The 100 best comedy movies

‘One name? Who are you, Seal?’

Director: Greg Mottola

Cast: Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Foul-mouthed kids are a staple of comedy, from ET ("shut up, penis breath!") to South Park. But they don’t come much more sailor-tongued than Michael Cera and Jonah Hill in this goofy rites-of-passage comedy. Less than a decade since its release, the unreconstructed boys-iness of the film already feels a bit dated (our heroes start with a discussion of hardcore porn and go downhill from there), but it helps that the characters are truly sweet, hapless and well-meaning. And Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s Mclovin is an icon for the ages. TH

'Climbing! Plodding! Mushing! Back and forth... back and forth.'

Director: Charlie Chaplin

Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Mack Swain

Chaplin’s little tramp finds himself braving the Alaskan gold rush in this celebrated silent feature, whose surreal invention – watch him fend off starvation by chomping down his boots – has gone down in screen history. The romantic asides (his poignant longing for a flighty showgirl) still play too, showcasing the sophistication of Chaplin’s acting as well as his facility for balletic knockabout. Lovely stuff, but do try to see the silent original rather than the awkwardly narrated sound reissue. TJ

‘Ooh, somebody stop me!’

Director: Chuck Russell

Cast: Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz, Peter Riegert

When The Mask first came out in 1994, reviewers raved about the ultra-modern special effects used to turn Jim Carrey into a living cartoon. While the CGI might not have stood the test of time, Carrey’s elastic performance as shy nice guy Stanley and his alter ego The Mask is just as enthralling. Jim’s Mask is a grotesque green-faced schmooze-ball with a passion for farting, cheesy chat-up lines and Cameron Diaz. And, most importantly, he’s sssssmokin’! KL

‘It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room.’

Director: James L Brooks

Cast: William Hurt, Albert Brooks, Holly Hunter

If you thought Anchorman was the only cult comedy about life in a television newsroom, you’ve been missing out. Broadcast News is a cutting satire about the Washington DC office of a national television network. It follows a love triangle between a news-producer (Holly Hunter), her good-looking anchor (William Hurt) and her newshound reporter (Albert Brooks). Their romances and professional aspirations play out amidst the backstabbing and bitching of a true-to-life high-pressure office. Plus, it features a bonus cameo from Jack Nicholson. KL

‘God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. We are your humble servants. Please give us the power to blow people's minds with our high voltage rock.’

Director: Richard Linklater

Cast: Jack Black, Mike White

Long before his rockin’ goofball schtick began to get tiring, Jack Black rocked our socks and won our hearts with his first breakout hit, the tale of a heavy metal frontman who poses as a substitute teacher and ends up educating a class full of misfits in the ways of the wailin’ solo and the well-turned leather trouser. Richard Linklater’s film pretty much defines the term ‘ebullient’, sailing on a wave of pin-sharp one-liners, constant heavy riffage and plucky performances from the young cast. TH

‘People say, “You must have been the class clown.” And I say, “No, I wasn’t. But I sat next to the class clown and I studied him.”’

Director: Christopher Guest

Cast: Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara

As axeman Nigel Tufnel, Christopher Guest was part of the timeless success of This Is Spinal Tap. But he also picked up the filmmaking baton, going on to direct masterworks of situational improv such as Best in Show, For Your Consideration and this movie. The superb cast play members of a small-town, amateur-dramatic society pinning their hopes on a visit from a big-shot critic, though what he’ll make of the pageant ‘Red, White and Blaine’ is regrettably clear to everyone else. Often painful, sometimes moving, frequently hilarious, it’s an oddball delight and a tribute to self-deluding ambition everywhere. BW

‘I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If he was a carpenter, I wondered what he charged for bookshelves.’

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Georges Adet

Woody Allen took his parodic flair to new heights of sophistication in this arty romp for those with a solid grounding in Russian literature. Modern sexual neuroses play out in a Tolstoyan context, as Woody’s cowardly Russian would-be writer pines for unattainable Diane Keaton while fighting off Napoleon’s invading army. Yes, there are even costumed battle scenes in what was Allen’s most ambitious production to date, while the pointed one-liners, warm romantic chemistry and amusing steals from Ingmar Bergman provide much grown-up fun. TJ

‘There’s a lot to be said for making people laugh. It isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing in this cock-eyed caravan.’

Director: Preston Sturges

Cast: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake

Sullivan’s Travels is perhaps best known today as being the movie that ‘inspired’ the Coens’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but this meaning-of-life masterpiece deserves so much more. At once witty, wacky, wholesome, devious and devastatingly smart, it showcases director Preston Sturges at the absolute pinnacle of his game, offering up not just a wildly entertaining Hollywood romp but a razor sharp (and explosively political) examination of why comedy matters at all. A work of genius, plain and simple. And damn, Veronica Lake! TH

‘Every now and then I get a little bit nervous then I see the fuckin’ look in your eyes...’

Director: Todd Phillips

Cast: Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn

Rebooting the frat comedy for the slightly-more-sensitive ’00s while keeping the band-of-misfits ethos intact, Old School is basically Animal House with a bigger heart and a few more grey hairs. The plot – grown-up dudes take a house near a university campus and decide, for reasons too convoluted to go into, to start their own fraternity – may be daft, but the superb script is matched by effortless performances: Will Ferrell’s Frank the Tank is a glorious creation. Oh, and the wedding band scene is genius, pure and simple. TH

‘I may be bald, but at least I'm not chickenshit like you.’

Director: George Roy Hill

Cast: Paul Newman, Michael Ontkean

Paul Newman thrives in what’s surely the least-heroic, worst-dressed role of his career as the has-been player-coach of a lower-league ice hockey team, threatened by closure just as their fortunes improve by whacking the living daylights out of their opponents. Pilloried at the time for its relentlessly salty language, George Roy Hill’s film has since gathered a considerable cult following and now stands as a milestone sports comedy that’s also a telling portrait of threatened masculinity in a declining America. Well worth discovering. TJ

‘Compared to Clouseau, Attila the Hun was a Red Cross volunteer!’

Director: Blake Edwards

Cast: Peter Sellers, Christopher Plummer

Eleven years after A Shot in the Dark, Edwards and Sellers revived the Clouseau franchise. And though several dismal cash-ins followed, quality control is still in evidence for this sequel to the first movie, with Christopher Plummer now the gem-snaffling Sir Charles and Catherine Schell battling to keep a straight face as his slinky spouse under close surveillance by a disguise-swapping Sellers. Twitchy boss Herbert Lom and ninja butler Burt Kwouk rather overplay their hand, but Sellers’ mangled Gallic vowels remain resplendent. TJ

‘It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.’

