Good Comedy Films On Netflix Uk 2021

Netflix's focus on original content is really starting to impact its lineup of movies. You'll see a lot of Netflix originals on the list below, but not enough to make up for all the classics that have fallen out of rotation over the last few years. At one point this list had 50 movies on it every month; now it's usually only 30 movies deep. At this point we might have to sit through every one of those Adam Sandler movies to see if any are actually good enough to recommend.

Fortunately a few true classics have returned lately. Step Brothers and Stripes are both back on the original streamer, and back near the top of our list. And to Netflix's credit, they've been slowly building up a roster of legitimately good Netflix exclusives like The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Bad Trip. It might not be as deep of a roster as it was five years ago, but there's still a great variety of comedies to choose from.

Anyway. Enough blather. Let's take a quick trip through the funniest movies on Netflix right now. Again, for the purpose of these rankings I'm looking at how funny a movie is alongside how well made it is—meaning you might see some absolutely hilarious comedies that aren't that well respected by critics coming in higher than better reviewed, more technically proficient films. You can call this the Mindhorn / Casa de Mi Padre (RIP!) Rule—yeah, they're not better movies than, say, The Artist, but they definitely make me laugh more.

Here are the best comedies on Netflix as of November 2021.

1. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Year: 1975
Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
Stars: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Connie Booth
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%
Rating: PG
Runtime: 92 minutes

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It sucks that some of the shine has been taken off Holy Grail by its own overwhelming ubiquity. Nowadays, when we hear a "flesh wound," a "ni!" or a "huge tracts of land," our first thoughts are often of having full scenes repeated to us by clueless, obsessive nerds. Or, in my case, of repeating full scenes to people as a clueless, obsessive nerd. But, if you try and distance yourself from the over-saturation factor, and revisit the film after a few years, you'll find new jokes that feel as fresh and hysterical as the ones we all know. Holy Grail is, indeed, the most densely packed comedy in the Python canon. There are so many jokes in this movie, and it's surprising how easily we forget that, considering its reputation. If you're truly and irreversibly burnt out from this movie, watch it again with commentary, and discover the second level of appreciation that comes from the inventiveness with which it was made. It certainly doesn't look like a $400,000 movie, and it's delightful to discover which of the gags (like the coconut halves) were born from a need for low-budget workarounds. The first-time co-direction from onscreen performer Terry Jones (who only sporadically directed after Python broke up) and lone American Terry Gilliam (who prolifically bent Python's cinematic style into his own unique brand of nightmarish fantasy) moves with a surreal efficiency. —Graham Techler

2. Monty Python's Life of Brian

Year: 1979
Director: Terry Jones
Stars: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%
Rating: R
Runtime: 92 minutes

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Pretty much made on George Harrison's dime and considered, even if apocryphally, by the legendary comedy troupe to be their best film (probably because it's the closest they've come to a three-act narrative with obvious "thematic concerns"), Life of Brian got banned by a lot of countries at the butt-end of the '70s. As a Christ story, the telling of how squealy mama's boy, Brian (Graham Chapman) mistakenly finds himself as one of many messiah figures rising in Judea under the shadow of Roman occupation (around 33 AD, on a Saturday afternoon-ish), Monty Python's follow-up to Holy Grail may be the most political film of its ilk. As such, the British comedy group stripped all romanticism and nobility from the story's bones, lampooning everything from radical revolutionaries to religious institutions to government bureaucracy while never stooping to pick on the figure of Jesus or his empathetic teachings. Of course, Life of Brian isn't the first film about Jesus (or: Jesus adjacent) to focus on the human side of the so-called savior—Martin Scorsese's take popularly did so less than a decade later—but it feels like the first to leverage human weakness against the absurdity of the Divine's expectations. Steeped in satire fixing on everything from Spartacus to Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, and buttressed by as many iconic lines as there are crucifixes holding up the film's frames (as Brian's equally squealy mother hollers to the swarming masses, "He's not the messiah. He's a very naughty boy!"), the film explores Jesus's life by obsessing over the context around it. Maybe a "virgin birth" was really just called that to cover up a Roman centurion's sexual crimes. Maybe coincidence (and also class struggle) is reality's only guiding force. Maybe the standard of what makes a miracle should be a little higher. And maybe the one true through line of history is that stupid people will always follow stupid people, whistling on the way to our meaningless, futile deaths. —Dom Sinacola

3. Step Brothers

Year: 2008
Director: Adam McKay
Stars: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins, Adam Scott
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 55%
Rating: R
Runtime: 98 minutes

