A.V. Club's "The 50 best comedies since 2000"

fucking hell, there's maybe 5 good films here. maybe 10

I've seen 28 of these. It's between Ghost World, High Fidelity and one of the two Coens, for me. You'd have to squint pretty hard at Force Majeure, I think, to consider it a comedy.

I count at least 33 good ones, 4 or 5 bad ones

I'm a well-known drag, so I've only seen 15 of these. With at least one, The Grand Budapest Hotel, I don't think I laughed once.

School of Rock or Ghost World would be my favourite, although I probably actually laugh more often during Zodiac.

what a weird list. not all that many lols really. i mean, scott pilgrim was enjoyable if you went with its sensibility, but not exactly a gut-buster. voting tenenbaums as one that made me laugh and also made me Feel Things which seems a reasonable goal. pretty sure i laughed harder at some other things in the last sixteen years but who knows, i'm a curmudgeon. original kings of comedy was a riot in the theater, not so much on video. i should probably see shaun of the dead at some point.

i've seen 26 of these films, these are the ones i'd condone

3. In The Loop (2009) <- not as good as its parent tv show but well done
12. Adaptation. (2002) <- decent but not a comedy
17. In Bruges (2008) <- not sure i'd like it so much the second time
22. Burn After Reading (2008) <- legit hilarious
25. What We Do In The Shadows (2014) <- saw this recently, it was heartwarming
26. Ghost World (2001) <- good but not a comedy
35. Kung Fu Hustle (2004) <- this might be the winner, it's kind of extraordinary
46. Bad Santa (2003) <- old ilx
47. Force Majeure (2014) <- this was great & utterly savage, another winning candidate
50. Four Lions (2010) <- also file under 'heartwarming(ish) homicide'

the only one i haven't seen but want to is Songs From The Second Floor

You'd have to squint pretty hard at Force Majeure, I think, to consider it a comedy.

Definitely had some hearty lols iirc, mostly from - or at - the heavily bearded friend.

School of Rock in the running for me too, yeah.

The only things on this list that I've seen that I actively hated are Scott Pilgrim and Borat, but both are novel and iconoclastic enough that I get why they're here. I don't get the cults for In Bruges or Josie and the Pussycats at all, though.

Maybe you've got to be Scandinavian or descended from/raised by Scandinavians to really tune into its wavelength, but Force Majeure was fucking hilarious.

i can't see how it could have been anything other than hilarious tbh

i thought about voting kung fu hustle. that really is a hoot and holds up totally. one case where the cheap-lookingness of the bad CGI adds more charm with time rather than being distracting. thing is i think i did like shaolin soccer better. hmm.

saw bad santa in the theater on a first or second date and had a fantastic time, but have always been hesitant to revisit it in case the lols were you-had-to-be-there.

Is Offside the Panahi film? If so, that's a pretty inspired choice. Will probably vote for 12:08 though. But no Amour Fou = no credibility.

You'd have to squint pretty hard at Force Majeure, I think, to consider it a comedy.

Eh, I thought a lot of it was pretty funny.

I think a number of these are fantastic. I'm leaning pretty patriotic with this one, actually. Maybe In the Loop, maybe In Bruges. For out and out volume of laughter in a cinema though, I have never seen a film that matches Borat.

I've not seen Wet Hot American Summer.

12. Adaptation. (2002) <- decent but not a comedy

It's half a comedy, unlike synecdoche ny which is all comedy.

And yeah, Kung Fu Hustle is amazing.

Only ones I've seen and actively disliked are Bridesmaids, Punch-Drunk Love and I Heart Huckabees.

1-3 should be all Jackass possibly followed by In the Loop.

Looked at the intro. Obviously a fine line that deems Ghost World a comedy and Lost in Translation not, but that's understandable.

Love State and Main.

Feel like very few of these would match three top-drawer episodes of 30 Rock in a row.

I've seen a terrifying 37 of these films...