Director: Mike Judge

Cast: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston

Before The Office was a glint in Ricky and Steve’s eye, Mike Judge – the brains behind Beavis and Butthead – offered this heartfelt cry from the heart on behalf of disaffected desk monkeys everywhere. Ron Livingston plays Pete Gibbons, a profoundly demotivated corporate employee who winds up jacking it in for a get-rich-quick scheme. The plot is well handled but it’s the grating banality of day-to-day office life that really hits home – also expressed through the indignities heaped on Jennifer Aniston’s waitress. PH

‘Heil Hynkel!’

Director: Charlie Chaplin

Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard

Charlie Chaplin’s courageous 1940 satire sees him sending up Adolf Hitler as the fictional despot Adenoid Hynckel. The famous scene where he dances with a giant globe offers a comic pisstake on vaunting megalomania, though there’s also a murderous reality to Hynkel’s behaviour – and prescient talk of ‘concentration camps’. Overall, it’s more a movie about the power of comedy than a chuckle-fest in itself, since the subplot with Chaplin also playing a plucky barber rather struggles to raise a smile. TJ

‘People who talk in metaphors oughta shampoo my crotch.’

Director: James L Brooks

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt

Grumpy older man meets lonely younger woman while befriending/insulting his gay neighbour. Both edgy and heartwarming, As Good As It Gets is a relationship comedy about unlikely friendships and even less likely romance. When Jack Nicholson’s cantankerous OCD sufferer meets Helen Hunt’s kindly waitress Carol, it’s hate at first sight, but his grudging assistance to an injured neighbour (Greg Kinnear) brings the pair closer. Nicholson’s jaw-dropping insults make this worth the watch alone. AS

‘If I’m not back in five minutes... just wait longer.’

Director: Tom Shadyac

Cast: Jim Carrey, Courteney Cox, Sean Young

When ‘Snowflake’, a 500-pound dolphin and mascot of American football team the Miami Dolphins, is stolen on the eve of the Super Bowl, the only person with the animal instincts to solve the crime is Ace Ventura. Played by Jim Carrey, he’s a second-tier detective with a penchant for Hawaiian shirts and the hyperactive energy of a six-year-old. It’s Carrey at his most Carrey. Be warned: there’s a lot of toilet humour. KL

‘“Vamonos, amigos,” he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.’

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Luke Wilson

Wes Anderson’s second feature film follows three child prodigies turned adult burnouts, called back to New York by their dying father. Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson and Ben Stiller play the siblings, who function in a typically Anderson world painted in hyper-stylised strokes and grubby pastel shades. The script (especially the narration from Alec Baldwin) is full of dry wit, but it’s the sweetly sad narrative about love and disappointment that gives the film its magic. KL

‘You’re on a gravy train with biscuit wheels.’

Directors: Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly

Cast: Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Bill Murray

The laugh rate may lag slightly behind the Farrellys' twin masterpieces Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary. But this is probably the most convincingly characterised of all their films – the result of casting character actors rather than multiplex-stuffing comedians in the lead roles of a washed-up bowler and his Amish prodigy. It’s also the most sweet-natured of their films. The relationship between the two leads is genuinely affecting, and tellingly, it marks their first collaboration with soft-hearted songsmith Jonathan Richman. TH

‘Bratwurst and shillelaghs... Paging Dr. Freud!’

Director: Christopher Guest

Cast: Jane Lynch, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey

The best of Christopher Guest’s post-Spinal Tap mockumentaries (see also Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind and… actually, don’t see For Your Consideration), this chronicle of a dog show overflows with hilarious caricatures, from yuppies and A-gays to laconic backwoodsmen and addled commentators. The largely improvised material is generally geared around character rather than out-and-out gags but the simmering neuroses and blithely inane foot-in-mouth outbursts build to a fist-biting tsunami of excruciation. BW

‘Any bird can build a nest, but it’s not everyone that can lay an egg.’

Director: James W Horne

Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy

Laurel and Hardy’s frontier tale is their most varied featurette, and ranks with their very best. Having witlessly contrived to hand over a valuable property deed to a scheming saloon owner, their attempts to make amends involve an airborne mule, an ill-fated piano and much tickling. All this plus several utterly charming old-timey musical numbers (including 1970s novelty number one ‘Trail of the Lonesome Pine’) and the convincingly surreal sight of Ollie using his thumb as a lighter. Solid gold. TJ

'Mr. Hulot is off for a week by the sea. Take a seat behind his camera, and you can spend it with him.'

Director: Jacques Tati

Cast: Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud, Micheline Rolla

A sleepy French seaside resort becomes the playground for director-star Jacques Tati’s lanky, kindly middle-aged bachelor Monsieur Hulot, whose efforts at enjoying himself invariably end in disaster. Former mime Tati essentially dispenses with dialogue, but while his approach certainly draws on silent comedy, he's less interested in quick-fire slapstick than slowly escalating complications whose intricate choreography often proves more whimsical, or beautiful even, than out-and-out hilarious. Filled with sunny nostalgia and bittersweet longing, its funny-sad demeanour is quintessential Tati. TJ

‘Free cable is the ultimate aphrodisiac.’

Director: Ben Stiller

Cast: Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Leslie Mann

Produced by Judd Apatow, directed by Ben Stiller and starring Jim Carrey, Jack Black and Matthew Broderick, The Cable Guy has all the building blocks of a legendary lad comedy. The film is no bromance though – Carrey plays a manic cable guy who drags newly single Broderick into his twisted fantasy world. Featuring a weird scene where a trip to a Medieval-themed restaurant leads to the two pals jousting viciously, this dark comedy’s strengths lie in revealing the nasty side of Carrey’s acting persona. KL

‘I know a little German. He’s sitting over there.’

Directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker

Cast: Val Kilmer, Omar Sharif, Billy J Mitchell

Eager to parody the WWII spy flick but keenly aware that, despite what Mel Brooks might think, the Nazis really weren’t all that funny, the Flying High! team of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker hit upon the notion of a dimwit American rock star sent into East Berlin to infiltrate the Russkies. The result isn’t quite as rampantly gag-stuffed as either Flying High! or The Naked Gun, but the jokes there are land hard: Peter Cushing’s amazing giant eye, Kilmer’s pitch-perfect Beach Boys parody and some timeless wordplay (see above). TH

‘Birdie num nums.’

Director: Blake Edwards

Cast: Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet

Today it is offensive – but back in 1968, people thought nothing of one of the country’s most beloved comedians darkening his face to play a bumbling Indian actor at the party of a high-ranking studio exec. And the truth is, the filmmakers needn’t have bothered with questionable identities and extra make-up because Peter Sellers could have pulled it off by simply being himself. From the moment his overly inquisitive extra arrives at the party, a battery of misfortunes unfold as the clumsy but well-meaning guest blunders from one hilarious mishap into another. DA

‘Nobody wears beige to a bank robbery!’