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If we're judging in terms of pure quotability, the only comedy film of the last 20 years to even exist in the same solar system as Step Brothers is Anchorman. What does this say of us as viewers? Step Brothers is perhaps the finest distillation of the post-2000s man-child comedy subset, taken to the illogical extreme. Its two central characters are each in their 40s, and equally incapable of taking the barest shred of responsibility for their lives outside of the protective cocoon of home. Brennan (Will Ferrell) doesn't understand where a person might go in order to obtain toilet paper when they run out. Dale (John C. Reilly) erroneously believes he can inherit his father's "family business" of being a medical doctor. The characters are so exaggeratedly helpless that the film somehow manages to achieve transcendent punchlines toward the end simply by showing them forced to adapt to the mundanity of normal life. What other film could turn "taking baby Aspirin to reduce my risk for heart attack" into a genuinely laugh-out-loud moment? But more than anything, Step Brothers is what happens when you simply let two of the finest comic actors of a generation play off each other and improvise to their heart's content, with a rare form of chemistry that would be impossible to fake and flanked by brilliant supporting work from the likes of Richard Jenkins, Mary Steenburgen, Adam Scott and Kathryn Hahn. —Jim Vorel

4. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Year: 2001
Director: Adam McKay
Stars: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Gary Cole, Michael Clarke Duncan, Leslie Bibb, Jane Lynch, Amy Adams
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 71%
Rating: R
Runtime: 108 minutes

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Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly go together like reconciliation and getting thrown out of Applebee's. In one of the finest films directed by Adam McKay, the duo play race-car drivers in a loving send-up of NASCAR culture. Sacha Baron Cohen is perfect as Ferrell's European foil Jean Girard, and the film is jam-packed with both sight gags (the live cougar in the race car) and brilliant dialogue (the prayer to eight-pound-six-ounce-newborn-infant Jesus). His sons Walker and Texas Ranger, the random appearance of Elvis Costello and Mos Def in Girard's back yard, and Amy Adams recreating the Whitesnake video in the bar all provide Hall of Fame moments from the Judd Apatow canon.—Josh Jackson

5. Lady Bird

Year: 2017
Director: Greta Gerwig
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Beanie Feldstein, Timothee Chalamet
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%
Rating: R
Runtime: 93 minutes

Before Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson (Saoirse Ronan)—Lady Bird is her given name, as in "[she] gave it to [her]self"—auditions for the school musical, she watches a young man belting the final notes to "Being Alive" from Stephen Sondheim's Company. A few moments before, while in a car with her mother, she lays her head on the window wistfully and says with a sigh, "I wish I could just live through something." Stuck in Sacramento, where she thinks there's nothing to be offered her while paying acute attention to everything her home does have to offer, Lady Bird—and the film, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, that shares her name—has ambivalence running through her veins. What a perfect match: Stephen Sondheim and Greta Gerwig. Few filmmakers are able to capture the same kind of ambiguity and mixed feelings that involve the refusal to make up one's mind: look to 35-year-old Bobby impulsively wanting to marry a friend, but never committing to any of his girlfriends, in Company; the "hemming and hawing" of Cinderella on the, ahem, steps of the palace; or Mrs. Lovett's cause for pause in telling Sweeney her real motives. Lady Bird isn't as high-concept as many of Sondheim's works, but there's a piercing truthfulness to the film, and arguably Gerwig's work in general, that makes its anxieties and tenderness reverberate in the viewer's heart with equal frequency. —Kyle Turner

6. School of Rock

Year: 2003
Director: Richard Linklater
Stars: Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White, Sarah Silverman, Miranda Cosgrove
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 110 minutes

School of Rock gets plenty of comic mileage of the fact that Jack Black's character, Dewey Finn, isn't nearly as book smart as his students: "You're gonna have to use your head, and your brain, and your mind, too," he tells them. But it's Dewey who uses his head, brain and mind as he becomes musical mentor, creator of lesson plans and manipulator of an inflexible educational system. (With school music programs being slashed at schools nationwide, School of Rock was ahead of its time.)

School of Rock doesn't go overboard on the sentimental aspects—it establishes that young guitarist Zach has a controlling, overbearing father without beating the audience over the head with it. And while it advocates giving children a means of self-expression and catharsis, it doesn't elevate rock music into something more than it should be.—Curt Holman

7. Stripes

Year: 1981
Director: Ivan Reitman
Stars: Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Warren Oates, P.J. Soles, Sean Young, John Candy, John Larroquette, Judge Reinhold
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%
Rating: R
Runtime: 105 minutes

Stripes might not be as beloved as Ghostbusters or Groundhog Day, but John Winger, the sarcastic, irreverent cabdriver who joins the army after his life falls apart, should be Bill Murray's defining role. (Or, at least, early Murray, before he became a respectable actor.) Sure, Murray had already developed his voice at Second City and on Saturday Night Live, and premiered it on the big screen with Meatballs, but Stripes put Murray's anti-authoritarianism up against the most authoritarian institution in America, allowing him to reach new heights of smarmy disrespect. And it's not afraid to make him look like an asshole without trying hard to rehab him, something that can't be said about Ghostbusters or Groundhog Day. Stripes has problems as a movie—it drags on too long, the last third is overblown and unrealistic, and the way it treats women was uncomfortable back then and would be downright unacceptable today—but between Murray, Harold Ramis, John Candy, Judge Reinhold, John Larroquette, and a fantastic straight man performance by Peckinpah tough guy Warren Oates as the drill sergeant, it might be, laugh for laugh, the funniest movie on this list.—Garrett Martin

