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Funniest movie?

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As it’s Friday, time for a handy natter abiut your favourite funny films. At Twang Towers we have (well, Jr and I) decided the top five are:

Animal House

Blazing Saddles

Airplane

Spinal Tap

The Blues Brothers.

Opinion hasn’t settled on a ranking but I think it’s between House and Saddles with House possibly edging it.

Yours?

1

Comments

  2. I agree with plenty of yours, though I’ve never cracked a smile at a Mel Brooks movie. I’ll throw in There’s Something About Mary, Clerks and (to pick just one of the Python’s output) Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

    Edit: But how could I have forgotten Team America: World Police?

      • I’ve just looked at Brooks’ Wiki which reports that he has directed 11 films. I’ve endured 8 of them (maybe 9, I’m not 100% sure if I’ve seen one) and while I remember lots of effortful attempts at humour I can’t remember anything that was actually funny.

        There’s nothing as subjective as humour.

  3. With respect, so far you’ve all spelled ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’ incorrectly.
    (Those misspelt films are of course worthy inclusions)

  5. Blues Brothers
    Porkys (although hasnt aged well)
    The life of Brian
    Me myself and Irene
    Any Tom and Jerry movie
    A fish called Wanda

    And one that had immense humour but was visceral and tragic- One flew over the cuckoo nest.Not a comedy obviously but had very funny parts.

  6. When I was about 15 I saw a double bill of Blazing Saddles and The Holy Grail and it’s still the best three hours I’ve ever spent in a chair, or rolling on the floor beside one.

    Before that, I saw one of the Pink Panthers – the bit where Clouseau is trying to get over a moat into a castle – and nearly laughed myself into a coma. I saw it again recently and… it’s pretty poor actually

    Recently? Hunt for the Wilderpeople

  7. The correct answer is Airplane.
    See also Naked Gun

    For consideration:
    Team America
    Carry On …

    Outside Bet:
    National Lampoons Vacation and European Vacation have their moments

    • As we say in our house, in honour of an extravagantly accented coach driver we had one day in Yosemite, who insisted on giving quizzes out to the passenger over the speaker, “You are correct, Sir”.
      The answer is Airplane.
      I also love Holy Grail.
      My throw into the ring is Four Lions. And Snatch, while not nominally a comedy, has some wonderful comedic moments and quotes.

  11. The Princess Bride (my favourite film)
    Shaun of the Dead
    Annie Hall
    Some Like It Hot
    Way Out West

    With apologies to Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Ask a Policeman and This Is Spinal Tap

  14. This is Spinal Tap has to be up there. Naked Gun and Airplane certainly. I haven’t watched Blazing Saddles for years….has it aged well? Genuine question.

    Some films are very funny wthout being comedies…Butch Cassidy and The Sundance kid is a huge favourite, also Back to The Future.

    A Hard Day’s Night and Help! are good comedies, but I guess we don’t think of them that way as we are too busy waiting for the next song!

    Some films I used to find funny would probably be awful now – I was always a bit ambivalent about Carry On films anyway as I got older, although I liked Cleo, Up the Kyber, Screaming at the cinema as a teen.

    • By Mel Brooks’ own admission Blazing Saddles would never get made today as no modern studio would touch it – there’s something to offend everyone. But the joke is always on the bigot/fool/corrupt politician – there is no suggestion he agrees with them and the whole point is to satirise and mock them. I still think it stands up just fine, though I can see why its humour is a little robust for more delicate souls.

    • I watched A Mighty Wind the other night, and listened to the soundtrack only this morning. It’s actually better than I remember, but for me not a patch on Tap. Among the gold there are some duff moments.

      I used the word effortful up the thread, and there are moments in Christopher Guest’s films, all of which I happily watch repeatedly, where you can see them trying too hard, unlike Tap where everything still feels fresh and spontaneous.

      Having heard them out of context from the film this morning though I can say that the songs in A Mighty Wind stand up very well, excruciatingly bad but also believable and enjoyable at the same time.

  18. Some Like it Hot
    Bringing Up Baby
    Duck Soup
    Airplane!
    Withnail and I

    Personally think Blues Brothers is overlong and not as funny as it thinks it is. Animal House has not aged well

    Funniest stuff ever is Laurel and Hardy but more in shorts than feature length films. But let’s add

    Sons of the Desert

  19. 1. Groundhog Day (I can watch it time and again and again and again and….)
    2. Love And Death (early Woody Allen is best and absolutely brilliant)
    3. Time Bandits (funnier than any other Monty Python movie)
    4. The Odd Couple (Jack Lemon and Walter Mattau are the best comedy duo on film)
    5. Trains, Planes And Automobiles (just beats Little Miss Sunshine to the road trip slot)

    How could have forgotten Duck Soup?

  20. @Tiggerlion your mention of Mattau/Lemon reminded me of Grumpy Old men and Grumpier old men – both fabulous and the facial expressions of Mattau would make me laugh even if he was announcing a declaration of war.

