rise and Regina's downfall are predictably linked, but the familiar plot of "Mean Girls" doesn't matter because the movie is just so, so funny — and probably one of the most quotable movies of all time, from "Stop trying to make fetch happen!" to "I'm not like a regular mom, I'm a cool mom!" to "Four for you, Glen Coco!" Every single actor is firing on all cylinders, including Fey herself as a downtrodden math teacher who's usually paired with a genuinely bizarre Tim Meadows as the school principal — and even though the ending is sort of earnest, it's preceded by a scene where Regina literally gets hit by a bus.

The cultural footprint of "Mean Girls" is so enormous that it has its own makeshift "holiday" (in honor of Cady's line "It's October 3rd") and spawned both a Broadway musical and a movie adaptation of said musical. (You can feel free to skip that second one.) "Fetch" may never have happened, but "Mean Girls" is eternal. (Nina Starner)

• Starring: Rachel McAdams, Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Seyfried
• Director: Mark Waters
• Year: 2004
• Runtime: 97 minutes
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

Released just two years after Bill Murray made his debut as part of the cast of "Saturday Night Live," "Meatballs" served as proof that he could headline a major motion picture. He stars as Tripper Harrison, a counselor at an under-funded and under-staffed summer camp, who is just trying to get his campers and counselors-in-training back home alive. The film succeeds largely on his talents, with Gary Arnold of the Washington Post saying, "As the seniors boys' counselor, an easygoing role model, and spontaneous comic genius, Bill Murray of 'Saturday Night Live' makes a deceptively sensational debut as a film comedy star."

• Starring: Bill Murray, Chris Makepeace, Kate Lynch

• Director: Ivan Reitman

• Year: 1979

• Runtime: 92 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 72%

Thanks to films like "Meet the Fockers," we're all familiar with Robert De Niro's comedic side, but when "Midnight Run" was released in 1988, he was primarily known as a serious film actor. His biggest hits up to that point had been "The Godfather Part II," "Taxi Driver," and "Raging Bull" — not exactly laugh riots. "Midnight Run" shows us a different side of the actor, allowing him to flip the script on his traditional tough-guy persona (here he plays a bounty hunter tasked with bringing in a mob accountant) and introduce a little levity to the proceedings. The result is overwhelmingly positive — Vincent Canby of the New York Times referred to De Niro and his costar Charles Grodin as "lunatic delights."

• Starring: Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yaphet Kotto

• Director: Martin Brest

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 122 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

By 1936, silent film was all but dead — except, that is, in the eyes of Charlie Chaplin. He was slow to adopt sound, and "Modern Times" proves that he still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Chaplin stars as a harried factory worker who has a breakdown while working the assembly line, culminating in an imaginative sequence in which he becomes caught in the cogs of a machine. "Modern Times" has the pratfalls and slapstick humor one might expect from a Chaplin film, but it's also a subversive commentary about the burden of modern labor practices on the common worker.

• Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman

• Director: Charlie Chaplin

• Year: 1936

• Runtime: 89 minutes

• Rating: G

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

Cher and Nicolas Cage might not be an obvious on-screen duo, but as we see in "Moonstruck," they just sort of make sense together. They both have the same frenetic energy that makes them constantly engaging, even when they're wildly dysfunctional. In "Moonstruck," Loretta (Cher) is engaged to marry Johnny (Danny Aiello). When she accidentally falls in love with his hot-headed younger brother Donny (Cage), a baker with one hand and a propensity to fly off the handle, chaos ensues. "Moonstruck" is frequently loud, often aggressive, but always charming.

• Starring: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello

• Director: Norman Jewison

• Year: 1987

• Runtime: 101 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

If there were only going to be one Monty Python film on this list, it would have to be "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" for the sheer impact it has had on cinematic comedy. It stars Graham Chapman as a perpetually exasperated King Arthur, and it highlights his adventures alongside the Knights of the Round Table as they seek the fabled Holy Grail. Along the way, they encounter significant obstacles, including obstinate Frenchmen, a group of randy maidens at Castle Anthrax, the forbidding Knights Who Say Ni, and, of course, one homicidal rabbit. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" maintains a lofty position as one of the most frequently quoted comedies of all time.

• Starring: Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin

• Director: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones

• Year: 1975

• Runtime: 90 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Let's all take a moment to stand in awe of Joe Pesci's crowning achievement, "My Cousin Vinny." He has no business being so funny as Vinny, a New York lawyer who is way out of his depth when he travels to the deep South to defend a young relative (Ralph Macchio) who has been charged with murder. There's absolutely no reason why he should have such electric chemistry with Marisa Tomei (who won an Oscar for her performance), who plays his endlessly clever girlfriend, Mona Lisa. Somehow, he just does, and it all works. There's not a single line or gesture that isn't executed for maximum comedic effect in "My Cousin Vinny."

• Starring: Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Ralph Macchio

• Director: Jonathan Lynn

• Year: 1992

• Runtime: 119 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

During the Great Depression, screwball comedies had a tremendous amount of class consciousness. "My Man Godfrey" is a perfect example. In the film, a wealthy woman (Carole Lombard) adopts the homeless Godfrey (William Powell) to serve as her family's butler. She intends to help him get off the streets and into a comfortable home, even if her methods are patronizing (and ultimately unnecessary, as we learn that Godfrey is just as rich as her, only living with vagrants to get in touch with the common man). Nevertheless, she ends up falling for him, and the family's condescending philanthropy is turned on its head. "My Man Godfrey" is one of the best comedies and social commentaries of the 1930s.