8. Pineapple Express

Year: 2008
Director: David Gordon Green
Stars: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Gary Cole, Rosie Perez, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Kevin Corrigan
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 68%
Rating: R
Runtime: 112 minutes

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Pineapple Express is a successful attempt to graft the kind of comedy that Judd Apatow's crew was known for in the '00s onto a different genre. The result is a shaggy, '70s-style low-budget crime thriller turned into an absurd, low-brown stoner comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco. This is the best vehicle for these two after Freaks and Geeks. As ridiculous and violent as the comedy gets, it's still rooted in character, and not just that of the two leads; almost everyone on screen, from Gary Cole's crime boss, to Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan's hitmen, to Danny McBride's cartoonish small-time dealer, establishes a character that's more than just a stereotype or bundle of comical tics.—Garrett Martin

9. House Party

Year: 1990
Director: Reginald Hudlin
Stars: Kid 'n Play, Full Force, Robin Harris, Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell, A.J. Johnson
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%
Rating: R
Runtime: 100 minutes

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Originally meant as a vehicle for DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, this high school romp follows two best friends (hip-hop duo Kid 'n Play) as they get ready to throw an epic house party. Featuring a cast filled with up-and-coming actors and hip-hop stars, the audience gets to see if, between his no-nonsense father (the late Robin Harris) and his dimwitted bullies (Full Force), Kid can survive the night. Between Hudlin's keen direction and a hip-hop drenched soundtrack, the film is filled with infectious energy and originality that captures the life of Black American teens in the late 1980s and early 1990s. —Adreon Patterson

10. The Mitchells vs. The Machines

Year: 2021
Director: Mike Rianda
Stars: Danny McBride, Abbi Jacobson, Maya Rudolph, Mike Rianda, Eric Andre, Olivia Colman, Fred Armisen, Beck Bennett
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%
Rating: PG
Runtime: 109 minutes

Animated generational divides have never been more like a sci-fi carnival than in The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Writer/director Mike Rianda's feature debut (he and co-writer/director Jeff Rowe made their bones on the excellently spooky, silly show Gravity Falls) is equal parts absurd, endearing and terrifying. It's easy to feel as lost or overwhelmed by the flashing lights and exhilarating sights as the central family fighting on one side of the title's grudge match, but it's equally easy to come away with the exhausted glee of a long, weary theme park outing's aftermath. Its genre-embedded family bursts through every messy, jam-packed frame like they're trying to escape (they often are), and in the process create the most energetic, endearing animated comedy so far this year. —Jacob Oller

11. Midnight Run

Year: 1988
Director: Martin Brest
Stars: Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yaphet Kotto, Dennis Farina, John Ashton
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%
Rating: R
Runtime: 122 minutes

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The '80s created the textbook action/comedy formula, and director Martin Brest was smack dab in the middle of it. His Beverly Hills Cop was originally written as a straight action movie, until Eddie Murphy was cast in the lead role. Instead of keeping the overall self-serious tone of the film and just inserting some out-of-place comedy set pieces into the narrative, Murphy and Brest infused a lighthearted tone across the entire project, while keeping the basic requirements of an action structure in place. Midnight Run, Brest's follow-up to Beverly Hills Cop, perfects this fusion. None of the action sequences take themselves too seriously, and none of comedy comes across as mugging, desperate to extract easy chuckles. The premise and structure are very simple and fairly predictable: It's a traditional road movie wherein a grizzled bounty hunter (Robert DeNiro) has to transport a mob accountant (Charles Grodin) across the country, with the mob and the police squarely on their tail. What makes Midnight Run still feel fresh after 30 years is Brest's aforementioned handle on tone, and the terrific chemistry between DeNiro and Grodin, so on point it's surprising they weren't reunited for other similar flicks after this. Usually the rough masculine bounty hunter would be the wild card against the accountant's stuffy straight man, yet DeNiro and Grodin find refreshing ways of tinkering with that formula, with DeNiro's character eventually coming across as a regular good guy who was dealt more than a few bad hands, and Grodin as a lovable but sometimes infuriating weirdo. —Oktay Ege Kozak

12. 21 Jump Street

Year: 2012
Director: Phil Lord, Chris Miller
Stars: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Brie Larson, Dave Franco, Ice Cube
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%
Rating: R
Runtime: 110 minutes

