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CaB's 100 Greatest Comedy Films Of All Time - The Big Vote 2017

Started by Serge, August 25, 2017, 11:02:11 AM

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Serge

As a spin-off from the BBC Culture 100 Greatest Comedies Of All Time thread, we thought it would be interesting to see what a CaB Poll of the 100 Greatest Comedy Films Of All Time would look like. Pick ten which you think are the best / your favourite / whatever criteria you think qualifies them to be in your top ten, with maybe a bit of a write up for why you've picked them which will stop this just becoming a thread full of lists and nothing else.

As with the Sitcom poll that I did a couple of years ago - and I should say exactly a couple of years ago, as I just looked it up, and I started the voting thread for that on August 25 2015! - once the poll is closed, I'll take all of the lists and give each film in them one point, and figure out the ranking from there. If any list has more than ten titles, I'm going to take the first ten from it, as that's the only way of being fair.

The cut-off point for lists will be November 30th 2017. I'll bump the thread periodically to jog people's memories.

purlieu

Intrigued as to how far we're allowed to stretch the definition of a comedy film. The BBC list had Pulp Fiction in there, which obviously is a very funny film in places, but I wouldn't put it down as a straight-up comedy. Is it a case of suggesting whatever you personally think is a comedy? Examples: Trainspotting, Roy Anderson's Living Trilogy, Evil Dead II would be in my longlist.

Sin Agog

I honestly think you should just let people add as many as they want.  It may not be democratic, but it'll make the final list more interesting (to me at least).  I mostly say this as I wanted to add a Hoity Toity List and a Ho Ho Hoi Polloi List.  As I keep on telling people, the classes should never mix.  It'll also pad out the numbers a little.

Small Man Big Horse

Okay, after much deliberation here's mine...

1) Harold and Maude (1971) - Serge's most hated film at no.1? Yep, fraid so, and my apologies good sir, but I love it's sense of humour and joy, and the incredibly touching relationship between the two leads, whilst Harold's various suicide attempts never fail to make me laugh and laugh hard at that.

2) Little Shop Of Horrors (1986) - As I've adored it since it's release, and to this day it still stands up as a near perfect piece of cinema. The songs are amazing, the character's incredibly lovable, whilst it's packed with great cameos too. For the record I should stress that I'm including the original ending here where both Seymour and Audrey die and the plants take over the world, because that's clearly what should have happened all along.

3) Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) - Just perfect in so many ways, and the film that made me realise how amazing Peter Sellers is.

4) Hellzapoppin' (1941) - I only discovered this thanks to CaB but it's a revelation, with so many jokes and ideas that never cease to make me laugh, along with some fun fourth wall breaking and a super fast pace that never lets up.

5) The Evil Dead II (1987) - I could have put a whole bunch of horror comedies in here as it's a genre I love a great deal, but ultimately settled for this as it's both grotesque and hilarious whilst Bruce Campbell easily should have beaten Michael Douglas in the Best Actor Oscar category that year.

6) Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) - What hasn't already been written about this film? Probably not much, so I'll keep it short - it's ridiculously funny, beautifully acted, and never ceases to make me laugh however many times I watch it.

7) The Great Dictator (1940) - I'd previously never been the greatest fan of Chaplin to be honest when I watched this a few years back, only to be blown away by just how funny it is, and biting too.

8) South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999) - Another musical, as I love the genre to pieces, I was tempted to put Singing In The Rain here but South Park has the better songs and is even funnier than that classic movie.

9) A Town Called Panic (2009) - Yeah it's technically a kid's film but it's joyous fun and a rare case where if anyone actively hated it they would definitely have severe psychological problems. So I hope no one does, and get help if you do!

10) Amateur (1994) - Because Hal Hartley just really does it for me, his unique sense of humour and style of dialogue makes me laugh a lot.

Bubbling under: Gremlins 2; Four Lions; Brazil; Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure; My Sassy Girl; Singing In The Rain; Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums for that matter; The Ladykillers (1955); Brazil; The Seven Year Itch; The Big Lebowski; Shaolin Soccer; Annie Hall and other Allen comedies from the 70s and 80s; Being There; The Brand New Testament; Duck Soup; Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping; Down With Love; Bringing Up Baby; Borat; Groundhog Day; Wrong; Reefer Madness - The Musical.

Probably forgotten: I don't know, obviously, but I imagine I'll see something on someone's list and be shocked that I forgot to add it to mine.

Serge

Quote from: purlieu on August 25, 2017, 01:25:09 PMIntrigued as to how far we're allowed to stretch the definition of a comedy film. The BBC list had Pulp Fiction in there, which obviously is a very funny film in places, but I wouldn't put it down as a straight-up comedy. Is it a case of suggesting whatever you personally think is a comedy? Examples: Trainspotting, Roy Anderson's Living Trilogy, Evil Dead II would be in my longlist.

