I don’t know why I let lists of the greatest this or that other people make up bother me so much.
Everybody’s entitled to their own opinions, and the one thing that seems to bother me the most is that so many of them seem to believe the world started the day they were born.
This list of the 30 Greatest Comedy Movies seems to consider the last 30 years or so a Golden Age of Comedy, and 13 of them wouldn’t even make a top 30 list of my own favorites. For the most part, Judd Apatow and Steve Carell just don’t do it for me, and movies made before 1975 don’t do it for the people who put this list together.
Here’s my top 30, with their status on the other list in parentheses:
30. The Bad News Bears, 1975 (not on list) — To my mind, the funniest baseball movie ever made. The first of many youth movies, unique in that it doesn’t end with the underdogs winning the big game. Funny from beginning to end.
29. Caddyshack, 1980 (4 on list) — Not very many great golf comedies, and it has become a Bill Murray tour de force. Chevy Chase drags it down, but the energy level goes way up whenever Rodney Dangerfield is on screen.
28. The Naked Run, 1988 (11 on list) — From the school of throw everything against the wall and see what sticks, not as funny as the people who love it think, but still a barrel of laughs.
27. Planes, Trains and Automobiles, 1987 (27 on list) — Steve Martin and John Candy are wonderful together, and they overcome all sorts of obstacles to reach a very poignant ending.
26. The Odd Couple, 1968 (not on list) — The best of playwright Neil Simon’s many great comedies, Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon were perfect together in the movie and Jack Klugman and Tony Randall made a wonderful TV sitcom out of it.
25. The Great Dictator, 1940 (not on list) — Difficult to imagine, but the “greatest” list didn’t include anything by Charles Chaplin, maybe the greatest comedy figure ever. His first talkie might not have been his best movie or his funniest, but it was significant in that it ridiculed Adolf Hitler to American audiences.
24. The Producers, 1967 (not on list) — The debut film for Mel Brooks, perhaps more famous later for its life as a musical, both on Broadway and in another movie. Zero Mostel was already famous, but this was the movie that brought Gene Wilder to prominence. More later from Brooks.
23. The Castle, 1997 (not on list) — Most of you won’t have heard of this movie, but it’s a hysterical Australian movie about a family’s efforts to keep their home, the castle of the title, from being taken to build a new runway for the Perth airport.
22. The Pink Panther, 1963 (not on list) — The film that showed Americans how hilarious Peter Sellers could be. A year before he really stole the show in the movie that sits at the top of this list. In this one, he’s the bumbling Officer Clouseau.
21. This is Spinal Tap, 1984 (10 on list) — The debut feature for director Rob Reiner, a wonderful movie that essentially created the idea of the mockumentary. Reiner had several others that could have made this list.
20. Slap Shot, 1977 (13 on list) — Definitely the best hockey movie ever and probably the funniest sports movie. Paul Newman and the Hanson brothers make this one funny from start to finish.
19. Airplane, 1980 (1 on list) — This movie is very funny, as witness it making my top 20, but there is no way in the world it is the funniest movie ever made. Still, I can watch it again and again and still enjoy it.
18. The Big Lebowski, 1998 (14 on list) — This is my son’s favorite movie, and it’s a funny one. I don’t quite have that love for it, but Jeff Bridges is definitely wonderful.
17. Blume in Love, 1973 (not on list) — My favorite Paul Mazursky movie, and to me the best romantic comedy ever made. Modern audiences write it off for the scene in which Blume forces his former wife, who he still loves, to have sex. But it’s the movie that made me fall in love with the Piazza San Marco.
16. Silver Streak, 1976 (not on list) — The first pairing of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, one of the funniest “road” movies ever made. Seeing Wilder posing as black trying to fool a police dragnet is as funny a moment as there was in a ’70s movie.
15. Shaun of the Dead, 2004 (29 on list) — Simon Pegg might be best known now as Scotty in the “Star Trek” reboot, but the movie that made him famous and will always be his best was the one movie that went against the grain in the zombie craze. A truly wonderful comedy.
14. Sleeper, 1974 (not on list) — Stunning to me to see a list of 30 great comedies without a single Woody Allen movie on it. I’ve got two on my list and could easily have had four. “Sleeper” was the movie in which Allen started making movies that were more than just revues. His first with Diane Keaton, and it was amazing.
13. Blazing Saddles, 1974 (6 on list) — It is amazing how many times Gene Wilder shows up on this list. He probably wouldn’t be one of the first to come to mind when you think of great comedic actors, but he really ought to be.
12. A Night at the Opera, 1935 (not on list) — Another inexplicable omission, although one Marx Brothers movie did make the list. Maybe the single greatest set piece in comedy history in the stateroom scene.
11. Bringing Up Baby, 1938 (not on list) — Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and a leopard in maybe the greatest of all the screwball comedies, directed bt the great Howard Hawks. Cary and Kate did another great comedy that followed this one, “The Philadelphia Story” with James Stewart.
10. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975 (2 on list) — A wonderful movie that was marred only slightly for me by what I thought was a weak finish. No spoiler alert needed. That’s all I’ll say.
9. Best in Show, 2000 (5 on list) — The best of Christopher Guest’s wonderful ouevre, a movie that might have more laughs per minute than anything else I loved. This was where we realized what a comedic treasure Fred Willard was.
8. Annie Hall, 1977 (not on list) — One of the absolute rarest of movies, a comedy that won the Oscar for Best Picture. This was where people started seeing Woody Allen as a great filmmaker, not just a funny guy.
7. Duck Soup, 1933 (17 on list) — The other Marx Brothers film on my list didn’t make it because of this one, and it is generally regarded as their best. One of Groucho’s great character names — Rufus T. Firefly as the president of Freedonia.
6. Tootsie, 1982 (not on list) — If we were to make a list of the greatest comedic performances ever by an actor, Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels would not be far from the top of the list. “Tootsie” also has an amazing number of wonderful supporting performances. One of the very best comedies of the 1980s.
5. Animal House, 1978 (9 on list) — For a lot of years, this was my very favorite movie. It’s still one I can plug in an watch any time I need laughs. Sadly, it’s a movie that couldn’t be made now in a more puritanical era.
4. Bedazzled, 1967 (not on list) — An absolutely brilliant movie by Peter. Cook and Dudley Moore, a totally different type of comedy that truly held nothing sacred. God, priests and nuns all were skewered. Not to be confused with the horrible remake in 2000 with Brendan Fraser and Liz Hurley.
3. Some Like it Hot, 1959 (not on list) — AFI named this as the greatest comedy of all time, and the people doing the top 30 didn’t think it was as good as “Superbad” or “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” A wonderfully funny movie with a great final line.
2. Smile, 1975 (not on list) — Michael Ritchie directed No. 30 on this list and also this one, both essentially satires of California life in the 1970s. Some of you reading this list won’t have heard of this movie, and those of you who have might be surprised to see ir ranked so high, but this is a wonderful look at America in the decade. I never understood why Joan Prather didn’t have a bigger career, and Annette O’Toole was so young and lovely here.
- Dr. Strangelove, 1964 (20 on list) — The greatest film by the great Stanley Kubrick. Peter Sellers playing three different roles and Slim Pickens riding an atomic bomb. So great.
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There are a number of comedies I love that didn’t make my top 30. FYI, movies worth seeing that didn’t make their top 30 or mine.
Used Cars, Groundhog Day, The General, Meet the Parents, Safety Last, The Gold Rush. Bananas, Death of Stalin, Blues Brothers and Sons of the Desert.