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Against all odds, 21 Jump Street—a movie based on a Fox television series remembered mainly for helping launch the career of Johnny Depp and briefly reminding the world that Dom DeLuise had a son—is an immensely enjoyable, frequently hilarious film. The premise is unchanged. Two youthful-looking (and since this is a comedy, spectacularly incompetent) police officers are assigned to a special division that places undercover agents in schools in an attempt to stop illegal activity. For officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum), fresh out of the academy, this is not so much an opportunity as a richly deserved exile. Their mission, as delivered by a purposefully prototypical Angry Black Police Captain (Ice Cube): Contain the spread of a dangerous new drug that has shown up at a local high school. For Jenko, the return to high school represents a return to his glory days. For Schmidt, it's more of a return to the scene of a crime where the body outlined in chalk looks suspiciously like his own. Unlike so many comic remakes, reboots and long-delayed sequels, 21 Jump Street doesn't overly rely on nostalgia to generate its laughs. Hill isn't doing anything he hasn't done before, but that doesn't make his deadpan-acerbic delivery any less funny, especially alongside the earnest doofus-ness of his partner. Hill and Tatum are supported by a strong ensemble of recognizable faces, including Rob Riggle, Ellie Kemper and Chris Parnell. But though "ensemble piece" usually refers to cast and crew, 21 Jump Street is even more impressive when viewed as an ensemble of comedic approaches. There are laughs to suit all tastes—from sarcastic jibes to pratfalls, from pokes at film conventions ("I really thought that was going to explode.") to exuberant, undeniably infectious, juvenile displays. And each is conveyed in a measure appropriate to its form. As a result, there's just not much time spent watching 21 Jump Street without at least a smile on one's face. —Michael Burgin

13. She's Gotta Have It

Year: 1986
Director: Spike Lee
Stars: Tracy Camila Johns, Spike Lee, John Canada Terrell, Tommy Redmond Hicks
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%
Rating: R
Runtime: 85 minutes

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Spike Lee arrived as a fully-formed talent with this small-budget, black-and-white debut, which wound up being one of the most important movies in the rise of independent films in the 1980s. Lee brought a voice and verisimilitude to the screen that hadn't been seen before, with a movie that's smart, funny and audacious. The central theme—that women can sleep around as much as men, and that they shouldn't be judged or scorned for it—is still relevant 30 years later. In fact, it's so relevant Lee adapted the movie into a Netflix series that premiered last year.—Garrett Martin

14. Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Year: 2016
Director: Taika Waititi
Stars: Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rima Te Wiata, Rachel House, Oscar Kightley, Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne, Rhys Darby
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%
Rating: NR
Runtime: 101 minutes

Bella's (Rima Te Wiata) first encounter with Ricky (Julian Dennison), the new foster child she's agreed to take on, doesn't inspire confidence, especially with her clumsy jokes at the expense of his weight. In turn, with child-services representative Paula (Rachel House) painting Ricky as an unruly wild child, one dreads the prospect of seeing the kid walk all over this possibly in-over-her-head mother. But Bella wears him down with kindness. And Ricky ends up less of a tough cookie than he—with his fondness for gangsta rap and all that implies—initially tried to project. An adaptation of Barry Crump's novel Wild Pork and Watercress, Taika Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople thrives on upending preconceived notions. The director shows sympathy for Ricky's innocence, which is reflected in the film's grand-adventure style. Cinematographer Lachlan Milne's sweeping, colorful panoramas and a chapter-based narrative structure gives Hunt for the Wilderpeople the feel of a storybook fable, but thanks to the warm-hearted dynamic between Ricky and Hec (Sam Neill), even the film's most whimsical moments carry a sense of real underlying pain: Both of these characters are outsiders ultimately looking for a home to call their own. —Kenji Fujishima

15. Bad Trip

Year: 2021
Director: Kitao Sakurai
Stars: Eric Andre, Tiffany Haddish, Lil Rel Howery, Michaela Conlin
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 73%
Rating: R
Runtime: 84 minutes

What's most distinguishable about Bad Trip is the way that it depicts the public which it interacts with. The film never aims to humiliate or dehumanize its subjects—instead of being disparaged or mocked in the name of comedy, bystanders are portrayed as more of a righteous tribunal than mere crabs in a barrel. The reprehensible behavior showcased always stems from Andre, Haddish or Howery, with spectators taking it upon themselves to moralize and attempt to salvage any remaining shred of the incognito actors' perceived dignity—perhaps all too perfectly exemplified in a scene with a parking lot Army recruiter who civilly declines Andre's offer of a blowjob in exchange for execution during a profound period of hopelessness. This ability to invoke public reaction—with no rubric for hardline emotions that the actors must elicit—is what allows the fabric of Bad Trip's humor to shine through. With the professional actors shouldering the burden of both maintaining character for the benefit of the film's overarching narrative as well as ensuring that the orchestrated gags play perfectly, the public's only obligation is reacting genuinely, whether that be expressing anger, frustration, disdain or bewilderment. It's this spectrum of varied emotion that is woven into the very fabric of the film, giving it an overtly genuine tone. At times it is even surprisingly heartwarming, with good samaritans stepping in to talk characters off of ledges and break up public quarrels.