• Starring: Carole Lombard, William Powell, Alice Brady

• Director: Gregory La Cava

• Year: 1936

• Runtime: 95 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

When we talk about great comedies, it feels like an awful lot of attention is swallowed up by PG-13 and R-rated movies. Understandably so. There are plenty of great PG movies as well, as this list demonstrates. G-rated comedies, however? Those are harder to come by as far as true "greatness" is concerned. Be that as it may, 1979's "The Muppet Movie" stands very tall as a shining example of how a movie can be genuinely funny while also being as family-friendly as something can be.

Coming hot off of the success of "The Muppet Show," Jim Henson's beloved creations graced the silver screen in '79 for a road trip film that sees Kermit encountering a talent scout in Hollywood, which encourages him to get the band together. It includes incredible musical numbers such as the timeless "Rainbow Connection" and "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday." But the reason we're here is that the movie is deeply, truly funny. Not in the, "I can see why a kid would find this funny" way, but in the "I am actually laughing out loud by myself" funny.

From a string of tremendous celebrity cameos to grin-worthy moments for 90 minutes straight, director James Frawley's interpretation of the Muppets remains one of the finest representations of Henson's creations. The Disney era has given us some gems, such as the criminally underrated "Muppets Most Wanted," but nothing in recent years has captured that same good-natured charm coupled with universal humor that this movie pulls off. Simply put, it's one of the best feel-good funny movies ever made. (Ryan Scott)

• Starring: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz
• Director: James Frawley
• Year: 1979
• Runtime: 95 min
• Rating: G
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

The film that launched a franchise filled with Chevy Chase's misadventures and a perpetually rotating cast of Griswold children (Rusty and Audrey were famously never played by the same actors twice), "National Lampoon's Vacation" is a tale of a family road trip gone laughably wrong. Desperate to take his wife and kids to Walley World, a popular yet extremely kitschy amusement park, Clark Griswold (Chase) drags them across the country, and things go from bad to worse. After their grueling (and hilarious) journey, the Griswolds finally arrive at Walley World ... and it's closed for repairs!

• Starring: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid

• Director: Harold Ramis

• Year: 1983

• Runtime: 98 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

Before he was teaching us all how to be Kenough, Ryan Gosling revealed that he had absolutely incredible comedy chops in Shane Black's "The Nice Guys." The actor is stellar as semi-functioning alcoholic private investigator Holland March, who teams up with hired muscle Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) to try and solve a mystery that involves the murder of an adult film star, a missing woman named Amelia (Margaret Qualley), and some serious government corruption. Crowe and Gosling have perfect buddy cop chemistry (without being cops), bringing both hilarity and heart to their roles that feels effortless. Young star Angourie Rice, who plays March's daughter Holly, is also excellent, holding her own with the adults as she tries to take solving the crime into her own hands. The dynamics between these three characters make "The Nice Guys" so much more than just a great comedy with some fun action moments, giving them significantly more depth. It's also really, really funny. 

The screenplay by Black and co-writer Anthony Bagarozzi is pretty close to brilliant, with sharp dialogue and plenty of moments that allow each lead to really shine. Crowe is sort of the straight man to Gosling's absolute chaos creature, but he also gets the chance to show a softer, more introspective side in his relationship with Holly. Meanwhile, Holland March is like a character out of a screwball comedy that somehow exists within our own reality, surviving wild falls and determining that perhaps he just cannot die. For many audiences, "The Nice Guys" was the first time that Gosling showed off just how funny he could be, and my god, this man is hilarious whether he's doing physical comedy, delivering his lines with just the right amount of sarcasm, or just screaming at the top of his lungs. 

"The Nice Guys" is a deeply satisfying film with lots to offer, and it even sets up a sequel in its final moments, with March and Healy forming an investigative team called, you guessed it, "The Nice Guys." Unfortunately, it's unlikely that we'll ever see that sequel, but one can always hope. (Danielle Ryan)

• Starring: Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe, Angourie Rice
• Director: Shane Black
• Year: 2016
• Runtime: 116 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

"The Odd Couple" is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau make a very odd couple indeed. When neurotic, fastidious Felix (Lemmon) moves into the bachelor pad of perennial slob Oscar (Matthau), it requires a little bit of an adjustment period for them to figure out how to live together. Their personalities and lifestyles clash in the most hilarious ways. The duo made such an impression that they would team up again decades later as the titular "Grumpy Old Men" in the 1990s.

• Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler

• Director: Gene Saks

• Year: 1968

• Runtime: 105 minutes

• Rating: G

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

An ode to the sheer pointlessness of office culture, "Office Space" speaks to everyone who has ever fantasized about quitting their day job. Ron Livingston stars as Peter, an office drone who quietly hates his life until his girlfriend convinces him to attend a hypnosis session. When the hypnotist suffers a fatal heart attack before waking him from his trance, Peter is stuck with a relaxed, devil-may-care attitude towards his job. Surprisingly, this makes his bosses respect him even more, perceiving him as a straight shooter. Full of great comedic moments (including the gangster-style execution of a perpetually malfunctioning printer), "Office Space" has grown in relevance since its release.

• Starring: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, David Herman

• Director: Mike Judge

• Year: 1999

• Runtime: 89 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

Once upon a time, Pee-wee Herman (played by Paul Reubens) was everyone's favorite naïve man child. In "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," our intrepid hero embarks on a cross-country adventure in search of his beloved bike, which has gone missing, much to Pee-wee's consternation. The entire production exists in a heightened reality, from the childlike feud between Herman and his ultimate nemesis Francis to his madcap escapade on a Hollywood set to his legitimately frightening encounter with the terrifying truck-driving ghost Large Marge. Director Tim Burton imbues this sweet film with a strange sense of menace that lies just beneath its candy-coated exterior, making "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" equal parts charming and unsettling.