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Woody Allen, Janet Margolin, Marcel Hillaire

If you try to rob a bank, it helps if you can convince the bank you’re a robber. And if you play the cello, it’s maybe best not to join a marching brass band. Such is the life of Virgil Starkwell, the remarkably committed and useless criminal. Take the Money and Run, Woody Allen’s directorial debut, is a messy, at times romantic, often baggy film, full of sight gags, overlaid with some of Allen's most trusted nightclub material. If this lacks the emotional dexterity of Allen’s mid-career film, it remains a remarkable early calling card for one of the twentieth-century’s defining comic actor/directors. TS

‘There's a lotta things about me you don't know anything about, Dottie.’

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Paul Reubens, Elizabeth Daily, Mark Holton

Paul Reubens’s signature comedy creation, mischief-making bow-tied big kid Pee-wee Herman, was already a big live draw before Tim Burton’s movie preserved this unique persona for celluloid immortality. A wide-eyed innocent abroad and a prissy egotist with a malevolent streak, Pee-wee certainly dances to his own beat, though it’s one Burton is certainly attuned to, creating a cavalcade of carnivalesque wit, wonder and fear as the dauntless protagonist crosses America in search of his beloved stolen bicycle. TJ

‘It’s a father's function to save his son from the mistakes he made.’

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

Cast: Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn

A satirical portrait of a womaniser who messes up the great romance right in front of him, this Technicolor delight from the legendary Ernst Lubitsch features the screen’s most elegant visualisation of hell: all marble columns and shiny floors, presided over by Laird Cregar’s suave Satan, who decides whether new arrival Don Ameche is to go ‘down below’ or ‘up above’. This is a sophisticated watch – if a little forgiving of male foibles, and more likely to give you an attack of wry smiles than out-and-out guffaws. TJ

‘I make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?’

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro

An unusual entry in a list of comedy movies, you might think – but top comedians voted for it, and here it is. And hey, Martin Scorsese’s ferocious gangster flick is damn funny, when it isn’t busy being terrifying, paranoid and ultraviolent. Joe Pesci‘s rabid chihuahua Tommy may grab most of the comic lines, including the infamous "funny how?" speech. But Ray Liotta is no slouch in the raise-a-smile department, his sheer coke-fuelled haplessness a vital corrective to the steely gangster heroes of The Godfather. TH

‘I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in braille. I used to rub the dirty parts.’

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalbán

The plot of Woody Allen’s second feature movie sounds like a Seth Rogen stoner comedy: lazy guy stumbles into job as leader of a South American revolution. Except this is a Woody Allen film, so amidst daft slapstick, cutting one-liners and guerrilla warfare you’ll find commentary on the corruption of power and the role of the media. It’s a bit mad – there’s one scene where someone orders 1,000 grilled cheese sandwiches – but it’s one of Allen’s best. KL

‘Did you ever find Bugs Bunny attractive when he put on a dress and played girl bunny?’

Director: Penelope Spheeris

Cast: Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Tia Carrere

Heavy metal was under fire from all angles in 1992: Nirvana were on the up, Tipper Gore was on the rampage and, weirdly, poodle hair and spandex just didn’t seem that cool any more. But the final nail in the coffin – unintentionally, it seems – was poor old innocent Wayne Campbell. In peeking behind the double denim and studs to uncover the cuddly mid-30s stay-at-home air-guitar nerd that dwells inside every hardcore cock-rocker, Penelope Spheeris and Mike Myers simultaneously celebrated the scene’s finest elements – the solos, the camaraderie, the true icons like Alice Cooper – and lampooned its more ludicrous excesses. TH

‘You’re the vulgarian, you fuck!’

Director: Charles Crichton

Cast: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin

Perhaps the best British comedy since the heyday of Python, as John Cleese deliberately attempted to move away from satirical silliness and back to a more plot-driven, unmistakably British brand of comic caper. (He even went so far as to hire 78-year-old Ealing stalwart Charles Crichton to direct.) The result is a film which, like its slippery American heroine, is madly in love with language, from tongue-teasingly delicious sarcasm to some truly outrageous swearing. Add to this four iconic performances (five if you count the inimitable Tom Georgeson as cockernee gangster George "Unbe-fackin’-lieveable!" Thomason), and the result speaks for itself. TH

‘Nothing personal, but fuck off.’

Director: Martin Brest

Cast: Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin

A film whose reputation seems to grow with each passing year (it’s shot up by 34 places since the last time we put together this list), Midnight Run comes on like just another buddies-on-the-road comedy thriller. That is, until you notice just how flawlessly written and ferociously performed it is. Robert De Niro wisely plays it straight as the bail bondsman tracking down mob informant Charles Grodin, who proceeds to whinge and whine all the way from New York to LA. The pace is relentless, the supporting players are brilliantly sketched and the script cuts like a scalpel. TH

‘Why should I listen to you, anyway? You're a virgin who can't drive.’

Director: Amy Heckerling

Cast: Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy

Teen satire Clueless is so regularly quoted on Instagram that it’s easy to forget that the movie’s more than 20 years old. Based on Jane Austen’s Emma, the film follows shallow mall queen Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) as she guides newbie Tai (Brittany Murphy) through high school. Alicia rolls through lines like "she's a full-on Monet. From far away, it's okay, but up close, it's a big old mess" with the kind of charm only a sassy teenager with a fluffy pen can get away with, but it’s a brilliantly dorky Murphy who steals the show. KL

‘Insanity runs in my family… it practically gallops.’

Director: Frank Capra

Cast: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey

This 1944 jet-black farce about serial-killing old dears was years ahead of its time. Cary Grant’s a real trouper, all wide eyes and double takes, as he uncovers the dark secret of his dotty aunt’s cellar. He shifts into another gear when his sinister murderous brother (Raymond Massey) enters the fray. Plotted with precision, delivered with panache, still a model of controlled comic hysteria. TJ

‘He was hit by a Guinness truck. So it was quite literally the drink that killed him.’

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Robin Williams, Sally Field, Pierce Brosnan

The set-up of this 1993 family comedy might be slushy and very, very silly, but it showcases Robin Williams at his most anarchic. He plays struggling actor and divorced dad Daniel who tries to stay in his kids’ lives by dressing up as an (unconvincing and slightly creepy) older woman and getting hired by his ex-wife (Sally Field) to be the children’s nanny. What comes next is a whole lot of meddling. KL

‘I don't know very much about him, except that I love him.’

Director: Frank Capra

Cast: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert


Ask a film historian: what was the first ever romcom? Chances are they’ll tell you that it’s this this deliciously fizzy 1934 screwball comedy. Clark Gable is the newspaper hack who stumbles across a spoilt heiress (Claudette Colbert) on the bus to New York – she’s running away from her rich daddy to marry a fortune hunter. Pay attention and you’ll see elements that romcom scriptwriters have been ‘paying homage’ to ever since: a couple who can’t stand each other at first sight, quick-fire bickering and the realisation that they’re head-over-heels. Irresistible. CC

‘That wasn’t flying, that was… falling with style!’