  21. 1 – This is Spinal Tap
    2 – Little Miss Sunshine
    3 – Airplane (can appreciate why some would not like, but for laughs per minute it is outstanding)
    4 – Take The Money & Run (My favourite Woody Allen film)
    5 – Dumb & Dumber.

    It is not strictly a comedy, but Sideways is one of the few films where I lost it laughing so get’s an honorable mention.

  25. Not Airplane. Don’t get the love for it. Never liked it much, it felt dated even when it was released. Reminded me of Kentucky Fried Movie, and that wasn’t any good either.

  26. Airplane (by a mile)

    Dumb And Dumber

    Take The Money And Run

    Top Secret (if only for the prison scene)

    Holy Grail

    I find that Blues Brothers is no longer funny and the Marx Brothers films have the Margaret Dumont scenes to endure.

    As an aside, our sense of humour is not a constant. I always thought that Puckoon was the funniest book I had ever read, having embarrassed myself on a train as a teenager laughing uncontrollably. I re-read it a few years ago and didn’t laugh once.

    A recent film that is very funny is The Kid Who Would Be King.

  28. That is an excellent list, Twang.

    I watched Animal House a few months ago and was surprised how funny it still was.

    But of course it has dated a lot in terms of the characters’ attitudes towards women.

    But is a very US-centric list.

    We’ve had several British films in the comments. But there are many more that could be mentioned.

    Aardman’s feature films are always excellent. Pirates in an adventure with Scientists, Shaun the Sheep: Farmegadon, Wererabbit etc.

    Both Paddngton films are very funny.

    Glad to see a mention for Hunt for the Wilderpeople! Taka Waikiki is reliably hilarious.

    Jean-Pierre Bacri has made some wonderful comedies recently. A curmudgeon in a class of his own.

    Place Publique

    Le sens de la fete

    • Had totally neglected the Aardman films. Pirates in an adventure with Scientists is superb. Luckily my children love it & despite watching it over & over it still makes me laugh every time

  30. Trading Places has some very funny moments. I also like Ghostbusters for that too – extremely dry lines at times amid the action.

    Also – and I’ve not got into the mainstream Marvel films yet (might watch them with my kids when they’re older) but Deadpool is hilarious.

  31. Hi all, thought I’d pop my head back through the doors to see how you all are in this strangest of years….

    Anyway, funny films. Clouseu for me. “A Shot In The Dark” made me laugh more than any other film I’ve seen. That snooker scene…

    Also Harold Lloyd. I do love slapstick done well..

  32. off the top of my head

    Spinal Tap for sure.
    Trading Places despite (or perhaps because of) the darkness
    Some Like It Hot
    The Philadelphia Story
    His Girl Friday.

    Have a soft spot for Trains Planes and Automobiles.

    Oh and Gregory’s Girl is just gorgeous.

    A mate and I nearly got chucked out of a cinema when we were kids – we genuinely couldn’t stop laughing hysterically at a gag in Carry On Screaming. I suspect it wouldn’t seem so funny now.

      • I love the Carry On films, until they got a bit rubbish for the last few. They have a similar quality trajectory to another series I love, Hammer Horrors. But the scene above reminded me of another scene in a great movie that had me laughing uncontrollably. The great Michael Caine as a hapless Sherlock Holmes in Without a Clue.

    • Gregory’s Girl is wonderful. Not only is it genuinely touching in places, it really is funny…the running gag with the person in the penguin outfit going to the wrong room, the Headmaster (played by the great Chic Murray) playing the piano during lunch break (I’m not sure why I find that scene makes me smile so much…I think it’s the combination of the jaunty tune, his facial expressions and mild irritation and being disturbed by a small kid.) Isn’t the scene in the boys also toilet just great, with the smoking and enterprising kids with a variety of things for sale, terrific stuff.

  33. No love for Steve Martin here? He’s spent most of the last 30 years in undemanding feelgood fare, but there’s a stellar top 5:
    Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
    The Jerk
    Man With Two Brains
    All of Me
    and late career masterpiece Bowfinger

  35. I’d forgotten that whole genre of Airplane/Naked Gun/Top Secret/Hot Shots etc. They were great after-the-pub Saturday night videos.

    Pretty much everything about this scene is perfect; a couple of stupid gags, then an extended one that starts absurd and just gets absurderer

  36. Lots of love in our house for the Jump Street movies, and of course the masterpiece that is Dude Where’s My Car? How it didn’t win a fistful of Oscars I will never know. It is very funny.

    • The Academy aren’t big on rewarding comedy, taking the popular though wrong view that something which moves you to tears is more trivial than something which makes you laugh. I admit I’ve never seen Dude … but by reputation it isn’t one of the great tragedies.

  38. Thanks for reminding me of the wonderful Hunt For The Wilder People. What We Do In The Dark too. TV spin off is just as good: The Baron’s Night Out is a great episode. Check it out.

    Also, Death Of Stalin is a very funny film. Jason Isaacs as Zuchov with a Barnsley accent is fantastic.

  39. Young Frankenstein
    What’s Up, Doc

    The common denominators in those two are Madeleine Kahn and Kenneth Mars. Though Cloris Leachman steals YF.