• Starring: Paul Reubens, E.G. Daily, Diane Salinger

• Director: Tim Burton

• Year: 1985

• Runtime: 90 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 87%

In 1987 you could simply put Steve Martin and John Candy on-screen together, and it would be funny. The two play an unlikely duo in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," the classic story of two very different men desperately trying to get home for the holidays. Straight-laced Neal Page (Martin) has had his flight rerouted at the last minute, putting his Thanksgiving plans with his wife and children in jeopardy. The last thing in the world he needs is to end up with the good-hearted but obnoxious Del Griffith (Candy) — but that's what happens. Despite their differences, they have to work together to make it back home for the holiday.

• Starring: Steve Martin, John Candy, Laila Robins

• Director: John Hughes

• Year: 1987

• Runtime: 92 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

If there's any single entity ripe for parody, it's the self-important performing artist who is ultra-convinced of their own talent. "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" stars Andy Samberg as Conner (aka Conner4Real), the former frontman of the wildly successful pop-rap group the Style Boyz, who goes solo. The film chronicles his seemingly endless series of poor decisions — creative, professional, and romantic. "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" is held together by Conner's relentless optimism and a soundtrack full of note-perfect comedy musical numbers.

• Starring: Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone

• Director: Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone

• Year: 2016

• Runtime: 86 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79%

When Judy Benjamin's (Goldie Hawn) new husband dies suddenly while in the middle of, she decides to take her life in a different direction. Thanks to a fortuitous conversation with a military recruiter, the pampered, indoorsy woman joins the Army. That's the basic plot of "Private Benjamin." Judy is a fish out of water as she tries to make her way through boot camp. While "Private Benjamin" laughs with Judy, it restrains itself from laughing at her. Hawn is too unrelentingly charming to be the subject of mockery for long, and her journey ultimately leads her to self-discovery.

• Starring: Goldie Hawn, Eileen Brennan, Armand Assante

• Director: Howard Zieff

• Year: 1980

• Runtime: 109 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 82%

There are no perfect movies, but "The Princess Bride" comes pretty darn close. The fantasy adventure story has it all: a frame narrative in which a grandfather ("Columbo" himself, Peter Falk) reads a story to his sick grandson, played by Fred Savage of "The Wonder Years." He tells the story of Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright), who is kidnapped by the evil Humperdink (Chris Sarandon) after the love of her life, Westley (Cary Elwes), seemingly dies at sea. Westley actually becomes a dread pirate and sets about rescuing her, befriending some of her kidnappers, played by André the Giant and Mandy Patinkin. The trio storm the castle, save the day, and everyone lives happily ever after, but there is a lot of laughter to be had throughout.

"The Princess Bride" is a fairly simple fairy tale story told with incredible amounts of charm and wit, turning tropes on their head and highlighting the silliness of others. It's one of the most quotable movies of all time due to its brilliant screenplay by William Goldman, who wrote the source novel, and every actor delivers their lines to perfection. Even small moments, like Westley being revived by Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) and his wife (Carol Kane), are incredibly inspired, as the performers were allowed to lean into their wilder ideas and really make "The Princess Bride" something special.

Part of what makes "The Princess Bride" so terrific is that it's great for audiences of all ages, a true family movie that everyone can fully enjoy. There are a few jokes that might go over kids' heads, but there's so much silliness going on that they'll never get bored. It's a good old-fashioned swashbuckler given the comedy treatment, and it's never been done better. (Danielle Ryan)

• Starring: Robin Wright, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon
• Director: Rob Reiner
• Year: 1987
• Runtime: 98 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

In Mel Brooks' "The Producers," Leopold Bloom (Gene Wilder) and Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) come up with a foolproof plan: They will produce a Broadway show so bad that it's guaranteed to flop, and they'll make a killing because they never have to pay back their investors. The result? "Springtime for Hitler," a garish, campy ode to the Third Reich that is in appallingly poor taste. But when it becomes a surprise hit, disaster looms for the suddenly successful theater producers. Wilder and Mostel are at the top of their game, bouncing off each other with the wit and precision of seasoned vaudeville performers.

• Starring: Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel, Kenneth Mars

• Director: Mel Brooks

• Year: 1968

• Runtime: 88 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Whenever the Coen brothers are involved, you know two things for certain: There's going to be crime, and it's probably going to be hilarious. That's what we get in "Raising Arizona," an off-kilter romantic comedy that showcases Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter at their absolute best. Cage is a petty criminal who can't stop getting arrested. Hunter is a police officer who falls in love with him in spite of herself. They marry, but when they are unable to conceive, they land upon a perfect solution: They'll kidnap one of the quintuplets that have been in the news recently. After all, with five babies, what are the odds that someone would notice one missing? This plan goes as poorly as you might expect, but it's a perfect disaster that makes an entertaining movie.

• Starring: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, John Goodman

• Director: Joel Coen

• Year: 1987

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Eccentric indie auteur Wes Anderson's second film, "Rushmore," was a massive critical success that put the director on the map. It stars Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer, a precocious teenager who is incredibly invested in a variety of extracurricular activities at his prep school despite being on the verge of flunking out. While he attempts to mount his theatrical opus on the high school stage, he finds himself falling in love with elementary school teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). Max's crush brings him into conflict with his curmudgeonly, older friend (Bill Murray), who happens to also be romantically interested in her. Come for Murray's quiet exasperation with his annoying teenage sons, and stay for the priceless exchange in which Dr. Peter Flynn (Luke Wilson) says, "These are O.R. scrubs," to which Max replies, "O.R. they?"

• Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams

• Director: Wes Anderson

• Year: 1998

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

When deadbeat rocker Dewey (Jack Black) takes on a substitute teaching job in a desperate bid to earn enough money to keep his roommate off his back, he discovers a classroom full of elementary school students waiting to be transformed into a pint-sized rock band. Thus, the "School of Rock" is born. Jack Black was born for the role of a deeply dysfunctional mentor who offers a sense of chaos mixed with his genuine support for his students. "School of Rock" wouldn't be the outright classic that it is without its deep bench of young actors, all of whom are strong performers and preternaturally talented musicians.

• Starring: Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White

• Director: Richard Linklater

• Year: 2003

• Runtime: 108 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

The first entry in Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy, "Shaun of the Dead" is a comedic take on the traditional zombie film. Shaun (Simon Pegg) doesn't have a lot going for him. He works a dead-end job and seems to be perpetually disappointing his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), who wants them to take the next step in their lives together. Luckily (or unluckily), Shaun gets the perfect opportunity to prove himself when zombies descend upon their town, and he and his best friend, Ed (Nick Frost), must step up to defend the people they care about. Sweet, scary, and genuinely funny, "Shaun of the Dead" is a true original.

• Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Lucy Davis

• Director: Edgar Wright

• Year: 2004

• Runtime: 97 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

In this classic Buster Keaton silent film, the stone-faced comedian stars as a young projectionist who daydreams constantly about being a famous detective and wooing the woman of his dreams. "Sherlock Jr" features plenty of Keaton's trademark stunts and practical effects, including a notable fantasy sequence in which he is transported into the world of the film. The scenes keep changing around him so that one minute he's standing in a peaceful garden, the next in front of a speeding train. 

• Starring: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Ward Crane

• Director: Buster Keaton

• Year: 1924

• Runtime: 48 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

You would be forgiven for considering "Singin' in the Rain" just a musical. After all, it is one of the very best of that genre. But as a parody of old Hollywood, especially in its depiction of silent film diva, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), it packs more humor into its runtime than many movies that are promoted as straight comedies. Lina, with her boorish behavior and comically screechy voice ill-suited for the transition to talkies, and perpetually quipping sidekick, Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), provide plenty to laugh at in between musical numbers.

• Starring: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds

• Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

• Year: 1952

• Runtime: 102 minutes

• Rating: G

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

It just makes sense. If you're hiding from the Mob, a nunnery has to be the last place they would think to look, right? Anyway, that's the logic in "Sister Act." When Deloris (Whoopi Goldberg) witnesses a murder, she is swiftly whisked away for her protection, posing as the newest nun in a convent in California. The quiet life doesn't particularly suit her, but she finds an unexpected outlet in running the convent's choir. "Sister Act" was a massive hit at the box office, ultimately earning over $230 million worldwide — not bad for a relatively inexpensive production with a budget of $31 million.

• Starring: Whoopi Goldberg, Maggie Smith, Kathy Najimy

• Director: Emile Ardolino

• Year: 1992

• Runtime: 100 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 74%

The third collaboration between director George Roy Hill and actor Paul Newman, "Slap Shot" is a quintessential sports comedy. Set in a Rust Belt factory town whose best days are far behind it, the film follows the exploits of a local hockey team that is willing to resort to desperate (and violent) measures to win. Newman stars as the team's goalie and coach, who encourages his team to play as dirty as they can — even by the standards of hockey, a sport that can be notoriously brutal. Although it received mixed reviews when it was first released, it has since grown to become a cult classic. Dan Epstein of Rolling Stone called it "the greatest sports flick of the 1970s."

• Starring: Paul Newman, Michael Ontkean, Lindsay Crouse

• Director: George Roy Hill

• Year: 1977

• Runtime: 123 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

What can you say about "Some Like It Hot" except that it might just be a perfect comedy? Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon star as two musicians who have to pose as women and flee to Florida in a girls' band after running afoul of the Chicago Mob in the roaring '20s. Of course, it doesn't take long before Joe (Curtis), posing as an heir to an oil fortune begins to woo lead singer Sugar (Monroe). A perfect blend of physical comedy and wit, Roger Ebert called "Some Like it Hot," "One of the enduring treasures of the movies, a film of inspiration and meticulous craft."

• Starring: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe

• Director: Billy Wilder

• Year: 1959

• Runtime: 120 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Change is never easy, especially if you're two emotionally-stunted men in your 40s who find yourselves sharing a room with your new stepbrother. In "Step Brothers," Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play a hilariously hostile duo, wildly resentful of each other and the fact that their retiree parents have suddenly gotten married and changed the dynamics of their home lives. Packed full of brilliant one-liners and a surprising amount of heart, "Step Brothers" is a delightfully raucous comedy that allows both actors to truly let loose.

• Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen

• Director: Adam McKay

• Year: 2008

• Runtime: 95 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 55%

"The Sting" is arguably the best heist film in the history of cinema. Every step of the way, it's so perfectly thought out that you can't help but stand in awe of it. Yet, one thing that frequently gets overlooked is how genuinely funny it is. Robert Redford stars as a two-bit grifter who enlists the aid of the retired Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) to pull a massive con job on Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), an Irish mobster. If you want to see perfect comedic timing, watch the sequence in which Gondorff poses as a drunk and enters into a poker game with Lonnegan intending to annoy him almost to the point of speechlessness and then cheating him out of thousands of dollars. They don't make them like this anymore.

• Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw

• Director: George Roy Hill

• Year: 1973

• Runtime: 129 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

In Depression-era Los Angeles, John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is a famous movie director who suddenly realizes how out of touch he is with the common man. On a whim, he decides to ride the rails as a transient. To his surprise, he finds himself ill-equipped to cope with the realities of life outside the bubble of glamorous Hollywood. The situation is made all the more difficult when he is knocked unconscious, loses his memory, and ends up working on a chain gang. "Sullivan's Travels" is packed full of wry humor and insightful social commentary.

• Starring: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick

• Director: Preston Sturges

• Year: 1941

• Runtime: 91 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

"Superbad" was such a big deal in 2007 that you probably saw a whole lot of people wearing "McLovin" name tags on Halloween that year. A high school comedy that was years in the making, "Superbad" was the first feature film to come from real-life friends and writing team Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg — who started the script when they were in high school themselves — and was an immediate critical and commercial hit. Still, it's not some combination of good reviews and a huge box office haul that makes "Superbad" special; a lot of movies achieve those things. What makes "Superbad" special is the insular focus on its main duo — Jonah Hill's Seth and Michael Cera's Evan — and their unexpectedly touching friendship, which finds itself seriously tested on one of their final wild nights before they head off to separate colleges. Right from the beginning, Hill and Cera's chemistry is perfect, paving the way for other "last night of high school" movies like "Booksmart" and making their characters feel so lived-in that all of their barbs and jokes land hard.

The overall tone of "Superbad" lets Evan and Seth's friendship remain earnest and even sweet while also characterizing the quick, quippy style that Rogen and Goldberg would bring to future projects like "This is the End" (think comebacks like, "Take off that vest. You look like Aladdin"). While Evan and Seth end up on their own odyssey trying to buy booze for a party to impress some girls, their other friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plass) — whose newly-obtained fake I.D. simply reads "McLovin" and says he hails from the great state of Hawaii — ends up joyriding with two beautifully irresponsible cops played by Bill Hader and Rogen himself, at which point their storylines collide like a car accident at a perfectly messy high school bash. "Superbad" is weird, heartfelt, and gut-bustingly funny. Plus, in case you forgot, it introduced a major Hollywood player to the scene: a young, smirking redhead named Emma Stone. (Nina Starner)

• Starring: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plass
• Director: Greg Mottola
• Runtime: 113 minutes
• Year: 2007
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 87%

There are exactly three things that separate "The Thin Man" from every other film: One is the incredible, crackling energy that floats between its stars, William Powell and Myrna Loy, who play a married detective couple. The second is the fast-paced, clever dialogue that they shoot back and forth throughout the film. It's quick enough to give you whiplash if you're not careful. The third is the presence of Asta the Wire Fox Terrier (played by Skippy), who was a stalwart of cinema in the 1930s but was rarely utilized as well as she is here. A great couple, snappy dialogue, and an adorable dog — what more could you ask for?

• Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan

• Director: W.S. Van Dyck II

• Year: 1934

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

It's a mark of a truly great comedy when some of its bits become engrained in popular culture. "This Is Spinal Tap" doesn't just have one or two truly great, endlessly quotable moments — it's filled with them. Of course, you have the amps that go up to 11 in case you need the music to be loud. You've got the iconic image of a comically small Stonehenge monument being lowered onto the stage with great ceremony. And there is the endless procession of drummers meeting untimely deaths. But "This Is Spinal Tap" is also peppered with delightful one-liners that you only catch on your third or even 10th viewing.

• Starring: Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer

• Director: Rob Reiner

• Year: 1984

• Runtime: 82 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

It's kind of fun that "Three Amigos" is on this list alongside "Galaxy Quest" because, in a lot of ways, the latter wouldn't have been made without the former. In "Three Amigos," a trio of silent-era Western stars is hired by a Mexican woman to protect her small village from an outlaw. The Amigos think that this is an acting gig — all for show — never realizing that they are expected to be the heroes they portray onscreen. With a great line-up of Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Chevy Chase (three of the biggest names in comedy at the time), "Three Amigos" won the hearts of 1980s audiences.

• Starring: Steve Martin, Martin Short, Chevy Chase

• Director: John Landis

• Year: 1986

• Runtime: 105 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 45%

After taking off like a rocket, Chris Farley left us all too soon. But before his unfortunate departure from this mortal coil, he led an all-time great comedy that has defied the stuck-up sensibilities of '90s critics and become a modern classic that is endlessly re-watchable.

"Tommy Boy" follows slacker and recent college graduate Tommy Callahan (Farley) as the sudden death of his father (Brian Dennehy) forces him to take over the family's thriving auto parts factory in Sandusky, Ohio as it's struggling to launch a new brake pad division. With the potential loss of hundreds of jobs and the fate of the town on the table, Tommy hits the road with his father's reluctant right-hand man Richard (David Spade) with a plan to keep the business alive. Tommy and Richard's playful rivalry delivers the laughs, and Farley's earnest doofus brings just the right amount of heart to the table to make this one both charming and hilarious. Unlike some of Farley's work that followed, his broader, slapstick comedy approach wasn't overwhelmingly over the top, and the story constructed around the character actually makes you care about the bumbling man, his family, and the town he's trying so desperately to save.

On a couple of specific notes, "Tommy Boy" also sports a distinct score (by "Galaxy Quest" composer David Newman) that puts a lively spring in the comedy's step, with memorable themes that outshine some blockbuster compositions. Plus, few comedies have shots as dynamic as the one that seamlessly transitions from an overhead shot of a wedding reception crowd gathering around the body of Tommy's father after he's just had a heart attack to a low angle shot of Tommy and various friends and family mourning around his grave site. There's much more to this comedy than meets the eye, and it's a real slice of Americana in the best way possible.