16. Dolemite Is My Name

2019
Director: Craig Brewer
Stars: Eddie Murphy, Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Tituss Burgess, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Kodi Smit-Mcphee, Snoop Dogg, Ron Cephas Jones, Barry Shabaka Henley, Tip "TI" Harris, Luenell, Tasha Smith, Wesley Snipes
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%
Rating: R
Runtime: 118 minutes

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"I want the world to know I exist," Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy) declares in Dolemite Is My Name. Awareness on a grand scale is an ambitious goal—but it didn't stop Moore from trying. Rudy Ray Moore is a multi-hyphenate performer looking to propel his comedy career. After seeing Rico (Ron Cephas Jones), the local homeless man that visits where Rudy works, do stand-up, Moore decides to steal and refine Rico's material. He assumes the character of Dolemite, a sharp, vulgar pimp who oozes confidence, and the "new" material kills in local clubs. Eventually, Moore signs a comedy record deal and charts on Billboard. Emboldened, he sets a new goal: to make a Dolemite film, exhausting all his personal expenses to do so. At the heart of Dolemite Is My Name is the smooth-talking man himself, played by Eddie Murphy. The actor has, since 2012, been quiet in the public eye, taking years-long breaks between films. In 2016, he resurfaced for the drama Mr. Church, his performance praised but the film critically panned. Being hailed as his "comeback" role, Dolemite finds Murphy in fit comedy shape, tackling this lead part with gusto. He embraces Moore's slightly goofy enthusiasm and can-do attitude without a hint of mocking. For a character like Dolemite, so deeply rooted in the Blaxploitation era of the '70s and frankly riddled with so many stereotypical elements, Murphy succeeds by being earnest, even when delivering Dolemite's raunchiest lines. He reminds us he's one of the best at balancing drama and comedy. A figure who could have been an offensive caricature in the wrong hands, Dolemite, in Craig Brewer's film, is so much more; we go beyond the surface of the character, exploring one man's quest for stardom and the entrepreneurial risks he took to be the talk of the town. We get a film befitting of Moore's legacy while simultaneously reminding audiences the star power of Eddie Murphy. —Joi Childs

17. Hail, Caesar!

Year: 2016
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Stars: George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Josh Brolin, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Alden Ehrenreich, Christopher Lambert, Channing Tatum, Scarlett Johansson
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 106 minutes

The period zaniness of Joel and Ethan Coen's Hail, Caesar! is an ode to old Hollywood—and much more—as only they can do, tracing the efforts of James Brolin's studio scandal fixer through a parade of 1950s soundstages, back lots and actors. His latest potential headline concerns the abduction of a Biblically epic movie star—George Clooney having a helluva good time doing his best Chuck Heston/Kirk Douglas amalgam—by what turns out to be a tea sandwich-serving think tank of communists. Other subplots have Scarlett Johansson's starlet plotting out her unwed motherhood in the public eye and the screen makeover of an unsophisticated cowboy by Ralph Fiennes' debonairly enunciating director, Laurence Laurentz. There are dueling gossip columnist twins (Tilda Swinton pulling double duty), a hapless film editor (Frances McDormand) and scattered movies-within-the-movie, which even pauses midway through for a thoroughly enchanting—and cheeky—Gene Kelly-styled song-and-dance number starring Channing Tatum as a heavily made-up matinee star with controversial extracurricular activities. Most of the main characters/performances take blatant inspiration from Hollywood legends of yore, and the cast seems to have as much fun as the Coens. Hail, Caesar! is by no means their best work, but it's characteristically gorgeous, spiritedly acted and rife with political, religious and creative (sub)text for moviegoers as thoughtful and dorky as Joel and Ethan themselves. —Amanda Schurr

18. Tommy Boy

Year: 1995
Director: Peter Segal
Stars: Chris Farley, David Spade, Brian Dennehy, Bo Derek, Dan Aykroyd, Julie Warner, Rob Lowe
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 42%
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 98 minutes

The ill-fated journey of Chris Farley's Tommy Callahan and tiny curmudgeon Richard Hayden (played wonderfully and probably not with much difficulty by David Spade) is just as relevant as it was in 1995, if not moreso. Pairing the slapstick buffoonery of Farley's bull in a china shop anxiety with Spade's insecurity masked as smarmy assholism, Tommy Boy is more than the sum of its buddy comedy parts. Though the economic boom of the 1990s was a welcomed reprieve from Reaganomics and George Bush's "thousand points of light" predecessors, the turnaround didn't help the kind of middle-class manufacturing that made companies like Callahan Auto and towns like Sanduskey , Ohio possible. Still reeling from the overcooked economics of the 1980s and the increasing globalization of the 1990s, the middle class worker's struggle in that decade was represented with no more honest absurdity than in Tommy Boy.—Jonathan Dick