Offside is a lovely inclusion, but I'm torn between Ghost World and...actually no, I'm just going to vote for Ghost World. Pitch perfect transposition of the comic book. Its satirisation of contemporary art class is one of the best things, and Illeana Douglas is amazing as a new age art teacher.

High Fidelity is my least favourite on this list by a mile.

that is definitely a list of fifty movies

Also, no Smiley Face? That should be topping this imo.

omission of Eternal Sunshine and Dogtooth means there's nothing more to say about this listicle, really

"Making people laugh is the lowest form of comedy." - Michael O'Donoghue

I might choose Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and burn the rest in a garbage dump.

obvious child is really funny imo, but you really need to enjoy jenny slate for it to work

like I think I watched some of the extras on the dvd and the orig script dialogue was super clunky and unfunny

Seen 23, the only omissions I regret:

In The Loop
Frances Ha
In Bruges*
Obvious Child
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Force Majeure
Four Lions*

* = I have actually had these on my PC at some point, fuck's sake, Farrell.

Bad Santa possibly the funniest movie here. I like several of these quite a bit but not many among my all-time faves. This century has produced way funnier TV than it has movies.

Hot Fuzz might be the one on the list that got me to laugh the most. I'd say it was the best of the slapstick style comedies.

There is some dark and funny stuff in Bad Santa too. Billy Bob Thornton is good in that one.

Pineapple Express seems to be one missing that I like much better than some of these movies. That fight scene at Danny McBrides characters house is a classic.

putting all three of Hot Fuzz/Shaun of the Dead/World's End on here is o_0 - I mean they're all basically the same sorta entertaining movie but no way are all three of them great comedies

seen 37 of these. out of 33 38 43 46 49, 46

MacGruber and Hot Rod are the most glaring omissions IMO.

(And another that I have gotten inordinate amounts of shit about in the past and will surely get inordinate amounts of shit for naming.)

a Harold & Kumar probably belongs on here - but which one?

xp hah I was going to say there was at least less BroComedy than I was fearing - removing Danny McBride from history seems to unshockingly have a salutory effect.

i see oldlunch, you like yr film comedies as tv sketches draaaaaged out to feature length

thank you Lorne

My omissions--either of which would have gotten my vote over anything here--are Ratatouille and The Way Way Back, but I'm assuming they didn't consider animation of the non-puppet-sex variety (though Team America isn't even the best puppet-sex movie of the last 16 years) or even see TWWB (since very few people did).

The Edgar Wrights are very different movies, you might be confused by the accents?

xp my "it's not great but I love it" missing would be Blades of Glory.

biggest omissions are Eternal Sunshine (Morbz otm) and This is the End imo

I've seen all three movies AF, they are v similar in cast, tone, structure, joeks, etc.

oh Kung Fu Hustle should be on here too, for sure

i see oldlunch, you like yr film comedies as tv sketches draaaaaged out to feature length

thank you Lorne

― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Monday, July 11, 2016 12:04 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lorne (or, more accurately, the Lonely Island dudes) only figured out a workable formula in the past decade. Which involves, notably, making something that resembles an actual movie rather than exhaustively riffing on something that barely worked in five-minute increments.

I liked all of these:

2. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
4. Best In Show (2000)
5. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
7. Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004)
8. High Fidelity (2000)
9. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)
10. Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan (2006)
11. Superbad (2007)
13. Hot Fuzz (2007)
14. Bridesmaids (2011)
15. Team America: World Police (2004)
16. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
18. Mean Girls (2004)
20. The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
28. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
32. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
35. Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
36. A Mighty Wind (2003)
37. School Of Rock (2003)
38. I Heart Huckabees (2004)
40. Zoolander (2001)
41. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
42. Knocked Up (2007)
46. Bad Santa (2003)
48. Josie And The Pussycats (2001)

voting Kiss Kiss Bang Bang because it's awesome and underrated

(although I probably should vote Kung Fu Hustle or Josie)

WHAS is a good #1 pick but all of these would get a thumbs up from me.

1. Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
2. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
3. In The Loop (2009)
5. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
6. Frances Ha (2012)
8. High Fidelity (2000)
10. Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan (2006)
13. Hot Fuzz (2007)
17. In Bruges (2008)
27. Idiocracy (2006)
28. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
29. The Informant! (2009)
31. The World’s End (2013)
35. Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
46. Bad Santa (2003)

oh sorry missed that KFH is up there my bad

good call above on Pineapple Express being omitted. I definitely have a strong bias towards some of these films after having watched them on cable 9,000 times, hence my top ten from this list would be:

2. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
3. In The Loop (2009)
4. Best In Show (2000)
5. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
7. Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004)
14. Bridesmaids (2011)
17. In Bruges (2008)
18. Mean Girls (2004)
28. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
40. Zoolander (2001)

really hated to cut Hot Fuzz there. speaking of which, my #1 would be Shaun of the Dead.

i like all of the edgar wright films i've seen but SOTD is pretty clearly the funniest and the tightest film, narratively speaking.

No Wedding Crashers?

frances ha is a pretty damn good movie i think. also i enjoyed its humor, i was thinking it would be more dour than it was.

I guess I should probably finally watch Kung Fu Hustle and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

they might be overhyped at this point but I love both of them to death

Not much love here for some reason.

ILX didn't much like Flight of The Conchords either though did we?

Sigh... in retrospect it really does seem like the '00s were a golden age of mainstream film comedy. Nowadays a clever idea for a comedy is remaking Mean Girls. Sad.

Lots of comedies not even listed here better than what we get these days: The Hangover, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, 2 Days in Paris, Elf, Dodgeball, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Zach and Miri Make a Porno, Napoleon Dynamite, Mamma Mia!, Meet the Parents, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, etc..

what exactly do we get these days? it feels like they don't make these kinds of movies at all anymore. unless there's a bunch of direct-to-Netflix stuff with Adam Sandler or whatever

They're pretty much all direct to streaming now, with the two most recent exceptions being Barbie and No Hard Feelings (which ended up on Netflix like six weeks after it opened anyway).

You Hurt My Feelings isn't exactly a guffaw-style comedy, but it was worth watching

Holofcener is possibly the secret best Comedy director of the modern era.

Add me to the three posters who lobbied for Adventureland.

Honestly I don't miss "let's get 20 takes of Will Ferrell and stitch it together afterwards" (for all that I love, for example, Zoolander and him in it)

From a dumb list of "best comedies of 2023", along with the ones already mentioned, there's Are you there, God?, Bottoms, Joy Ride, Cocaine Bear, Flux Gourmet - Poor Things is out just now, there's Argylle and Wicked Little Letters and Drive-Away Dolls dues later this year - the distinction made by Morbius about character comedies vs jokebook comedies is solid, and there's a lack of "I went in and was in shocked laughter for 90 minutes" (though Bottoms is closest), but again I'm fine with that.

And yeah of course something as hard to audience-size as comedy is getting less time in cinemas in 2024.

I was probably one of the Josie voters, dlh otm both that it slows down towards the end (when it decides needs to be a romcom) and that it's a great corporate dystopia. I suspect that seeing it at #48 on the original list and WHAS at #1 would have affected that, and seeing it on top by one vote is sweet - absent such enjoyable pettiness, I'd probably pick Walk Hard.

Tbf, they didn't just remake Mean Girls, they made a movie based on the musical based on the movie. Not that you would know it from the trailer, tho.

Would add Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar as a good broad comedy of recent vintage. It wasn't a theatrical release but I think it was supposed to be if not for the pandemic.

Bottoms seemed to split the room pretty sharply. So yeah, perhaps the heir to WHAS

I remember Bad Santa being flat and not particularly funny, weird top pick.

I just couldn't believe how bad the Santa was

and then he got badder!

