Flying home today, I recalled something someone sent me — a list of the funniest comedies of all time, with the number 1 flick . . . Caddyshack.
Now, for those of you not of a certain age, who may not have seen Caddyshack, it is an amusing little film filmed with memorable quotes and an insane, hilarious performance by Bill Murray. But funniest movie comedy of all time? It’s not even in the top 10.
Which raises an interesting question: What are the all time funniest films?
No rules (like last time) — the only requirements: 1) Funny and 2) Movie.
I’ll get you started with a list that I am sure I rearrange easily into other orders:
50. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
49. Rat Race
48. Life of Brian
47. When Harry Met Sally
46. Planes, Trains and Automobiles
45. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
44. Clueless
43. Airplane!
42. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
41. Naked Gun
40. There’s Something About Mary
39. The Jerk
38. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
37. This is Spinal Tap
36. Horse Feathers
35. The 40 Year Old Virgin
34. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
33. The Big Lebowski
32. M*A*S*H
31. Animal House
30. Ghostbusters
29. A Fish Called Wanda
28. Bridesmaids
27. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
26. Wedding Crashers
25. The Nutty Professor
24. The General
23. Beverly Hills Cop
22. Liar Liar
21. The Hangover
20. My Cousin Vinny
19. Raising Arizona
18. Sullivan’s Travels
17. Arthur
16. Bringing Up Baby
15. What’s Up, Doc?
14. The Producers
13. Groundhog Day
12. Trading Places
11. Young Frankenstein
10. Duck Soup
9. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. Freed
8. Tootsie
7. The Princess Bride
6. Blazing Saddles
5. Some Like It Hot
4. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
3. The Lady Eve
2. Annie Hall
1. Monty Python & The Holy Grail
Note that most of these, especially the top 20, have lots of heart.
What did I miss?
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
To the Richard Kline list, you could add “Movies that are so bad, they’re good (because they’re freaking hilarious)”. I know several people (myself definitely included) wherein ALL remote control action stops at Road House…EVERY-SINGLE-TIME. From Swayze doing Tai Chi to the Road House Throat Rip…classic scenes abound.
The Attack of Killer Tomatoes is a great book-end comedy. It’s funny for the first 10 minutes or so…and then you realize that they plan on hitting you with this one-single-joke for the next 90 minutes…and it’s not so funny anymore. But then, 60 minutes later, something magical happens: You’re so broken down from this played-out joke that you actually to laugh (and marvel) at the sheer relentlessness of this one-single-stupid-never-ending-joke taken to such absurd extremes.
If you like your comedy low-low-lower than lowbrow, then you can’t go wrong with MacGruber.
As to the Top 50 list, Liar Liar and no Stripes?
Add
The Gods Must Be Crazy
History of the World Part 1
History of the World is the funniest movie of all time!!!!!!!
Whaat?!? I think Airplane, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and The Big Lebowski should at least be in the top 20. (30???)
So #1 is a British comedy ay? (that I love!) …then I dare ya to like: ‘Four Lions’
W. C . Fields. It’s a Gift! The scene where he is trying to sleep on the porch is beyond hysterical. The coconut rolling down the stairs, the neighbors and the insurance salesman looking for Carl LaFong : ” Capital L, small a, capital F, small o, small n, small g, LaFong, Carl LaFong.” I saw it over 25 years ago and laughed out loud, by myself, through the whole movie.
Although from 2000, the American Film Institute’s Top 100 list. http://www.afi.com/100years/laughs.aspx
Can’t believe nobody has even mentioned Woody Allen’s “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)”. The first time I saw it, I laughed so hard it hurt!
Really how could you leave out some of those Laurel and Hardy movies…….Swiss Miss et al
A pretty inspired list. I would nit some of the order (Animal House and Spinal Tap would be higher).
Only omissions would be Office Space, Team American and Strange Brew.
The Inlaw – the Peter Falk, Alan Arkin one. No 3 Stooges? No Abbott and Costello?
~~~
BR: The Inlaws is fantastic!
Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl
This should be higher on the list:
General Turgidson (George C. Scott):
Mr. President, there are one or two points I’d like to make, if I may.
POTUS Muffley (Peter Sellers):
Go ahead, General.
Turgidson:
One, our hopes for recalling the 843rd bomb wing are quickly being reduced to a very low order of probability. Two, in less than fifteen minutes from now the Russkies will be making radar contact with the planes. Three, when the do, they are going to go absolutely ape, and they’re gonna strike back with everything they’ve got. Four, if prior to this time, we have done nothing further to suppress their retaliatory capabilities, we will suffer virtual annihilation.
Now, five, if on the other hand, we were to immediately launch an all out and coordinated attack on all their airfields and missile bases we’d stand a damn good chance of catching ‘em with their pants down. Hell, we got a five to one missile superiority as it is. We could easily assign three missiles to every target, and still have a very effective reserve force for any other contingency.