Director: John Lasseter

Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles

A modern classic, the Pixar animation Toy Story achieved the rare feat of being equally entertaining for adults as it was for kids. When Andy’s back is turned, his toys come alive and boy, are they funny. Tom Hanks voices the adorable cowboy Woody, newly insecure when Andy acquires a snazzy new toy by the name of Buzz Lightyear. Male rivalry abounds in a zippy story with action, adventure, heart and laughs. AS

‘Into the mud, scum queen!’

Director: Carl Reiner

Cast: Steve Martin, Kathleen Turner, David Warner

The early Steve Martin movies catch comedy at a crossroads: on the surface they’re old-school slapstick romps complete with dubious innuendo, pratfalls and happy-ever-after endings, a short step from Abbott and Costello. But they also manage to incorporate the best of everything new that was happening in comedy at the time: the sight-gag overload of Flying High!, the romance of Woody Allen, the confrontational attitude of the new stand-ups and perfect surrealism of Martin’s own live act. TH

‘I, Stanley Moon, hereinafter and in the hereafter to be known as “the damned”… The damned?’

Director: Stanley Donen

Cast: Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Eleanor Bron

Forget the underwhelming remake with Brendan Fraser and Liz Hurley. The original Bedazzled is a vintage piece of swinging London comedy and probably Pete and Dud’s finest big-screen outing. Dudley Moore is a sad-sack cook mooning after a waitress (Eleanor Bron) and Peter Cook plays the devil, who procures his soul in exchange for seven wishes. What follows is a Faustian series of set-pieces – some witty, some garish, some a tad aged – that offer plenty of opportunities for the duo’s distinctive power play. BW

‘He's too nervous to kill himself. He wears his seat belt in a drive-in movie.’

Director: Gene Saks

Cast: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau

Unrepentant slob Oscar (Walter Matthau) and cleaning-obsessive neurotic Felix (Jack Lemmon) make a perfect match as two old pals driven by marriage troubles to sharing a Manhattan apartment. This film version plonks Neil Simon’s Broadway smash on screen without rethinking it for celluloid. Still, the obvious theatricality allows the performers to play to their contrasting strengths, whipping up a frenzy of love-hate exasperation underpinned by life-long friendship. It’s so funny because it’s so believable – everyone knows an Oscar and a Felix. TJ

‘Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into.’

Director: William A Seiter

Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy

Eccentric man-child Stan Laurel and roly-poly fall-guy Oliver Hardy make the screen’s most revered comedy double-act and this is reckoned to be their finest 68 minutes, as the boys plot to evade their domineering wives and slope off to their fraternal lodge convention. It all goes horribly wrong, of course, setting off a whole series of inventive, exquisitely timed sight-gags as the hapless twosome wind up hiding out in their own attic. Short, sharp and delightful. TJ

‘Does the Pope wear a funny hat?’

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter

Baby-snatching is probably not the most obvious topic for a slapstick comedy movie, but the Coen brothers manage to spin sinister crime into seedy comedy with Raising Arizona. Nicholas Cage appears as a bumbling convenience-store robber who falls in love with his prison officer (Holly Hunter). After fertility problems they decide to kidnap a just-born quintuplet. Thus starts a steamrolling caper that tumbles through a madcap depiction of the American Deep South. KL

‘I don’t want to have to read you the riot act, but I am going to have to read you some extracts from the riot act.’

Director: Armando Iannucci

Cast: Tom Hollander, Peter Capaldi, James Gandolfini

Scabrous and smart, Armando Iannucci’s political satire is the sort of film that rewards repeated viewing, if only to catch the jokes you laughed through last time round. It opens out the action from original sitcom The Thick of It by sending mad-eyed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, hapless government minister Simon Foster and their cohorts to the States, where they flip and flop for our entertainment, groping towards a coherent policy. The vulgarity is tumultuous, the wit pointed and the performances impeccably judged. Proof that transferring a great sitcom to the big screen need not be difficult, difficult, lemon difficult. GT

‘Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime!’

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Sandra Bernhard

Martin Scorsese isn’t exactly known for his comedy, although his 2013 hit The Wolf of Wall Street was perhaps the most out-and-out funny film he’s made so far. This 1982 film, which followed Raging Bull, thrives on awkward laughs as Robert De Niro’s sociopathic and deluded Rupert Pupkin is so desperate to become a successful stand-up comic (despite an apparent total lack of talent) that he hatches a crazy kidnap plot involving a chat-show host played by Jerry Lewis. It’s watch-through-the-fingers stuff – amusing, yes, but also seriously uncomfortable. DC

‘I never forget a pussy... cat.’

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Mike Myers, Elizabeth Hurley, Michael York

Take Sean Connery’s suave James Bond out of his ’60s-martini-bar comfort zone and you’re left with Austin Powers. He’s a flouncy-collared, womanising secret agent who was cryogenically frozen in the 1960s, then awoken in 1997 to battle cat-stroking villain Dr Evil. Written and starring Mike Myers in both the lead roles, the film’s storyline is as silly as it sounds but that’s what makes it so much fun. Shame about the sequels. KL

‘I was born in Dusseldorf and that is why they call me Rolf.’

Director: Mel Brooks

Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn

The beginning of the Brooks empire, and still his funniest film, The Producers combines old-school kvetch comedy, Broadway backstage hi-jinks and outright headline-grabbing bad taste to intoxicating effect. Wilder steals the show as the accountant to Mostel’s portly, conniving stage producer. The con itself – an elaborate plan to run with the takings of a show so dreadful it closes overnight – keeps things ticking along at a brisk pace, but it’s that Busby Berkeley ‘Springtime for Hitler’ scene that remains most vividly in the memory. DA

‘Best play ever, man.’

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams

Some films create an entire world, with its own rules and its own geography. Rushmore is one of the greatest of these. The grounds and environs of Rushmore Academy are at once familiar and strange, populated by bored millionaires and Scottish vagabonds, lost aquatic heroes and their grieving lovers, gruff headmasters and winsome Asian teens, and of course Max Fischer, arguably the most complex, original, loveable but infuriating movie creation of the past three decades. Yes, there’s a little Harold and Maude here, a little Hal Hartley there. But even as it approaches its third decade, Rushmore still feels blindingly original and unique. TH

‘If you take my advice I think you’ll become one of the great balloon-folding acts of all time!’