    The Odd Couple. Jack Lemmon clearing his sinuses. .’FNERRR! Fnerrrr! Fnerrrr! FNERRRRRR!’

    The Big Lebowski.

    And yes the Ruprecht scenes from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Steve Martin sat at the dinner table with a trident.

  41. Talk of the subjectivity of comedy puts me in mind of my dear old Mum and one evening in particular.
    She liked a laugh, did Mum – as long as it was straight, but strongly discouraged my childhood fondness for The Goodies and Jerry Lewis, which she classed as “stupid” comedy.
    Fast forward forty years and I’m staying at her house. She always has RTE 1 on, unless it gets sexy, when she will remember there are other channels and start hopping. Bizarrely (because such things are what RTE 2 is for) the prime time movie on the number one channel is Step Brothers, the thoroughly daft Will Ferrell/ John C Reilly vehicle.
    I know we’re going to be watching the whole thing together and am apprehensive about our contrasting reactions. Fortunately I have seen it before, so internalise most of my chuckles, only erupting five or six times while she remains stone-faced throughout..

  42. For laugh out loud funny it’s Team America every time. I literally cried with laughter the first I watched it and some of the scenes still make me do that even after several viewings

    The Blues Brothers is just a great film from start to finish (is there a Poll?) and very funny.

    On a slight aside, although not a comedy per se, we watched Green Book en famille last week and it’s got some really funny moments. Viggo Mortensen is brilliant in it and was robbed of the Best Actor Oscar by the shit Queen film. Recommended if you’ve not seen it.

  46. Mr Hulots Holiday.
    Ferris Buellers Day off (is that a comedy or just a feel good movie?)
    Waynes World (both)

    Not saying they would make the top 5 for most of you but films I love

  47. I think the Austin Powers films deserve a mention. Goldmember was on TV by chance the other day and I lingered.

    In one of the films there’s an element of time travel and he has a conversation with his boss, Michael York about how confusing it all is and pointing out a few fundamental flaws. Michael York says something like “it helps not to think about these things too much”.
    Both look at the camera and York says “and that goes for you, too”.

  50. A few more that haven’t been mentioned, but should have – Juno, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Rutles, Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang and Marvellous. And about another dozen Woody Allen and Laurel and Hardy films of course.

  51. Some personal favourites not mentioned above…
    So I Married an Axe Murderer
    Fear of a Black Hat
    Monkey Business (Cary Grant)
    The Commitments
    The Sure Thing
    The Producers
    Raising Arizona
    Midnight Run

  53. Many of the above but also Robin Hood Men in TIghts is a Christmas favourite.

    From my youthful cinema visits, I remember Aristocats and Barry McKenzie making me laugh once, never seen them again but I suspect Aristocats would still raise a smile. Different times and its different in the cinema.

  56. I don’t think anyone has mentioned In Bruges yet. I remember me and Mrs BB watching it in a half empty cinema and appearing to be the only people there who were finding it hilarious. As a long suffering fan of a certain North London football team I particularly enjoyed this gag.

  57. I watched Wayne’s World at a cinema in Hong Kong

    About halfway through, Rob Lowe stars talking Chinese/mandarin and the local population in the audience were howling with laughter.

    A few seconds later subtitles were on the screen & my friends & I were wetting ourselves as well.

    IIRC, they were talking about the difference between Hong Kong island & Kowloon.

    So funny in an almost surreal way.

  60. Smokey & The Bandit.
    Old School
    Caddyshack

    There are a lot of funny older U.S. movies that I really only got to love after living there a while. Maybe you just tune in to the humor over time.

  62. Several males actors have made several appearances on this thread. Steve Martin, John Cleese, Gary Grant…

    But what about the ladies that make us laugh?

    I’m nominating

    Renee Zellweger for Nurse Betty and the Bridget Jones films

    Kirsten Wiig for Bridesmaids and Ghostbusters

    Melissa McCarthy for Spy

    Fenella Fielding for Carry on Screaming
    ‘
    Rosalind Russell for His Girl Friday

    Claudette Colbert for It happened one night

  63. Withnail & I. Of course.
    Dumb and Dumber – First time I watched this, it made me cry with laughter.
    Saw Life of Brian and Airplane in a double bill at the local fleapit back in the early 80s.
    Spy. Melissa McCarthy and The Stath are a great comedy double act. Whenever this appears on the telly (which is a lot recently) just have to watch.
    The Heat. McCarthy again, with a wonderfully uptight, cat stealing Sandra Bullock.
    Some Like it Hot
    Caddy Shack.
    School of Rock
    In Bruges
    Team America
    Austin Powers 2. Spy who shagged me

    • The Liz Hurley one has some good moments, mostly Liz’s various outfits, but I remember a review which said she’s such a crap actress she can’t even walk convincingly. Not unfair.

  66. As we don’t have any Israeli comedies on our list, may recommend the ingenious, very entertaining Tel Aviv on Fire.

    A West Bank scriptwriter gets out of his depth with hilarious results.

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