As long as nobody takes the piss and puts 'Shoah' in there, I'll take anything that can reasonably be stretched to be called a comedy. That would make it a far more interesting list.

Quote from: Sin Agog on August 25, 2017, 01:47:27 PMI honestly think you should just let people add as many as they want.  It may not be democratic, but it'll make the final list more interesting (to me at least).  I mostly say this as I wanted to add a Hoity Toity List and a Ho Ho Hoi Polloi List.  As I keep on telling people, the classes should never mix.  It'll also pad out the numbers a little.

No, we have to be democratic. Everybody gets ten films. Then the list is a true reflection of CaB.

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on August 25, 2017, 02:44:44 PMSerge's most hated film at no.1?

As long as 'Amelie' exists, 'Harold and Maude' is just a pretender to that title.

Sin Agog

I am literally incapable of confining myself to ten.  I mean, I just wrote a big post with a long preamble, but I could not do it.  I'd never make it as a character in High Fidelity.

EDIT: Sorry for being awkward, Serge!  Thanks for doing all the leg-work and admin with the list.  I'm just particularly shit at them. The problem is I change my mind every five minutes, and the obscurist cunt in me keeps on wanting to put in some movie I saw five minutes of in 1994, just because it has some weird Polish name with not enough vowels in it.  So I'll remain listless.

purlieu

Quote from: Serge on August 25, 2017, 05:06:20 PM
As long as nobody takes the piss and puts 'Shoah' in there, I'll take anything that can reasonably be stretched to be called a comedy. That would make it a far more interesting list.
Ok!

In vague order, I suppose.
Trainspotting
Equal turns hilarious and harrowingly bleak, but with a definite sense of the absurd throughout. I love everything about this film: every shot is superbly directed, the soundtrack is incredible, the casting is spot on, and it does a very good job of turning what is effectively a collection of fragmented short stories into a loose but coherent plot. From the wonderfully surreal - Renton taking a swim past a mine in a toilet bowl - to the crude - Spud covering his girlfriend's family, and their full English, with diarrhoea - the lighter scenes sparkle with a wonderful energy, whilst even a scene as dark as Renton's cold turkey hallucination is filled with black humour, particularly Dale Winton's cameo.

Withnail & I
I don't need to say anything, it's fucking Withnail & I.

Ghostbusters
I absolutely love this film. The original, of course. I did enjoyed the remake a lot though. A brilliantly barmy premise, a heap of superb dialogue, and a giant marshmallow man. Bill Murray throws in one of the best performances of a career filled with incredible performances. Just one of the most joyously hilarious films ever.

A Shot in the Dark
It's difficult to choose a Clouseau, but I went with this as I think it offers the best balance of gag-rate combined with an actual plot. The first Pink Panther is the most well-rounded of the series but lighter on jokes (although I think Clouseau's role in the film is sometimes played down by commenters - he pretty much leads things in the second half of the film); the '70s ones are hilarious, but feel a little like they're just trying to put the character in more ridiculous situations for the sake of it (not inherently a bad thing, of course). A Shot in the Dark, though, just works on both levels. Farcical, and with as many Peter Sellers walks into things gags to last a lifetime.

Clerks
Not even the staggeringly poor quality of Kevin Smith's later works, or the sequel to this, can mar this lovely film. Of the many, many 'American suburban kids hang around and do nothing'-based independent films of the late '80s and early '90s, this one always stands out to me.

Educating Rita
I love Julie Walters, and I think this is my favourite thing she's done. Rita is a brilliant character, and the chemistry between her and Michael Caine is tremendous. The tremendous sense of warmth in this film fills me with happiness alone.

Superbad
This was not my childhood. As a teen, any social events and parties I attended were far more sedate than this affair. The simplicity of the premise here is maybe the film's strength: three teenagers try to buy some alcohol for a party. It escalates in a farcical manner. The ridiculousness of McLovin secures it a spot in here alone.

Dog Soldiers
The first of three horror comedies now. I love this film. I went in with no expectations and enjoyed every second of it. Although the initial shock value of how utterly daft it is (yet played completely straight) is lost on rewatching, it still has enough jokes, charm and atmosphere to keep a lot of entertainment value.

Evil Dead II
Ah bloody hell, how do I even talk about this film? The perfect balance of the low budget horror of the first and outright comedy of Army of Darkness, it's relentless in its hideousness and hilarity.

An American Werewolf in London
Much like Dog Soldiers, the first time I saw this I wasn't aware just how funny it was going to be. The cinema scene is tremendous, but strangely it's the abruptness of the ending that makes me laugh most in hindsight.