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Nick Apollo Forte

Woody comes to both bury and praise his hero Danny Rose in this lyrical note to the dimmer lights of the Great White Way. A cock-eyed optimist and full-time dreamer, guileless theatrical agent Danny dotes over his woeful stable of one-shot novelty acts – blind xylophonists, uniped tap dancers, ice-skating penguins dressed, naturally, as Hassidic rabbis – but it’s clear to everyone else that an age is swiftly passing. It would be an easy world to mock, but Allen gives it a generous, mournful, affectionate send-off that pays far richer, far funnier dividends. ALD

‘Boys, you got to learn not to talk to nuns that way.’

Director: John Landis

Cast: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd

The controversy around The Blues Brothers has been raging since its release. Is this a case of two white comedians exploiting the heroes of soul music to make themselves look cool? Or is the film actually a loving tribute to a great American art form? The truth is, a bit of both. But luckily, there’s a brilliantly paced plot, a punchy script and a riot of car chases to keep you distracted every time Belushi and Aykroyd’s mugging gets a bit much. Of course, the heart of the movie is in its musical performances: Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and James Brown all hit hard, but it’s Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’ that’ll have you jiving in your seat. TH

‘Never mind the Chinese earthquake, take Hitler and stick him on the funny page. No, no, leave the rooster story alone – that’s human interest!’

Director: Howard Hawks

Cast: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy

Where would screen comedy be without His Girl Friday? The double-edged cynicism of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s oft-adapted Broadway play The Front Page couldn’t be more modern. But director Howard Hawks had the inspired brainwave of turning the male Hildy into a female firebrand played by Rosalind Russell – detonating one of the most incendiary, yet affectionate, sex-war duels in cinema history. WH

‘Just follow your heart. That's what I do.’

Director: Jared Hess

Cast: Jon Heder, Jon Gries, Efren Ramirez

"Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills… like bow hunting skills, computer hacking…" It’s safe to say that lanky Idaho high schooler Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder) doesn’t really understand girls – or conversation. This social misfit makes for a terrific underdog hero, and when he decides his skill is dancing, things get really funny. Look out for a hilarious turn from Efren Ramirez as Napoleon’s best friend Pedro, a transfer student running for class president. Vote for Pedro! AS

‘Simone, where is my Surété Scotland Yard-type mackintosh?’

Director: Blake Edwards

Cast: David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner

The first in a series of five films featuring the clumsy antics of Peter Sellers’s bungling pseudo-French detective Chief Inspector Clouseau, The Pink Panther is also the most measured, languorous and subtle of the lot. While often very funny, Sellers’s incompetent character only came to the fore from the second film, A Shot in the Dark, onwards. Consequently, anyone seeing this expecting wall-to-wall Sellers may be a mite disappointed. But hey, it knocks spots off the awful 2006 remake. DA

‘The royal penis is clean, your highness.’

Director: John Landis

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones

Just a few years after he became the biggest box-office draw in America, Eddie Murphy’s golden period was already drawing to a close. But this tale of African princes and fast-food heiresses is a scrappily suitable swansong for the Eddie we loved in the ’80s, offering his signature blend of crudity, sweetness, wit, style and vague politicking, all wrapped up in a high-concept romcom package. The highlight, though, has to be ER star Eriq LaSalle in full Jheri curl nightmare as hair product salesman Daryl. Just let your Soul Glo... TH

‘“I want to see the zoo,” she said. “I want to see the zoo.”’

Director: Mike Leigh

Cast: Roger Sloman, Alison Steadman, Anthony O’Donnell

Of all the films Mike Leigh made for TV in the 1970s, this comedy about two ‘green’ middle-class Londoners who pitch up at a Dorset campsite and make fools of themselves is almost as enduring as the better known Abigail’s Party. Arriving in the countryside, priggish Keith (Roger Sloman) turns up his nose at non-free-range eggs (this was 40 years ago), while his wife Candice Marie (Alison Steadman) might not be as floaty and submissive as she first appears. Squirm, and squirm some more. DC

‘You sit on a throne of lies!’

Director: Jon Favreau

Cast: Will Ferrell, James Caan, Bob Newhart

Fast becoming a festive family staple, this blizzard of charm sees Will Ferrell as a human raised by Santa’s elves, and embarking on a journey to find his real dad, a gruff New York businessman. The result is a lovely blend of great one-liners, balletic pratfalls and genuine warmth. Ferrell is superb as the guileless simpleton who leaves a trail of destruction and has deep unresolved issues with his dominating father (note: Ferrell was fresh from portraying George W Bush on Saturday Night Live). And how can you not love a film with Ed Asner as Santa? EL

‘There were two loves in his life: his engine and…’

Directors: Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton

Cast: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack

Viewed today, the natural reaction to Buster Keaton’s civil-war masterpiece isn’t so much laughter as sheer, jaw-on-the-floor astonishment. In a world long before health and safety, here is a man literally risking life and limb to present some of the most astonishing sight gags ever performed, from ducking cannon balls to flipping railroad ties to chucking an entire, full-size locomotive off a bridge. It’s hilarious too, of course: the birth of the chase movie, and the template for everything from the Looney Tunes cartoons to Mad Max: Fury Road. TH

‘Christ. Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the fucking Peace Corps.’

Director: John Landis

Cast: John Belushi, Karen Allen, Tom Hulce

National Lampoon’s 1978 effort follows a wild fraternity of party lads, playboys and misfits put at danger of being shutdown by the dean of their straight-laced university. If that plotline sounds familiar it’s probably because it’s been aped by a whole host of college movies since, from the American Pie sequels to the recent Zac Efron film Bad Neighbours. But none of them have the same gutsy energy brought by Animal House cast members like John Belushi. KL

‘Baby Fish Mouth is sweeping the nation.’

Director: Rob Reiner

Cast: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher

It’s a pity that all most people remember from Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron’s flawless New York romcom gem is that orgasm scene. Sure, it’s a great scene, and very brave for its time. But there’s so much else in the movie to love: those pitch-perfect performances (Bruno Kirby was never better as Billy Crystal’s BF), the gorgeous autumnal photography and of course Ephron’s script, a masterpiece of construction offering wisdom and wit, shock and sweetness, forever sailing this close to mawkishness but always managing to pull back from the brink. Both Ephron and Reiner sank into Hollywood slush, but they were always headed that way. And at least they left one perfect – and I do mean perfect – movie before they jumped. TH

‘I saw Mrs Claypool first. Of course, her mother really saw her first but there’s no point in bringing the Civil War into this.’

Director: Sam Wood

Cast: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx and Harpo Marx

Even funnier than the overblown Queen album of the same name, this was the Marxes at their anarchic apogee, an excoriating dissection of snot-nosed, jazz-age, high-society wags that contained some of their most memorable comic riffs. The story, in which Groucho falls in with a moneyed has-been and has to assist a struggling opera company, plays second fiddle to an intense barrage of puns, tongue-twisters and wisecracks. Chico’s on hand, too, with his unhinged cod-Italiano witterings, while Harpo’s energetic feats of slapstick repeatedly threaten to steal the show. And if you’ve ever pondered how many people can fit into the cabin of an art deco transatlantic ocean liner, then this is the movie for you. DJ

‘How’s that for a slice of fried gold?’