Now, six, an unofficial study which we undertook of this eventuality, indicated that we would destroy ninety percent of their nuclear capabilities. We would therefore prevail, and suffer only modest and acceptable civilian casualties from their remaining force which would be badly damaged and uncoordinated.
Muffley:
General, it is the avowed policy of our country never to strike first with nuclear weapons.
Turgidson:
Well, Mr. President, I would say that General Ripper has already invalidated that policy. laughs
Muffley:
That was not an act of national policy and there are still alternatives left open to us.
Turgidson:
Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, the truth is not always a pleasant thing, but it is necessary now make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless, distinguishable post-war environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.
Muffley:
You’re talking about mass murder, General, not war.
Turgidson:
Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say… no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh… depended on the breaks.
One that people think of as a drama but is actually a comedy is “The African Queen.” BTW – I was able to get a copy of the fabulously restored version on Blu-Ray for $7.88 at Wal-Mart recently.
I would also put “Top Hat” with Astaire and Rogers on the list somewhere as well as “Singing in the Rain”.
There are also so many really funny scenes in “Casablanca” that it should at least be considered despite the couple of very serious themes that run through it.
Stircrazy was a classic.
RORY
That’s Grossberger. The biggest mass murderer in the history of the southwest. He killed his entire family and all of his relatives in one weekend and then he killed some more people that reminded him of his family.
Blues Brothers, A Fish Called Wanda, Tootsie, The Graduate, Planes, Trains …, There’s Something About Mary, The Big Lebowski, MASH, Bringing Up Baby, Ferris Bueller. That’s 10. Comedy is a lot harder than drama. And I have always thought Some Like it Hot way overrated, not to mention Monty Python. Pace.
Paul.
The evolution scene is enough to make the list, and there are many others.
The Original In-Laws (Falk and Arkin)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down
oops, link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs6H5nNZb1M
Richard
A lot of those you mention I have not seen yet. I am a movie piker by comparison. Back to O Lucky Man!, the coffee tasting scene is so very British. And funny as hell. And anything with a young Helen Mirren is a must for me. Eye candy out the waz. When I get some time I’ll check out some of your other recommendations. When movies were 99 cents to rent, I watched 250 movies in one year, but of course had to cut back.
albnyc
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down-that duck had the right idea.
873450
‘Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed’. One of my favorite movie lines of all time. George C. Scott said Strangelove was his favorite movie, and the best performance of his career.
Thanks to everyone for bring back so many good memories!
Coming to America — top 10 for sure
Tommy Boy. Funny throughout, and the scene in the airplane bathroom is the best piece of slapstick since I don’t know when.
Also kudos to you for including The Lady Eve, a truly great film in so many ways.
Working for a small local theatre chain in high school in the late 70′s/ early ’80′s I got to watch a lot of movies for at least a week at a time. These lists have all brought back a lot of memories. While the Bad News Bears go to Japan did not do so good, Cheech and Chong’s -Up in Smoke was a popular movie back in 1978 (at least in our area). I remember seeing Caddyshack at one of our other theatres (we got in free everywhere!) on my night off and it was very memorable! But from an usher’s point of view, 1941 and the Blues Brothers really grew on you; The Jerk, Hooper, Smokey and The Bandit, and the Cannonball run were all fun too, although I consider the earlier Gumball Ralley (Raul Julia, Gary Busey, Michael S.) a better car movie/comedy. Who could forget Bill Murray in Meatballs, or Tatum O’Neal/Kristy McNichols competing on who could lose their virginity first in “Little Darlings’ (my colleague at a neighboring theatre managed to put that movie together in the wrong order and did not catch it until after showing it the first time on Friday night! I think he had a little too much to smoke on thursday night when he built that film – and so did everyone else that did not catch the problem while watching that movie during an unauthorized after-hours preview!)
From a projectionist’s point of view I showed Being There with Peter Sellers, and Serial with Tuesday Weld and Martin Mull, along with Porkey’s, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Sean Penn, but then there was Airplane!. Airplane! was out-of-the-box different. One can watch it for a week straight and still realize something new. I showed Used Cars the summer 0f ’81 out at the Starlight Drive-In. Good memories during a really crappy, slow, hot summer.
My best surprises (movies that exceeded my expectations going in): Jumanji, Babe, Men in Black, Ghostbusters, Animal House. My favorites off the top of my head if I have to choose: Blazing Saddles, Airplane, Anchorman, and There’s Something about Mary.
We re-watched ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ last night, and I’d put it on a top 20 list for myself.
Others, all mentioned so far, I think (not necessarily ordered):
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Airplane!
The Gods Must Be Crazy
Groundhog Day
The Blues Brothers
Stripes!