And the ten almost-made-its:
Monty Python's Holy Grail
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
Naked Gun
Shaun of the Dead
Yellow Submarine
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa
Being John Malkovich
Songs From the Second Floor
Airplane!
The Happening

weekender

1. Dr Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)

My favourite film of all time.  It's based on the book Red Alert by Peter George, which is a fairly dramatic book dealing with the suspense of the Cold War and the real - at the time (think Trump vs Bad Korea for a modern day analogy) - threat of nuclear war and mutually assured destruction.

If this doesn't sound funny, then dark humour/black comedy might be your thing - originally Stanley Kubrick wanted to make a serious drama based on the book, but as he was writing the screenplay along with a few others (including, I believe, the book's author Peter George), they all realised the potential comedy in such a serious subject.  It's what Chris Morris tried to do with Four Lions - when Morris talks about all the stupid things that go wrong with terrorist plots, he's right, but Kubrick did it 60 years earlier.

To try and explain why this film is so amazing would take me days, so I'll just drop in an interesting fact - George C Scott refused to 'camp it up' on camera as the role demanded, so Kubrick just told him to go overboard in rehearsals, so he could calm down for his serious performance.  Then Kubrick used most of Scott's rehearsal takes in the actual film, and it works brilliantly.

There are so many catchphrases that I still use to this day that no-one ever seems to get:

"OK, Dave, if that is your real name" just confuses people (it comes from a brilliantly written line of "OK Colonel Bat Guano, if that is your real name").

"I hope we're getting the fluoride into our essential bodily fluids" whenever anyone gets a drink of water from the machine.  I'm an unfunny man, I know.

Haven't even mentioned Peter Sellers yet, and I only just found out that apparently it was Spike Milligan who suggested the ending.  Never knew that, amazing.

So many writers, comedians, actors, upcoming stars etc combined to make this film and it's just fucking astonishing.

OK, the other 9.  If I have to provide an explanation then I may have failed the thread's rules, but that's OK if I get one other person to watch Dr Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb).

2. This Is Spinal Tap
3. Life of Brian
4. Airplane!
5. Some Like It Hot
6. Holy Grail
7. Team America: World Police
8. Anchorman
9. South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut
10. Austin Powers


I chose these mainly on the basis of which ones made me laugh a lot.  I hope that's OK.

weekender

I didn't expect Anchorman to rate so highly either, but as I was thinking about it I burst out laughing, so there it is.

Are we allowed filmed stage productions? I'd really like to vote for the O'Toole Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell.

Sin Agog

Definitely not!  But you are permitted to add The Ruling Class or My Favorite Year in its place.

(Was going to post the full play on youtube, but the dashed link's been taken down.  I thoroughly recommend finding it by other means if you can.  O'Toole was a godsend).

newbridge

Quote from: Serge on August 25, 2017, 05:06:20 PM
As long as 'Amelie' exists, 'Harold and Maude' is just a pretender to that title.

You are EGREGIOUSLY wrong here, but I'll let it go since this thread is comedies only.

Brundle-Fly

Way Out West (1937)
Hellzapoppin' (1941)
Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
School For Scoundrels (1960)
The Rebel (1961)
It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
Bedazzled (1967)
Who Framed Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

biggytitbo

Sons of the Desert
Way out West
Oh Mr Porter
Two Way Stretch
The Rebel
Take the Money and Run
Sleeper
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Love and Death
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Murder by Death
Life of Brian
Stir Crazy
Top Secret
Trading Places
A Fish Called Wanda
Naked Gun

Mr Brightside

I hope everyone who picks more or less than ten is expelled from the thread.

Old Nehamkin

10. Welcome to Me
9. Love and Death
8. Wayne's World
7. The Big Lebowski
6. Way Out West
5. South Park
4. Dr. Strangelove
3. Blazing Saddles
2. Life of Brian
1.The Castle

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

1) Love and Death
2) Annie Hall
3) Dr Strangelove
4) Sons of the Desert
5) Way Out West
6) This is Spinal Tap
7) The Nutty Professor
8) Duck Soup
9) The Apartment
10) A Shot in the Dark



chocky909

This Is Spinal Tap
Withnail And I
Groundhog Day
Monty Python And The Holy Grail
Superbad
Airplane
The Jerk
Office Space
South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut
There's Something About Mary

Will anyone put Four Lions in their top 10?

Glebe

I'm no good at lists... here's eight, not in any order (although Duck Soup may well belong on top), off the top of my head:

Duck Soup (1933).
The Ladykillers (1955).
Airplane!
This is Spinal Tap.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Life of Brian.
Young Frankenstein.
Blazing Saddles.

mr. logic

Annie Hall
Manhattan Murder Mystery
South Park
Kingpin
Naked Gun 2 1/2
Adaptation
Throw Mama off the Train
Planes, Train and Automobiles
Muppets Christmas Carol
Pulp Fiction

notjosh

Here is my list. I went for the films I considered to be the best as comedies, not the best films that are also comedies.