Director: Edgar Wright

Cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield

Previous beloved Brit comedy duos – from Eric and Ernie to Patsy and Edina – faltered making the transition from the small to the silver screen. But Shaun of the Dead was the making of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, a surprise that catapulted them to demi-god status. This is not a film about survival: this genuinely suspenseful rom-zom-com is about respect and the getting of it. That what’s Pegg/Frost/Wright give to the living dead of Crouch End, Highgate and North Finchley in spades, with compassion, heroism and without losing their sense of humour and essential Britishness. WH

‘Would you say that I had a plethora of piñatas?’

Director: John Landis

Cast: Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short

Pitched somewhere between Seven Samurai and The Artist (only with much bigger hats), this goofy Hollywood comedy sees three fading silent-era stars travelling to Mexico to appear at a warlord’s birthday party only to wind up leading a peasant’s revolt. It’s all deeply silly – most of the jokes come at the expense of wacky accents, donkeys and Martin Short falling over – but Alfonso Arau’s thunderous performance as the villainous El Guapo is a major treat, as is Randy Newman’s whacked-out cameo as a singing bush. TH

‘Hey Stan, tell them about the part where Terrence calls Phillip a testicle-shitting rectal wart.’

Director: Trey Parker

Cast: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Isaac Hayes

What’s the greatest musical of all time? Singin’ in the Rain? Too cute. West Side Story? Too butch. Meet Me in St Louis? If Judy Garland had called Margaret O’Brien a donkey-raping shit eater, it might have stood a chance. Surely, the finest example of the musical form in cinema has to be this rites-of-passage tale of life in a quiet Colorado mountain town, where all the folks need to worry about is parking provision, bad language, gay dogs, an impending land war with Canada, Satan’s fuck-buddy Saddam, whether it really was Cartman’s mother in that German scheisse video and, of course, those goddamned Baldwins. Aw, shucks. TH

‘Lawrence Fells. Lawrence Feings. Forest Lorenston. Low. Lars. LARS. Lawrence. Lawrence. Luch. Lawrence. Tuh. His name is James Jesenthon. Lawrence Fell. Lawrence Jesterton. LAWRENCE JESTERTON!’

Director: Frank Oz

Cast: Steve Martin, Michael Caine, Glenne Headly

‘Scoundrels’ is the perfect description of Steve Martin and Michael Caine’s characters in this remake of 1964’s Bedtime Story. The duo play a pair of conmen who’ve been tricking the rich women of the French Riviera out of their fortunes before realising they share the same turf. Thus begins an increasingly ridiculous duel, with Caine’s buttoned-up Lawrence making the perfect foil for Martin’s goofball Freddy. Their behaviour could easily come off as mean, but by the end of the film they’ve conned you into thinking they’re loveable rogues. KL

‘Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?’

Director: Ben Stiller

Cast: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell

Did someone say fish in a barrel? Okay, so the fashion world isn’t exactly a challenging subject for satire but Ben Stiller’s tale of international intrigue, haute couture and ludicrous pretension has such great gags, committed performances and cod sincerity that it’s hard not to guffaw. Stiller’s Zoolander is a supermodel on the slide, threatened by up-and-comer Owen Wilson, exploited by grasping designer Will Ferrell and constrained by his gargantuan stupidity, source of most of the big laughs. But he’s also insecure, well-meaning and basically quite sweet, which makes his story all the more amiable. BW

‘What’s a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?’

Director: Mel Brooks

Cast: Gene Wilder, Cleavon Little, Slim Pickens

"My movies rise below vulgarity," Mel Brooks once quipped in the salad days of his career. Exhibit A for that claim, surely, is Blazing Saddles. A satire of Hollywood’s white-centric accounts of the American West, and told from the perspective of the first black sheriff in an all-white town, the film can be wince-inducing in the politically-charged, highly racial tone of its humour. Co-written by Richard Pryor (and co-starring Gene Wilder), it remains a riot of bad taste. John Wayne was offered a cameo role, Brooks once claimed in an interview. After reading and considering the script, the iconic Cowboy declined the opportunity. The dialogue, he said was "too dirty". Amen to that. TS

‘Compulsorily acquired? You know what this means, don’t you… They’re acquiring it. Compulsorily.’

Director: Rob Sitch

Cast: Michael Caton, Anne Tenney, Stephen Curry

Voted Australia’s favourite homegrown film, this modest fable about ordinary folk battling the vested interests who have issued a compulsory purchase order on their property manages the rare trick of laughing with its characters while getting significant comic mileage from their deficiencies of taste, common sense and general knowledge. The Kerrigan household aren’t the sharpest tools in the box, but their affectionate family bond creates a sense of home as something you just can’t put a price on. An irresistible feelgood charmer. TJ

'You smell like pine needles, and have a face like sunshine!’

Director: Paul Feig

Cast: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph

The idea of taking the tired-old Hangover lad-com template and simply switching genders doesn’t sound like an automatic win, but the appeal here isn’t in the bad-taste trappings, it’s in the silly-but-smart script, the lively direction from Freaks and Geeks legend Paul Feig and the note-perfect casting. It’s hard to remember a performance more effortlessly star-making than Kristen Wiig’s, showcasing a woman equally at home with satire and slapstick. Her impersonation of a penis might be the single funniest moment of the decade so far. TH

‘No, my parents never got divorced. Although I begged them to.’

Director: Herbert Ross

Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts

Woody Allen establishes his on-screen persona as a haplessly neurotic would-be lover in this sparkling adaptation of his 1969 Broadway play, where he’s a movie critic so obsessed by Casablanca that he’s conjured up an imaginary Humphrey Bogart to dispense hard-boiled wisdom. Bogey’s kiss-or-kill strategies couldn’t be less appropriate, which is where the fun starts, and Diane Keaton makes a most appealing romantic foil as events head to a wittily achieved airport finale with deliciously misappropriated classic movie dialogue. TJ

‘I have a name. It’s Dorothy. Not Tootsie or Toots or Sweetie or Honey or Doll.’ ‘Oh, Christ!’ ‘No, just Dorothy.’

Director: Sidney Pollack

Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Bill Murray

Sure, this is Dustin Hoffman’s show – he’s the guy in a dress, after all. But it’s Bill Murray who sticks in the memory: the source of most of the film’s big laughs and a goodly portion of its soul. Looking back, the concept of a guy dressing up as a woman to get a better job is a vaguely uncomfortable one, and its approach to feminism is badly out-dated. But the performances still shine, the script still sparkles and director Sydney Pollack’s smooth ’80s style still charms. Now hang on while I fix my lippy. TH

‘Don’t cross the streams!’