• Starring: Chris Farley, David Spade, Brian Dennehy, Bo Derek, Rob Lowe, Julie Warner, Dan Aykroyd
• Director: Peter Segal
• Year: 1995
• Runtime: 97 minutes
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 40% (which is criminal)

It's not the easiest thing in the world to make a comedy about Nazis, especially while World War II was still raging. However, famed director Ernst Lubitsch works his magic with "To Be or Not to Be" and somehow pulls it off. The film stars Carole Lombard and Jack Benny as the two leads in a Polish theatre troupe who get mixed up in a resistance plot and have to use all their acting skills to pull one over on the inept Nazis who have just invaded. The genius of "To Be or Not to Be" is in taking terror away from the Nazis and turning the ominous stormtroopers into incompetent bureaucrats who are too intimidated by their superiors to avoid being outwitted by the resourceful actors.

• Starring: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack

• Director: Ernst Lubitsch

• Year: 1942

• Runtime: 109 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

When you're a demanding Method actor who has alienated everyone in the New York theatre community, what options do you have but to pretend to be a middle-aged Southern actress to finagle a role on a daytime soap opera? That's the plot of "Tootsie." Dustin Hoffman stars, playing both the pretentious Michael Dorsey as well as his drawling, tough-as-nails female counterpart, Dorothy Michaels. As Dorothy, Michael encounters the challenges and everyday harassment that women have to put up with. This gives him fresh insight into gender politics. "Tootsie" was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, Jessica Lange winning for best supporting actress as Hoffman's soap costar and love interest.

• Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr

• Director: Sydney Pollack

• Year: 1982

• Runtime: 111 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

"Toy Story" was the first computer-animated feature film. It changed animation forever and set the standard for Pixar in the coming decades: feel-everything movies that were full of heartache and laughs. The concept of "Toy Story" is simple yet brilliant and rife for creative exploration: What if our toys came to life when we weren't looking? What if they had emotions as big as ours? And, taking it even further — what if a toy didn't realize it was a toy?

Enter Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Tim Allen, a futuristic, high-tech spaceman. His macho bravado is the perfect foil to the more neurotic Woody (Tom Hanks), a 1950s-era Western sheriff. Hanks' distinctive, slightly nasal voice has a comforting and down-to-earth quality that makes him so endearing as Andy's favorite toy. "Toy Story" uses this classic cowboy vs. aliens aesthetic to highlight Buzz and Woody's differences. The playful humor in "Toy Story" comes from the tension between Woody's exasperation and Buzz's wholehearted belief that he is on a mission to defeat the evil Emperor Zurg and has the ability to fly or shoot destructive lasers.

So much of the comedy also emerges from how seriously the toys take their identities and contemplate all the different ways that new toys are acquired — Christmas, birthdays, etc. — or discarded — garage sales, moving, etc. — and how this might change the dynamic of their playroom. Their relationship to their owners is so significant that Buzz even has a meltdown when he comes into the possession of the neighbor girl, transformed into the slurring, flower hat-wearing Mrs. Nesbitt who enjoys tea parties. "Toy Story" is a clever and imaginative film with sharp wit that completely transforms how we feel about the magic of playtime and our favorite toys. (Caroline Madden)

• Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles 
• Director: John Lasseter
• Year: 1995
• Runtime: 81 min
• Rating: G
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

What happens when two conniving old billionaires (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche) decide to perform their own private social experiments? "Trading Places" happens. To determine whether morality is born into a person through good breeding, or if education and socioeconomic advantages teach someone how to be decent, they use two very different men as guinea pigs. They take the wealthy Louis (Dan Aykroyd) and essentially drop him into the gutter, and they invite small-time grifter Billy Ray (Eddie Murphy) to join their stockbroking firm. And just like that, comedy ensues, as the pair eventually discover the source of the scheme and seek their revenge.

• Starring: Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Lee Curtis

• Director: John Landis

• Year: 1983

• Runtime: 116 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

In the grand tradition of "Three Amigos" and "Galaxy Quest," Ben Stiller takes the tried and true comedy framework of putting actors into the real situations that they'd otherwise be pretend to be part of in front of Hollywood cameras and mixes it with the classic war movie formula inspired by the likes of Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" and Oliver Stone's "Platoon."

"Tropic Thunder" follows an ensemble of various eccentric and spoiled actors — washed up action star Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), pretentious, acclaimed award winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), bombastic, drug-addicted comedy superstar Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), rising teen actor Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel), and rapper turned actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) — who think they're participating in a guerrilla-style filmmaking tactic by their frazzled director (Steve Coogan). But in reality, they end up sparking a real turf war with a heroin-producing gang known as Flaming Dragon in the middle of southeast Vietnam.

With a hilarious ensemble of actors, including a biting, satirical, standout performance by Robert Downey Jr. as a white Australian Method actor taking his role as a Black soldier far too seriously, "Tropic Thunder" offers some of the biggest laughs of the 21st century while sending up some of the most ridiculous aspects of show business. That includes Matthew McConaughey as a dedicated Hollywood agent and Tom Cruise appearing unrecognizable as a rage-filled studio executive with some of the most gut-busting outbursts ever portrayed on screen. Plus, it helps that there are some genuinely impressive action sequences alongside all the laugh-out-loud comedy. This is a big Hollywood comedy that delivers on every level, and if you think there are elements that haven't aged well in recent years, you're missing the point of the joke, folks. 