I feel like the absurdist, gags-upon-gags sort of comedy in the lineage of Airplane! & Mel Brooks has been missing from contemporary cinema since at least the Anchorman/Step Brothers days and it makes me sad. I love that garbage. No emphasis on story or character, no attempt at biting satire, just an endless buffet of escalating dumb jokes

I appreciated BASEketball for that reason

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B6ck7O6BBU

Bottoms had a not-insignificant quantity of that very brand of humor imo

I'll have to check it out! I thought it was more in the "serious" social-satire bracket for some reason.

Gonna ride for 'Barb & Star' and 'Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping' and that's really about it for our post-Farrell laffaverse

^style boy for life

I thought it was more in the "serious" social-satire bracket for some reason

There's what feels like a maybe obligatory amount of that in there too, but the movie's heart never really seems in that aspect

Barb and Star was wonderful.

i saw theater camp on a plane recently and imo it was a really solid endless-cascade-of-jokes movie that was also clearly angling for wet hot american summer cult status (bottoms seems more “improv” than either to me, tho i also enjoyed it)

oh my god, Theater Camp was amazing. it's enjoyable for all audiences but anybody who's done the theater kid experience will probably lose their shit.

the bit that went:

"I know this is an incredibly stressful process and it can kinda feel like life and death. It's designed to feel that way

"If you drop a line, if you crack, if you're a little flat, what does that say about you?"

slayed me

the making up the song on the spot part was great too.

and the kid auditioning with Better Now lmao

i’m not a theater person at all and thus approached the film with trepidation, but i lol’d at almost every joke! had to respect it

It definitely did feel like WHAS in many ways, you're right there

Bash brothers

Yeah, I'd say Bottoms is more working in 'modern society' than with much of a message about it (thinking particularly here of the "to me, being an ally is..." scene). It's basically a horndog hustle movie - Rachel Sennott is giving Peak Bill Murray Energy for a lot of it. Of course, two women in a horndog hustle movie now play differently from two guys 40 years ago, but that's modern society!

Moonrise Kingdom and WALL•E are probably my two favorites but they weren't included.

checked did i note the absence of super troopers previously, ok guess my work here is done

I feel like the absurdist, gags-upon-gags sort of comedy in the lineage of Airplane! & Mel Brooks has been missing from contemporary cinema since at least the Anchorman/Step Brothers days and it makes me sad. I love that garbage. No emphasis on story or character, no attempt at biting satire, just an endless buffet of escalating dumb jokes

― feed me with your chips (zchyrs), Tuesday, January 16, 2024 10:06 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

If you need a reminder of why this genre was likely rendered permanently radioactive, do a quick google for 'Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer'.

i see WHAS noted as a cult comedy by americans and i note once again that 'cult' in this context means "no jokes and no good line reads and no good performances' and honestly that's fine i spose

That can sucks its own dick, dude.

which movie called Wet Hot American Summer did you watch that had no jokes?

britishes and Irishers don't get Withnail and I either.

correct

every performance in Wet Hot American Summer is amazing wtf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6YR1EvOS78

I've seen a few British comedies. Brave flex there, darraghmac.

xps fair point on Friedburg & Seltzer, those guys have a lot to answer for :(

I started watching Barb & Star a while back and recall liking it, so it's due for a revisit. I'll put Theater Camp on the list too

can we maybe pull back on calling ppl british as a reflex

historically we have shot ppl for it and im not sure laziness will be accepted as an excuse if i start

Stop the presses, a new title emerges:

First poster for ‘RICKY STANICKY’, starring Zac Efron and John Cena.

Releasing March 7 on Prime Video. pic.twitter.com/RyEm9SWvso

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) January 26, 2024

The writing credits are as long as a Kanye track's.

Academy Award-winning director Peter Farrelly!

can we maybe pull back on calling ppl british as a reflex

Perhaps Eric assumed that, much like every US funnyman turns out to be Canadian, British comedies are secretly entirely made by Irish people?

an interesting thought- apart from graham linehan ironically who everyone thinks is irish but is actually from anywhere else