Ghostbusters
This is Spinal Tap
Dr. Strangelove
The Jerk
Caddyshack
What About Bob?
A Fish Called Wanda
Raising Arizona
My Cousin Vinny
The Party
Office Space
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
The first Austin Powers
Spaceballs
Note: I guess people of a certain age and culture think Saturday Night Live cast members/hosts make the funniest movies.
Green Card–Who can forget the salon scene?
I’d forgotten about ‘Used Cars’… but, because of it, I had a good feeling when I saw ‘Robert Zemeckis’ on the credits as ‘Back To The Future’ started.
Lots of good mentions. I saw Raising Arizona again recently. Man, what a gem. I want to see Kind Hearts and Coronets again as I remember loving it (Alec Guinness plays 8 or 9 roles). No one has mentioned Walk Hard or Big Trouble in Little China so I’m chucking those into the ring.
Even though it’s not a comedy, Lee Ermey’s character Sgt. Hartman in Full Metal Jacket had some doozies. One of my faves: “You climb obstacles like old people fuck! Do you know that, Private Pyle?”
In the Loop. It is a must see (on Netflix today). Also, for the teenage mind – Kentucky Fried Movie. A classic.
“The Bank dick” That made me laugh just reading it.
No Order
Caddyshack
Airplane
Meet The Parents
Vacation
Stripes
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Young Frankenstein
Cable Guy
Pink Panther
Animal House
Kentucky Fried Movie
SOB
10
The Jerk
Raising Arizona
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV4GsIe7Kvw
Spankings all around.
ORANGE COUNTY
the adults in this teen comedy are brilliant – Mike White’s funniest movie, his scene as an English teacher is classic
John Lithgow, Catherine O’Hara, Harold Ramis, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline, Jack Black, Ben Stiller cameo
With apologies to cat-lovers: Boondock Saints
These movies all made me laughed (sometimes aloud in the theater…) : BURN AFTER READING (Coen Bros, Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Clooney, Frances McDormand…), PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, GRINDHOUSE: PLANET TERROR (the hospital segment especially and the fake trailers like Machete which turned out to be a real trailer after all), MACHETE, Hudsucker Proxy, DOUBLE WHAMMY (Steve Buscemi, Luis Guzman), BACK TO THE FUTURE, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, STAR TREK IV, Idiocracy, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE, Innerspace, FUTURAMA MOVIE, Heartbreakers (Jennifer Love Hewitt), GREMLINS,
I have substracted movies already listed in the comments…
Some french movies: Le Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire (Pierre Richard), La Chèvre (P. Richard vs Gérard Depardieu), Louis de Funès movies, Les Visiteurs (Jean Reno)…..
Watched The Jerk last night and had a conniption fit I laughed so hard. Navin Johnson working at a filling station owned by Jackie Mason…wow! The other one I didn’t see here was Billy Crystal & Danny Devito in “Throw Mama from the Train”. The old movies are great, but the pace is so slow, it’s got to be an acquired taste.
a couple more entries:
High Anxiety
Prisoner of 2nd avenue
Uptown Saturday Night, Silver Streak, Trading Places, Harlem Nights- she kicked your ass
Bedazzled (Moore/Stone) and Where’s Poppa? Gotta be near the top. But my humor tends to the dark and dry…
Night Shift
Something About Mary
Strange Brew!! You hoser..
I second In the Loop. And Burn After Reading — I must have watched it 20+ times, and it never gets old. The scene where Pitt goes to McDormand’s apartment and they call Malkovich is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
also — I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (featuring an embryonic Chris Rock :)
I’m an unashamed fan of broad comedy and gauge enjoyment and quality by the same yardstick: by whether I cried laughing. People who think old comedies were slow-paced should check out the machine gun repartee in His Girl Friday. Still holds up in a lot of ways. But ultimately, a comedy has to be fucking funny, for chrissakes, and for it to be successful folks need to leave in a really good mood.
Holy Grail, South Park: Bigger, Longer Uncut, and how about some love for Woody Allen’s Love and Death? 40 Year Old Virgin, Ted, Elf, The Producers, Bowfinger, Bridesmaids, Office Space, The Hangover, When Harry Met Sally, Galaxy Quest, Ed Wood, Dodgeball, Something About Mary, Heathers, and how about Pulp Fiction?
The thing is, if you want to get into wit, then you really need to think about Casablanca, which is hardly ever called a comedy but Claude Rains gets some of the greatest witty-funny lines of all time.
And even though it doesn’t really qualify, quite a few Mystery Science Theater 3000s were absolutely hysterical.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Science_Theater_3000:_The_Movie
Two not mentioned.
Grosse Pointe Blank – No, no. Psychopaths kill for no reason. I kill for *money*. It’s a *job*. That didn’t come out right.