Director: Ivan Reitman

Cast: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd

When New York is invaded by ghastly ghouls, who you gonna call? You know the answer: four self-styled Ghostbusters ready to dash in and zap the spirits into oblivion. Much of this sci-fi-comedy’s charm lies in its have-a-go-heroes: these underdogs are thrown into the spotlight with delightful results. Bill Murray’s deadpan, womanising scientist is an undoubted highlight, while Rick Moranis brings crazy character humour as the dork living in the most haunted building in Manhattan. AS

‘For what we are about to see next, we must enter quietly into the realm of genius.’

Director: Mel Brooks

Cast: Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle

Mel Brooks’s finest genre parody succeeds as a hilarious send-up because it’s also a love letter to the classic 1930s Frankenstein movies. As the old Baron’s grandson (co-writer Gene Wilder) brings the family business back to life, Brooks milks the familiar material to the point of absurdity – notably when Wilder performs a tuxedo-ed song-and-dance duo to prove his monster (Peter Boyle) is a civilised creation. The knockabout is great fun, but knowing the originals only increases one’s appreciation. TJ

‘Rubber-dinghy rapids, bro!’

Director: Chris Morris

Cast: Riz Ahmed, Nigel Lindsay, Kayvan Novak

This first (and so far only) feature from British TV and radio comedian Chris Morris dared to mock the stupidity of homegrown British jihadis in the wake of 2005’s terror attacks on London. Framed as a slapstick sitcom and built on solid satirical foundations, Morris and his co-writers based much of their script on evidence and court transcripts relating to real cases of DIY terrorism. In the years since, the film has become a regular reference point in the news as life – tragically and comically – continues to imitate art. DC

‘I could dance with you till the cows come home. But I’d rather dance with the cows till you come home.’

Director: Leo McCarey

Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx

What to say when a film is creeping towards its first century but still feels as timely, relevant and subversive as it did on release? The Marx Brothers’s best movie, Duck Soup takes them far out of their New York music hall milieu and into a kind of twisted miniature Mittel-Europa filtered through immigrant memory and fairytales, where war is brewing between the proud people of Freedonia and the crypto-fascists of neighbouring Sylvania. With a far lighter touch than Chaplin’s Great Dictator, the film lampoons not just fascism but patriotism and politics in general: this is satire deployed both with a sledgehammer and a scalpel, often in the same scene. TH

‘I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.’

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Cast: Peter Sellers, George C Scott, Sterling Hayden

It’s the only comedy flick that ends with the annihilation of all life on Earth, but Stanley Kubrick’s lunatic satire never seems sure if that’s actually a bad thing: throughout the film, humanity is shown time and again to be either feeble (President Muffley, Captain Mandrake), heroically stupid (‘King’ Kong, Col Guano) or ferociously psychopathic (everyone else). The screenplay is justly regarded as one of the finest ever written – "Have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?" – but the film looks amazing too, from the camera-on-the-shoulder immediacy of the airbase scenes to the apocalyptic grandeur of the War Room. TH

‘Those. Aren’t. PILLOWS!!!’

Director: John Hughes

Cast: Steve Martin, John Candy, Laila Robins, Michael McKean

So much more than just a jolly fat man, John Candy was one of those performers who seemed to have comedy right down in his bones. When he added a pinch of pathos, the results could be devastating. By far the finest in that elite subgenre of movies about stressed-out guys trying to get back to their loved ones for the holidays, Planes, Trains and Automobiles works not because both its frontmen (Candy is joined by Steve Martin) are effortlessly hilarious – though they are, and it’s wonderful. But it’s all leading up to that finale, a sequence of unforgettable, tear-jerking poignancy. TH

‘It ain’t cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving.’

Director: John Landis

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis

America’s love-hate relationship with capitalism has rarely been more cannily explored than in this sadistic fairytale of two conniving businessmen who decide to replace one of their finest employees – Harvard elitist Dan Akyroyd – with Eddie Murphy’s sharp-witted street bum. The image of Aykroyd, drunk and suicidal in a Santa suit on Christmas Eve, says more about the realities (and brutalities) of Wall Street than a hundred financial-crash docs – and means that when he and his erstwhile rival pull together for the big climactic switcheroo, you’re firmly in their corner. TH

‘Real diamonds! They must be worth their weight in gold!’

Director: Billy Wilder

Cast: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon

Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis star as Jerry and Joe, two musicians who are forced to flee Chicago after witnessing the 1929 Valentine’s Day Massacre and disguise themselves as female members of a band travelling to Florida. Joe falls for the band’s seductive singer, Sugar (Marilyn Monroe), while Jerry has to fight off the lusty attentions of a wealthy old man. Billy Wilder delivers a pacy, racy cross-dressing farce, full of gags and sauce. DC

‘Hey, want to hear the most annoying sound in the world? ARGHHHGHHHER...’

Directors: Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly

Cast: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels

Imagine the contents of your hyperactive little brother’s brain splatted on to a TV screen and you have Dumb & Dumber. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels star as a pair of stupendously stupid no-hopers who head on a road trip across America to return a woman’s briefcase. Unapologetically gross-out, the movie’s a mulch of butt jokes, toilet jokes, snot jokes and sex jokes. It’s totally regressive but in a whoops-just-snorted-my-drink-everywhere-laughing kind of way. KL

‘I promise you: whatever scum did this, not one man on this force will rest one minute until he’s behind bars. Now let’s grab a bite to eat.’

Director: David Zucker

Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, OJ Simpson

After Scary Movie and The Hungry Games, it’s hard to remember that the scattergun, slapstick, movie-pastiche genre started out with the noblest of intentions: to level the comedy playing field by making even the smartest moviegoers laugh like total idiots. In translating their criminally overlooked TV show Police Squad! to the big screen, the Zuckers delivered the purest expression of the form outside of their own masterpiece Flying High!. The Naked Gun is a film so devastatingly daft it leaves the stoniest of cynics gasping for breath and shrieking, "It’s Enrico Pallazzo!" TH

‘This aggression will not stand, man.’

Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Cast: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore

When stoner Jeffrey ‘The Dude’ Lebowski is mistaken for a local millionaire with the same name, he sets out on a big adventure with his bowling team. There are so many one-liners in this Coen Brothers comedy that you could easily credit the film’s success to its pithy dialogue alone, but with a supporting cast including John Goodman and Julianne Moore, it brings so much more to the table, including life lessons about friendship and heroism. KL

‘I’ll give this little cookie an hour before we’re doing the no-pants dance.’