1. His Girl Friday
2. The Naked Gun
3. It Happened One Night
4. Gremlins 2: The New Batch
5. The Awful Truth
6. Groundhog Day
7. Passport to Pimlico
8. Office Space
9. Monkey Business
10. Steamboat Round the Bend


Runners up: Bringing Up Baby, Modern Times, Steamboat Bill Jr, Ball of Fire, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Kid Brother, The Truman Show, The Seven Year Itch, The Blues Brothers, Innerspace

EDIT: Okay, just changed it twice, but this one is final.

RHX

1. This Is Spinal Tap
2. Blazing Saddles
3. A Mighty Wind
4. Clueless
5. The Jerk
6. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
7. Best In Show
8. Wayne's World 2
9. Austin Powers International Man Of Mystery
10. Anchorman

DrGreggles

Airplane! (1980)
Best In Show (2000)
The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)
Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
Monty Python And The Holy Grail (1975)
The Naked Gun (1988)
Planes, Train and Automobiles (1987)
The Producers (1967)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Way Out West (1937)

newbridge

Alphabetically:

After Hours (1985) - Secretly the best Scorsese movie.

The Bank Dick (1940) - How can you have a list like this without W.C. Fields? Greatest comedic actor ever.

Dr. Strangelove (1964) - What more need be said?

Love and Death (1975) - Woody Allen at his best.

The Naked Gun (1988) - The best of joke-a-minute, reference-heavy comedies that have continued from the 1980s through the present. Funnier than Airplane!

One, Two, Three (1961) - James Cagney in a screwball Billy Wilder movie. Perhaps the best satire of the Cold War.

Some Like It Hot (1959) - The best movie ever, period. Lemmon/Curtis with all-time great performances.

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) - I was thinking the other day of the ways Spinal Tap has influenced popular culture when David Lynch had a hand-drawn audience volume sign on Twin Peaks that, yes, went to 11.

Strange Brew (1983) - Put this on your lists, you hosers.

Waiting for Guffman (1996) - My favorite Christopher Guest movie, but it's very hard to choose. Best in Show could easily be here instead.

lankyguy95

Too many films here I haven't seen. Definitely will be checking them out.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: biggytitbo on August 26, 2017, 12:14:24 AM
Sons of the Desert
Way out West
Oh Mr Porter
Two Way Stretch
The Rebel
Take the Money and Run
Sleeper
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Love and Death
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Murder by Death
Life of Brian
Stir Crazy
Top Secret
Trading Places
A Fish Called Wanda
Naked Gun

Impeccable!

Brundle-Fly

Murder By Death is a film I'd love to see again but unfortunately, I watched it on the worst night of my entire life exactly thirty five years ago to this very week.  Never dared watch it since.

hewantstolurkatad

Trouble in Paradise
Ernst Lubitsch's best film. 80 minutes and charming as all hell.

Annie Hall
No explanation needed

(I'm already drawing a blank)

What's Up Doc
Whole thing is just paced perfectly, I laughed like an idiot throughout.

My Winnipeg

The only time Guy Maddin's managed to sustain his weirdness in an enjoyable manner for a full film. Such a gloriously weird little film, just thinking about it makes me wanna watch it right now tbh

A Serious Man
Jesus, does this count as a comedy? I'd categorise it as one, it's all quite gleefully awful and I'd rather pick something like it than one of their more outright comedic efforts

Tangerine
Love the editing and sheer speed of the whole thing, pretty great set of characters and the whole thing just zips by

Love & Friendship
Whit Stillman probably won't beat this tbh, the perfect outlet for his sense of humour and some absolutely wonderful performances. Not at all confident in this list I'm making here but I'm pretty sure this was the best comedy in years tbh.

Dogtooth
Nearly a coin toss between this and the Lobster, Dogtooth is more consistent though

Decline of Western Civilization Part 2
Penelope Spheeris gleefully lets hair metal parody itself

Roger and Me
Ignoring everything Michael Moore has come to be, this is edited to be a pretty hilarious look at the death of a city. The kind of thing that can start a thousand times the amount of conversations a more precise, formal piece can do.



Films that popped up high on my other lists I'm looking through for this one that I don't consider enough of comedies to include: the Apartment, Chungking Express, It's Such a Beautiful Day, Babe, Wes Andersons, My Night at Mauds, Punch Drunk Love, Almodovar, Kaufmanns... there's absolutely tons tbh.

Honorable mentions (semi-chronological): Gold Diggers of 1933, M. Hulot's Holiday, Real Life, the Jerk, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Trading Places, Planes Trains & Automobiles, Midnight Run, Groundhog Day, Clueless, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Men in Black, There's Something About Mary, Office Space, In Bruges/Six Shooter, Hot Fuzz, In the Loop, Chi-raq

Absorb the anus burn

The Rise And Rise Of Michael Rimmer.
What's Up Doc?
Love And Death.
The Ruling Class.