The Sure Thing
This next two definitely deserves top 100 status:
My Favorite Year
Lil: *This* is for ladies only!
Alan Swann: [unzipping fly] So is *this*, ma’am, but every now and then I have to run a little water through it.
Victor Victoria -
Toddy: This? The last time I saw a specimen like this, they had to shoot the horse!
Waiter: [irritated] How lucky can you get? In one evening a Rockefeller… and a Groucho Marx.
Toddy: Oh, they didn’t shoot a real horse… just a costume with two waiters in it.
Waiter: I shall think of a sharp retort while I am getting your roast chicken.
Toddy: It’s a wise man who knows when to throw in the towel.
Waiter: And it is a moron who gives advice to a horse’s arse.
My favorite Christmas film after the sweet nostalgia of A Christmas Story:
The Ref – Gus: Connecticut is the fifth ring of hell.
The Hepburn/Grant Trilogy
Holiday
The Philadelphia Story
Bringing Up Baby
Another fun Grant movie – Topper
L.A. Story
Get Shorty
Sixteen Candles
Bottle Shock
Buckaroo Banzai
The Full Monty
Euro Trip – Scotty doesn’t know. – guilty pleasure
Big Trouble In Little China
One in my personal Top Ten:
Drop Dead Gorgeous – overlooked laugh fest with Amy Adams in a small ensemble role before she became an Oscar contender. Barkin, Janney, Alley are simply hysterical.
Loretta (Janney): “I heard you! I was just trying to get you to change your mind. Amber, the woman clung to your tap shoes while she was flying through the air like a goddamn lawn dart!”
~~~
BR: The wife got chicken pox when we were first married — and Grosse Pointe Blank was on HBO constantly — we must hav e seen it 10X, and each time was hilarious! I dont know how I missed that — or Victor Victoria.
@louis: I was thinking of the theater version, too, but I didn’t think it was nearly as good as the best tv episodes.
Humor is very subjective. Nevertheless, I have to agree with MP & The Holy Grail as #1.
The first time I saw that movie I was laughing so hard during the opening credits I had
tears coming out of my eyes. But maybe it was the drugs…
“A moose bit my sister once…”
Given all the great suggestions not in your original list, you might have to expand it to
the top 100.
Another omission: Moonstruck.
well its getting harder to add to this list, but thanks for giving me some good movies to cue up!
A beautiful life – La dolce vita, and i hear ‘The Monster’ is really funny as well, in itilian
Van Wilder
Good morning Vietnam
The first scene in Bad Santa will either make you pee your pants or make you want to turn it off
Ancorman is only truly funny the 2nd or 3rd time you watch it, but then it is great
I know a bunch of ppl find Showgirls funny for how bad it is
Some Canadian Favorites: Fubar, Slapshot, Canadian Bacon, Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy
uhf (wheel of fish!), halfbaked, pineapple express and American Pie movies (1 &2)
Got it Oral, you’ll have to forgive me I’m a little slow, I bought a house in 05 so it takes me a while to get it.
You missed (at least):
The In-laws with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin
The Great Race (Peter Falk also)
The Russians are Coming (Alan Arkin)
And how you don’t have It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad world higher is beyond me. :-) It’s one of the funniest movies of all time. The cast alone puts it near the top.
The Birdcage
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Including foreign language movies:
Carnival in Flanders (1935)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026564/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
La cage aux folles (1978)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077288/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
La cage aux folles II (1980)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080489/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3
La venganza de Don Mendo (1962)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055588/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Winners & Sinners (1983)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086605/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Wheels on Meals (1984)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087578/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Sideways
“Cadillac Man” should be in there too. what a FUNNY movie!
“2001: A Space Odyssey”
Love those apes, the wacky monolith, HAL not opening the pod bay door, Pan American space cruisers…Oh, man, oh, man….
Major League
Spaceballs
Office Space
Nat’L Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Being There
American Psycho (i thought it was a hilarious satire)
Police Academy
Rocky Horror Picture Show
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!” from 1966. Cast includes Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Alan Arkin, Theodore Bikel, Brian Keith, Jonathan Winters, Paul Ford.
Seen at least 10 times:
Ferris Buellers Day Off
Dumb and Dumber
Airplane
Great post. Very good movies on the list by BR. I especially like When Harry met Sally.
Notable Omissions, some of which others also mentioned:
Midnight Run
Beverly Hills Cop
Spaceballs
Tremors
Roxanne
Kingpin
Office Space
Three Amigos
Sideways
2 other movies I haven’t seen mentioned but IMHO are absolute classics are
About Last Night (James Belushi is wonderful here)
Big Trouble in Little China (one of the best scripts, great line after line)
Have fun watching!
I forgot to mention Bull Durham!!
Wonderful, wonderful and laugh out loud funny.
Oh, God! What a list.