Director: Adam McKay

Cast: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd


Will Ferrell stepped up from the big-boned manchild of Zoolander and Elf to musky, manly movie star in a film that recalls a simpler, polyester time. A time when a man was not judged by the contents of his character but on the raw, unchecked ferocity of his cologne, the lustre of his moustache and the quantity of leather-bound books that lined the mahogany shelves of his apartment. But although everyone is ultimately in the shadow of the glistening chestnut bombast of Ron’s towering hair, Anchorman is very much an ensemble effort, and everyone brings their A-game to the bullpen. ALD

‘She had golden hairs, teeth as white as pearls, and the asshole of a seven-year-old.’

Director: Larry Charles

Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian

It takes a lot of front to keep a straight face while winding up gullible members of the public, but Sacha Baron Cohen is a master – as proven by this wince-inducing odyssey across America. Travelling under the guise of a radio host from Kazakhstan, Cohen trawls the byways of the USA, inveigling himself into the welcoming arms of locals before shocking them with an outrageous arsenal of faked Kazakh cultural mores. Although a damn fine comedy at heart, the film also serves as a sobering reminder of the sheer simmering level of racism and misogyny among the very same folks that got Trump elected. DA

‘Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!’

Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones

Cast: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin

We all love Monty Python’s slapstick savaging of the legend of King Arthur, but we always forget about the llamas: according to the credits, Holy Grail was the creation of Reg Llama of Brixton, and thousands of his llama friends across the world (as well as Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones). Well, Reg and co. created a masterpiece. With its Bergman-ribbing credit sequence, its one-liners and its extravagantly gruesome violence, ‘Holy Grail’ was Python’s launchpad to international stardom. Neil Innes’s music and Gilliam’s animations are touchstones for British absurdist humour, while the late Graham Chapman, playing it straight as King Arthur, was never finer. TS

‘I’ve got five terrorists going south-east on Bakalakadaka Street!’

Directors: Trey Parker, Matt Stone

Cast: Trey Parker, Matt Stone

‘South Park’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone had no idea what they were taking on when they decided to make a ‘Thunderbirds’-style puppet movie about the War on Terror. A year of 20-hour days later – Stone described it as ‘the worst time of my life’ – the film was unleashed, and justified every minute of the duo’s hard work. As concerned with skewering the twin pomposities of mainstream action cinema and liberal Hollywood as it is with the terrorist armies of Durkadurkastan and North Korea, the film borders on genius in its self-aware use of wooden marionettes, particularly in the notorious sex scene. Even Matt Damon thinks it’s funny. TH

‘I feel like a pig shat in my head!’

Director: Bruce Robinson

Cast: Richard E Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths

The funniest parts of Withnail & I are the early scenes, when, festering in a Camden flat resembling the inside of a cancerous lung, Withnail and Marwood stumble towards the end of an epic speed and booze bender. There are delirious flights of fancy, bouts of druggy nonsense ("my thumbs have gone weird"), an abortive attempt to clean the kitchen and a cherishable visit from terrifying drug dealer Danny (Ralph Brown). Later, though, tragedy looms large – and Withnail’s despairing traipse through rain-sodden Regent’s Park ranks among the most heartbreaking closing scenes in all cinema. PH

‘A cosmetologist? Really? Wow. Must tough to handle the weightlessness.’

Director: Carl Reiner

Cast: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters

Steve Martin’s big-screen calling card is such a soaring hymn to stupidity, such a canticle to folly, such a hosanna to hubris that only the sanest souls could resist the temptation to join in with the chorus. It would have been easy for Martin – then at the giddy heights of ’70s superstardom – to simply cash in on his absurdist stage act for his first feature. But this smart, structured, cine-literate film served notice that ‘the wild and crazy guy’ was more than just a non sequitur in a white suit with an arrow through his head. To be this stupid, you have to be an absolute genius. ALD

‘Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.’

Director: Harold Ramis

Cast: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell

It’s been more than 20 years since Bill Murray starred as the cynical weatherman trapped in a time loop in the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania – reliving the same day over and over again. But ‘Groundhog Day’ hasn’t aged a bit. What makes it stick? Maybe it’s because under that uproarious humour are a few home truths: life is groundhoggy, full of boring repetition, but a little kindness and love go a long way. CC

‘I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me as a member.’

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton

'Annie Hall' is as Woody Allen as Woody Allen gets – hilarious, neurotic and occupied by the realisation that whatever happens, life is going to trample all over you. It’s also one of the greatest romantic comedies every made (with some of the funniest lines: "Don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love"). Allen is Alvy Singer, who’s just split from scatty singer Annie (Diane Keaton, his real-life ex). What follows is an anatomy of their relationship. Allen has said that the film is not autobiographical – he co-wrote it with Marshall Brickman – but that’s not what we want to hear. CC

‘He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy.’

Director: Terry Jones

Cast: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin

The Pythons’ second feature is their masterpiece. The story is rooted in purest farce, as the Three Wise Men arrive at the wrong manger and unsuspecting everyman Brian Cohen is declared the Messiah. He duly bumbles alongside The Greatest Story Ever Told, ending the film on a Calvary Cross for a reluctant chorus of ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’.

What a dizzying achievement this is. The Life of Brian takes potshots at everything from schoolroom Latin to Biblical epics (most of which it shames with its attention to period detail) and religious hypocrisy – but, crucially, never religion itself. Needless to say, this didn’t stop predictable accusations of blasphemy. GT

‘Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.’

Directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker

Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty

"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?" A movie that raises belly laughs after countless viewings, this was the second film (after 1977’s Kentucky Fried Movie) from Jim Abraham and the Zucker brothers, who went on to make the Naked Gun and Hot Shots movies. Overflowing with on-target visual gags and one-liners, it’s a playful and deeply silly spoof of 1970s disaster movies and stars Robert Hays as a troubled ex-pilot forced to land an airliner when the real pilot collapses from food poisoning. Leslie Nielsen steals the film as an onboard doctor. Just don’t call him Shirley. DC

‘What’re the hours?’

Director: Rob Reiner

Cast: Christopher Guest, Rob Reiner

You're asking, how much more funny could this be? And the answer is none. None more funny. Yes, our experts have cast their votes and the winner by a clear margin is Rob Reiner's genre-setting mockumentary – or, if you will, rockumentary – about England's largest-livin', heaviest-riffin', filthiest-lyric-singin', biggest-hair-havin', fluffiest-jumper-ownin' heavy rock combo. Sporting arguably the most quotable script in movie history ("no... these ones go to eleven") and some of the meatiest metal melodies this side of Bon Scott-era AC/DC, this is simply a perfect film: from the first chord of 'Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight' to the very final line ("I dunno, what are the hours?"), there's literally nothing about it that could be improved.

It also, lest we forget, defined an entire genre, accidentally inventing everything from The Office to The Blair Witch Project (not to mention lead axe-man Christopher Guest's entire subsequent career). Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer would keep gigging as Spinal Tap for three decades – proof that they were so much more than just a joke band in a funny movie. Spinal Tap: for those about to rock, we salute you. TH

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