19. Mindhorn

Year: 2016
Director: Sean Foley
Stars: Julian Barratt, Essie Davis, Richard McCabe, Alex Wyndham, Steve Coogan
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%
Rating: NR
Runtime: 89 minutes

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Julian Barratt gives a charismatic lead performance, using those chiseled cheekbones and glorious mustache in concert with uncommonly sad eyes to make his washed-up actor Richard Thorncroft both recognizable and worthy of empathy, despite his arrogance and stupidity. The rest of the cast is also strong, though largely overshadowed by Barratt's magnetism. If Steve Coogan, who also produced, wants to continue spending large chunks of his time in very small, brutally funny roles in comedy movies (see: The Other Guys, In the Loop, and technically Hot Fuzz), that's fine by me. Kenneth Branagh, shockingly, cameos as himself in one early scene where he auditions Richard for a Hamlet adaption—it's nice to see he has a sense of humor about still being the go-to Shakespeare guy. It's clear, in any case, that Mindhorn is a labor of love for the cast and crew.—Deborah Krieger

20. Mars Attacks

Year: 1996
Director: Tim Burton
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Jim Brown, Rod Steiger, Natalie Portman, Lukas Haas,
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 54%
Rating: R
Runtime: 116 minutes

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With Jack Nicholson as president, Sarah Jessica Parker's head appearing atop a chihuahua body and an alien race that speaks in a bird-like squawk, Mars Attacks is filled with enough campy goodness to make even the most serious sci-fi fan crack a smile. Although it was initially received poorly among critics and fans alike, repeat viewings of Mars Attacks made this one shine for a cult audience.—Sean Doyle

21. Observe and Report

Year: 2009
Director: Jody Hill
Stars: Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Michael Pena, Anna Faris, Jesse Plemons, Dan Bakkedahl
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 51%
Rating: R
Runtime: 86 minutes

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In 2009 comedy fans bought tickets for Observe and Report expecting Seth Rogen's lovable stoner man-child schtick. Instead they had to confront the ugly, violent dark comedy that director Jody Hill perfected with his HBO shows Eastbound & Down and Vice Principals. Rogen is surprisingly good in a role that seems written for Danny McBride, a seething cocktail of confusion, depression, arrogance and anger. Anna Faris, Aziz Ansari, Michael Pena and a young Jesse Plemons round out a strong cast.—Garrett Martin

22. The Lovebirds

Year: 2020
Director: Michael Showalter
Stars: Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani, Paul Sparks, Anna Camp, Kyle Bornheimer
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 65%
Rating: R
Runtime: 87 minutes

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Michael Showalter updates the After Hours template with this fun romp, in which a modern, mundane couple who just broke up gets entangled in unexpected crime and danger. Rae and Nanjiani are a great comic duo who nail the mix of pettiness, tenderness and lived-in comfort of a couple who have already been going through the motions longer than it took to establish them; their blithe bickering and chatter, insistent whether they're infiltrating a secret society orgy or about to be tortured, is consistently funny without feeling too quippy or sitcom-ish. There are a lot of movies like this—Date Night, Game Night, probably others that have the word "night" in the title—but The Lovebirds might be the sharpest one since Scorsese sent Griffin Dunne panicking through mid '80s Manhattan.—Garrett Martin

23. Always Be My Maybe

Year: 2019
Director: Nahnatchka Khan
Stars: Ali Wong, Randall Park, Keanu Reeves, Michelle Buteau, Vivian Bang, Karan Soni
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 102 minutes

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A film written by and starring Ali Wong and Randall Park was always guaranteed to be a home run, but the endlessly funny and charming Always Be My Maybe truly exceeds all romcom expectations. The duo (who penned the script with Michael Golamco) play childhood friends who lose touch after an impulsive teenage romance ends badly. From there, Wong's Sasha becomes a celebrity chef as Park's Marcus continues to live at home and work for his father's blue collar business after his mother's tragic passing. They each have things to learn from one another, sure, but Always Be My Maybe doesn't just end when romance blossoms; it leans into the complications of two adults with independent lives choosing to be together and figuring out how to make it all work. Part of that, crucially, includes both Marcus and Sasha playing supportive roles in one another's careers rather than compromising and giving up their passions to be together. Director Nahnatchka Khan keeps the stylish film moving at a pleasant comedic clip throughout, and there's a killer cameo appearance you will not want spoiled before you see the movie. Seriously, you should watch it right now. —Allison Keene

24. Between Two Ferns: The Movie

Year: 2019
Director: Scott Aukerman
Stars: Zach Galifianakis, Lauren Lapkus, Ryan Gaul, Matthew McConaughey
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 74%
Rating: NR
Runtime: 82 minutes