• Starring: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Jay Baruchel, Brandon T. Jackson, Danny McBride, Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise
• Director: Ben Stiller
• Year: 2008
• Runtime: 107 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 82%

"Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" is such a phenomenal parody that it basically ruined the entire sub-genre of music biopics. Yes, even though Hollywood keeps churning out biographical movies about famous musicians, "Walk Hard" took them to task in a perfectly absurd fashion, complete with a star-studded cast, most of which goes officially uncredited in the movie.

Mostly inspired by the lives of Johnny Cash and Ray Charles, as depicted in the films "Walk the Line" and "Ray," the film follows John C. Reilly as a young country singer with a tragic past who makes his way through a world of fame filled with all things that come with a life in rock and roll. With touches of biographical details from a variety of other musicians, including Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, and John Lennon, the film skewers the drama, trauma, and other tropes that seem to drive the life stories of every famous musician given the Hollywood biopic treatment. Though it plays less deadpan than something like "Airplane!," it's no less brilliant in its parody of this specific genre, including famous faces popping up like the Beatles (played hilariously by Paul Rudd, Justin Long, Jack Black, and Jason Schwartzman) and a quick karate-chopping appearance by Elvis Presley (Jack White).

But perhaps the best part of "Walk Hard" is the outstanding soundtrack that acts as its own spoof of a wide variety of musical styles across several decades. The cast and crew actually recorded a total of 40 original songs for "Walk Hard," of which 33 ended up in the movie. Not only do the songs themselves feel genuine and authentic of the time period they're emulating, but they're also flat out funny. One duet between John C. Reilly and Jenna Fischer, riffing on the relationship between Johnny Cash and June Carter, begins with Dewey Cox singing, "In my mind I'm blowing you ... some kisses," and it sounds just like a classic, romantic, country ballad. (Ethan Anderton)

• Starring: John C. Reilly, Tim Meadows, Jenna Fischer, Kristen Wiig, Matt Besser, Chris Parnell
• Director: Jake Kasdan
• Year: 2007
• Runtime: 96 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 75%

Based on a recurring "Saturday Night Live" sketch featuring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey as the hosts of a public access television show, "Wayne's World" quickly took on a life of its own. Wayne (Myers) and Garth (Carvey) are rock enthusiasts who are perfectly content just sharing their love of music on their show and partying their nights away. One day, studio executive Benjamin Kane (Rob Lowe) shows up and tries to turn their beloved "Wayne's World" program into something it isn't. Together, they fight to save their show, famously headbanging to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" along the way.

• Starring: Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Tia Carrere

• Director: Penelope Spheeris

• Year: 1992

• Runtime: 95 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%

During the 1990s, Adam Sandler was very big into screamy, over-the-top characters with a comically short fuse. That made films like "Happy Gilmore" a success, but what we get in "The Wedding Singer" is a refreshingly toned-down version of his patented schtick. He stars as an affable wedding singer who is left at the altar and finds himself falling in love with a waitress (Drew Barrymore), who just happens to be engaged to a sleazy stockbroker. Sandler and Barrymore are magnetic together, and the fact that they make a genuinely good on-screen couple is one of the film's most pleasant surprises.

• Starring: Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Christine Taylor

• Director: Frank Coraci

• Year: 1998

• Runtime: 96 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 69%

Sometimes, critics get it wrong. That's definitely the case with "Wet Hot American Summer," which sits at a measly 38% on Rotten Tomatoes but has a 75% popcorn meter from audiences. The satirical summer camp comedy is a pretty unique flavor of film, to be certain, with a screenplay from David Wain and co-writer Michael Showalter. The humor is extraordinarily dry, a kind of wry satire that pokes fun at teen comedies and camp counselor films but delivers that satire with a completely straight face. The duo's "They Came Together" is another perfect example of their humor not working with critics yet winning over a cult audience, but "Wet Hot American Summer" has become a bonafide cult classic. It features an ensemble cast of comedy greats, including young Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd, plus Bradley Cooper's first movie role, as a closeted camp counselor who gets it on with a fellow counselor played by Michael Ian Black in a pivotal scene.

For those who can get on its weird wavelength, "Wet Hot American Summer" is absolutely hilarious, riffing on 1980s teen comedies without spoofing them directly. They play with the tropes and stereotypes from those films, like having older actors playing teenagers, a focus on melodrama, and more, but we don't see direct, obvious homages to, say, "Porky's" or "Animal House." It's a little bit smarter and more surreal, and it makes "Wet Hot American Summer" a work of comedy genius. Seriously, if you can watch Rudd's cafeteria temper tantrum or Christopher Meloni talking to a can of vegetables (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin) without cracking up, you might be dead inside.

The cult response to the movie has been so great that there's a documentary about the making of the movie, a prequel series called "First Day of Camp," and a sequel series called "10 Years Later," all on Netflix. It might've taken a while for "Wet Hot American Summer" to get proper appreciation, but it's finally as beloved as it should be. (Danielle Ryan) 

• Starring: Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks, Molly Shannon, Janeane Garofalo, Paul Rudd, Christopher Meloni, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Ian Black, Ken Marino, Michael Showalter, Bradley Cooper
• Director: David Wain
• Year: 2001
• Runtime: 92 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 38% 

Drawing heavily on screwball comedies from the 1930s and 1940s, "What's Up, Doc?" stars Ryan O'Neal as a musicologist who is unhappily married to his neurotic wife (played by the incomparable Madeline Kahn). While on a work trip to San Francisco, he meets the charming but unpredictable Judy (Barbra Streisand). Chaos ensues when they and two other guests at their hotel have the same luggage and find themselves accidentally absconding with one another's suitcases, leading to each desperately trying to track down their missing possessions. James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave special praise to director Peter Bogdonavich's contributions to the film, saying, "Only a director in complete control can fashion something so effortlessly chaotic."