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Netflix originals are routinely criticized for their general low stakes vibe, like they're the modern equivalent of old primetime made-for-TV movies from the '70s and '80s. You can't really say that about Between Two Ferns: The Movie, because "low stakes" has been the entire point of Zach Galifianakis's web series all along. This Funny or Die production sends Galifianakis and his public access crew (including Lauren Lapkus) on a cross-country jaunt to save their show and help Zach realize his dreams of being a legitimate late-night talk show host. Along the way they interview people like David Letterman, John Legend, Chance the Rapper, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brie Larson, and more. (And for some reason Phoebe Bridgers and that guy from The National show up for a musical number.) Scott Aukerman's screenplay is as absurd and hilarious as you'd expect, and a game cast keeps it running smoothly throughout. Between Two Ferns: The Movie is basically the Citizen Kane of entirely unnecessary feature-length adaptations of one-joke web shows.—Garrett Martin

25. The Incredible Jessica James

incredible jessica james movie poster.jpg Year: 2017
Director: Jim Strouse
Stars: Jessica Williams, LaKeith Stanfield, Noël Wells, Taliyah Whitaker
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%
Rating: NR
Runtime: 85 minutes

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Jessica Williams plays Jessica James, a twenty-something theatre fanatic who's trying to get one of her plays produced while simultaneously dealing with a breakup. The ex? Damon, played by the equally wonderful Lakeith Stanfield (Atlanta, Short Term 12), who can't manage to stay out of Jessica's dreams. When she meets a new fling, played by the comically refreshing Chris O'Dowd, she begins to re-evaluate her love life while clinging to her life goals. When do you know you've made it? As lighthearted as the film can be, it's rooted in an exploration of the deeper questions that any artist, or person for that matter, grapples with. Williams is hilarious, which we all know from her time on The Daily Show. She's also incredibly powerful, showcasing a feminine strength that's so crucial to this generation and a passion for her craft that's the opposite of the indifference often associated with millennials. The film is perfect for a popcorn and beer night with the gals and guys. —Meredith Alloway

26. The Artist

Year: 2011
Director: Michel Hazanavicius
Stars: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 100 minutes

In his black-and-white ode to the Golden Age of Hollywood, Gallic writer-director Michael Hazanavicius honors form as well as content, packaging his romantic melodrama about the rise of a new ingénue and the fall of a silent movie star in 1920s and '30s Los Angeles in luxurious black, white, and shades of shimmering silver. It's a beautiful, ambitious, nostalgic endeavor that demonstrates its makers are, indeed, artists. —Annlee Ellingson

27. To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Year: 2018
Director: Susan Johnson
Stars: Lana Condor, Noah Centineo, Janel Parrish
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%
Rating: NR
Runtime: 100 minutes

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To All the Boys I've Loved Before, the teen scene's newest runaway hit, is a flat-out excellent film. It is not excellent "for a teen flick." It is not excellent "for a romantic comedy." It is excellent for a film. TATBILB fully inverts the 80/20 ratio: Within the first 20 minutes, all five of the deeply private love letters our daydreamy, emotionally buttoned-up protagonist Lara Jean (Lana Condor) has written to her childhood crushes over the years have been stolen and mailed out—including the one to her neighbor and best friend, Josh (Israel Broussard), who just happens to also be her older sister's just barely ex-boyfriend. This swift puncturing of any protracted emotional dishonesty Lara Jean might have hoped to indulge in, well, forever, leaves the film's final eighty minutes free for her to embrace some really radical emotional honesty. The importance of Lara Jean and her sisters being half-Korean, and the majority of the cast (along with Mahoro) non-white, is hard to overstate, but it isn't the most impressive thing about the cast by a long shot. In a genre that can so often see its characters lean too far into caricature, Lara Jean's world is instead populated with teens—and through them, love—you can believe in. —Alexis Gunderson

28. Little Evil

little evil poster (Custom).jpg Year: 2017
Director: Eli Craig
Stars: Adam Scott, Evangeline Lilly, Bridget Everett, Clancy Brown, Sally Field, Owen Atlas
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%
Rating: NR
Runtime: 94 minutes

Watch on Netflix

Seven years after he gave us Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, one of the best horror comedies in recent memory, director Eli Craig has finally returned with another horror comedy exclusive for Netflix, Little Evil. An obvious parody of The Omen and other "evil kid" movies, Little Evil wears its influences and references on its sleeve in ways that while not particularly clever, are at least loving. Adam Scott is the sad-sack father who somehow became swept up in a whirlwind romance and marriage, all while being unfazed by the fact that his new step-son is the kind of kid who dresses like a pint-sized Angus Young and trails catastrophes behind him wherever he goes. Evangeline Lilly is the boy's foxy mother, whose motivations are suspect throughout. Does she know that her child is the spawn of Satan, or as his mother is she just willfully blind to the obvious evil growing under her nose? The film can boast a pretty impressive supporting cast, from Donald Faison and Chris D'elia as fellow step-dads, to Clancy Brown as a fire-and-brimstone preacher, but never does it fully commit toward either its jokes or attempts to frighten. The final 30 minutes are the most interesting, as they lead the plot in an unexpected direction that redefines the audience's perception of the demon child, but it still makes for a somewhat uneven execution. Tucker & Dale this is not, but it's still a serviceable return for Craig. —Jim Vorel

29. Mascots

Year: 2016
Director: Christopher Guest
Stars: Jane Lynch, Parker Posey, Fred Willard, Christopher Guest, Ed Begley Jr., Jennifer Coolidge, Harry Shearer, Zach Woods
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 49%
Rating: NR
Runtime: 120 minutes

Watch on Netflix

"Diminishing returns" might apply to Christopher Guest mockumentaries more than anything else on earth, but when you start from the unparalleled heights of Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show there's a long way to plummet. To wit: Mascots, his latest film, is still full of great performances and good jokes. Much of his stock company returns for the Netflix exclusive (Parker Posey, Jane Lynch, Fred Willard and Ed Begley Jr. are still standouts), and although the absence of Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara is palpable, the ensemble is still stocked with capable improvisers. The satire isn't as sharp as his earlier films, but there's still an endearing goofiness at the movie's heart.—Garrett Martin

30. Wine Country

Year: 2019
Director: Amy Poehler
Stars: Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey, Tina Fey, Jason Schwartzman, Cherry Jones
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 65%
Rating: R
Runtime: 100 minutes

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As much of a vacation for its cast as a movie, Amy Poehler's Wine Country is a low stakes sketch of a movie that gets by on charisma and sweetness. Poehler and a crew of fellow Saturday Night Live vets—including Rachel Dratch, Maya Rudolph, Ana Gasteyer and Tina Fey, as well as former SNL writers Paula Pell and Emily Spivey—play a group of friends touring California's wine country on a 50th birthday trip. They're each in their own way dealing with their own midlife crises and disappointments, and the ways they discuss and relate to them are both funny and realistic. It's essentially a woman's take on the kind of shaggy hang-out comedy Adam Sandler's been making with his friends for decades, and with the requisite differences in taste and perspective you'd expect from that comparison. Wine Country is perfectly fine.—Garrett Martin

31. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

Year: 2020
Director: David Dobkins
Stars: Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams, Dan Stevens, Pierce Brosnan
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 64%
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 121 minutes

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Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is—let's be honest here—a bit on the thin side, and a little confusing. It's got just enough sincerity to undermine its own satirical impulses and just enough pandering snark to undermine its own sincerity. It runs long, and it leans on a trope, Ferrell's master trope and the common denominator in most of his best performances—the lovable but fundamentally clueless and self-absorbed man-baby who can't get out of his own way. It's a trope that, thanks to Ferrell himself, we have mined pretty thoroughly in comedy over the last few decades. And yet, even as Eurovision Song Contest makes a number of perplexing moves in its two-hour-plus runtime, you kind of can't help rooting for it, and for its principal characters, because its refusal to be cynical operates as a vital, oxygenating escape hatch right now.—Amy Glynn

32. Vampires vs. the Bronx

Year: 2020
Director: Osmany Rodriguez
Stars: Jaden Michael, Gregory Diaz IV, Sarah Gadon, Shea Whigham, Method Man, Chris Redd
Rotten Tomatoes Score: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 85 minutes

Watch on Netflix

Vampires have historically been used as a metaphor for practically any societal evil you can think of in cinema, but the "vampire as gentrification allegory"? Now that's a new one. And that's what you'll see in Netflix's Vampires vs. The Bronx. It makes its political message abundantly clear. These are indeed vampiric real estate developers, intent on snapping up properties like the neighborhood courthouse, which is immediately reimagined as an upscale condo development titled "The Courthaus." A bit on the nose, perhaps, but pretty funny at the same time.—Jim Vorel

33. Our Idiot Brother

Year: 2011
Director: Jesse Peretz
Stars: Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Coogan, Rashida Jones, Adam Scott
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 70%
Rating: R
Runtime: 96 minutes

Watch on Netflix

Netflix wasn't making original movies in 2011, and yet that's exactly what Our Idiot Brother feels like. It's a movie that's so relaxed and where the stakes are so low that it barely feels like it exists, but with a great cast full of funny and likable performers. Paul Rudd stars as a guileless modern day hippie failing to rebuild his life after a jail sentence, with Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, Elizabeth Banks, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Coogan and Rashida Jones playing the various siblings, exes and in-laws that he bothers. It's a minor but pleasant film that stays afloat almost entirely because of that cast and its own lack of pretension.—Garrett Martin

Source: https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/netflix/the-best-comedies-on-netflix-right-now/

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Good Comedy Films On Netflix Uk 2021