• Starring: Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Madeline Kahn

• Director: Peter Bogdonavich

• Year: 1972

• Runtime: 94 minutes

• Rating: G

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

Love at first sight is overrated. What we have in "When Harry Met Sally" is the slowest of slow burns in terms of romance. Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) meet straight out of college, but it takes at least a decade for them to grow from somewhat hostile acquaintances to friends to lovers. Still, their chemistry is there from the very beginning, and that (along with truly excellent supporting performances from Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher, the two greatest wingmen on the planet) is why "When Harry Met Sally" remains one of the most charming romantic comedies of all time.

• Starring: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher

• Director: Rob Reiner

• Year: 1989

• Runtime: 95 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

Starring Richard. E Grant and Paul McCann as two struggling young actors, "Withnail and I" is a window into life in Britain in the early 1980s. With their flat in complete ruin and their careers more or less permanently stalled, they take a trip to the country that is not without its own problems. The film succeeds on the strength of the two lead performances (it's especially remarkable that this is Grant's feature film debut) and the intensely quotable dialogue that brings these two misfits to life.

• Starring: Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths

• Director: Bruce Robinson

• Year: 1987

• Runtime: 102 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

In "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," one of director Pedro Almodóvar's most successful early productions, Carmen Maura stars as a voiceover artist who finds herself being unceremoniously left by her long-term boyfriend, Ivan. As she sets off in search of an explanation from Ivan, she is caught up in a seemingly endless series of surreal encounters. Along with many other critics, Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune gave it a positive review, calling it "a feminist comedy with real bite; it always brings down the house."

• Starring: Antonio Banderas, Carmen Maura, Julieta Serrano

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 88 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

At its heart, Robert Zemeckis' 1988 live-action/animation hybrid is a classic film noir more than it is a comedy. The comedy comes from the fact that multiple characters in its 1947 Los Angeles-set detective story are living drawings who can interact with flesh-and-blood humans. Seeing the livewire cartoon character Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer) interacting with the grizzled alcoholic detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) offers a visual juxtaposition that is just as funny as it is dazzling. The special effects for "Roger Rabbit" won the film a special Academy Award in 1989, and it was well-deserved.

The conceit of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" is that cartoon films are actually filmed in live-action on real sets, but that the stars are animated, real-world denizens. Called toons, the animated actors have their own sub-studios in Hollywood, although humans are still in charge; there is an undercurrent of racial inequality running throughout "Roger Rabbit." The beleaguered Roger hasn't been performing very well recently, and Roger's boss, R.K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern) — hoping to "wise up the rabbit" — hires Eddie Valiant to follow Roger's animated femme fatale wife Jessica (Kathleen Turner) to take pictures of an affair she may be having with Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye). It's a classic and somewhat adult noir story that leads to Acme's murder and the possibility that a toon killed a human. Did Roger do it, or was he framed? Eddie will have to investigate to be sure.

Zemeckis created excellent visuals for "Roger Rabbit," but, just as impressively, managed to license hundreds of recognizable cartoon stars from Disney, Warner Bros., MGM, and many others. The scene wherein Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse appear on-screen together, audiences likely knew, required hundreds of hours of careful legal negotiation. This was decades before films like "Space Jam: A New Legacy," "Ready Player One" and "Deadpool & Wolverine" made such pop culture crossovers common. (Witney Seibold)

• Starring: Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Kathleen Turner, Charles Fleischer
• Director: Robert Zemeckis
• Year: 1988
• Runtime: 104 min
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

You know you've made it into the realm of literary classics when you get a bona fide movie parody of your seminal work — directed by Mel Brooks, no less. "Young Frankenstein" stars Gene Wilder as a descendant of the infamous Victor Frankenstein who is convinced he's just a normal, ordinary doctor, and has answered quite enough questions about his kooky, grave-robbing ancestor, thank you very much. While on a trip to the family castle, he becomes obsessed with reanimating a corpse — an accomplishment he achieves with hilariously mixed results, aided by a note-perfect Marty Feldman as the notorious lab assistant Igor.

• Starring: Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle

• Director: Mel Brooks

• Year: 1974

• Runtime: 105 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

What can we say? Sometimes there's more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking. "Zoolander" doesn't always get the credit it deserves as a delightful early 2000s comedy, but Ben Stiller is fantastic as the hapless Derek Zoolander. A male model, Zoolander's problems largely revolve around a lack of respect from his coal-mining father, the death of his roommates in a tragic "gas fight," and his devastating inability to turn left on the catwalk. His life gets considerably more complicated when an evil fashion designer (played by Will Ferrell — who else?) brainwashes him to murder the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Packed full of fantastic one-liners and a great supporting turn from Owen Wilson, "Zoolander" is endlessly entertaining.

• Starring: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell

• Director: Ben Stiller

• Year: 2001

• Runtime: 89 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 64%

In 1986, director Spike Lee hadn't been proclaimed the next big thing yet. All he had was this little film, "She's Gotta Have It," which despite barely getting funded, became one of the cornerstones of the independent film movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It stars Tracy Camilla Johns as Nola, a 

liberated woman who isn't particularly interested in monogamy. In the film, she dates three men at the same time, partially because she finds different qualities appealing in each of them but also because she doesn't feel the desire to be tied down to just one person. Although it has some problematic elements (Lee himself has said that his one directorial regret is a sequence in this film), for the most part, it's a breezy, endearing introduction to his career.

• Starring: Tracy Camilla Johns, Tommy Redmond Hicks, John Canada Terrell

• Director: Spike Lee

• Year: 1986

• Runtime: 84 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%