Funny Being Single Funny Movie Scenes About Being Alone Again
Sarah Millican
After winning the best newcomer honour at the Edinburgh festival in 2008 with Sarah Millican's Not Overnice, a show inspired by her divorce, the Southward Shields-born comedian has toured four successful standup shows, had two Bafta nominations for her BBC2 serial The Sarah Millican Television Programme and was voted queen of one-act at the 2011 British comedy awards. Her about recent prove, Sarah Millican: Outsider, is out now on DVD.
ane Raising Arizona
Joel and Ethan Coen, 1987
I beloved the Coen brothers generally, but this is one of my favourites. So beautifully shot, so lean, and so wonderfully acted by Nicolas Cage – before he had to save the globe in everything – and ace Holly Hunter. Its farcical, it's slapsticky, information technology's daft, it's bright. Former criminal Cage falls in beloved with cop Hunter. They want a baby. The local piece of furniture magnate and his wife have just had quintuplets. Surely they wouldn't miss one?
ii The Nutty Professor
Jerry Lewis, 1963
Not the multi-Eddie Murphy fart-tastic spectacular. Rather the far superior 1963 version with the genius of Jerry Lewis. The story is much the same but Jerry Lewis plays an uber-nerd who becomes suave sophisticate Buddy Love once he's knocked back his concoction. Much preferred to the fatty shaming of the later version. The scene with the pocket spotter gets me every fourth dimension. I well-nigh forgive Jerry Lewis'south views on female comedians. Virtually, but non quite.
three Bridesmaids
Paul Feig, 2011
Every now and over again, a brilliant film chock full of excellent women threatens to change things for actresses in Hollywood. Expect, we can be loads of things, not just wives and victims and strippers and dead bodies! Look, women of all ages and faces have value! Of course it never takes off but we are still left with these excellent milestones of awesome. I dear Bridesmaids. And everyone in it – Wiig, Rudolph, Byrne, McCarthy, Kimmy Schmidt! It's rude, it's very funny and has the best diarrhoea scene.
iv When Harry Met Sally…
Rob Reiner, 1989
I was a naive 15-year-old when it came out at the cinema and had no involvement in a picture about relationships. Nosotros only went – me, my sister and parents – because Turner & Hooch (a domestic dog that has witnessed a murder, yes please!) had sold out. Only I loved information technology. I don't think I'd trust anyone who didn't love this classic romcom. Most romcoms don't have plenty "com" but Nora Ephron was a wonderful one-act writer. My sister and I used to become to a moving-picture show class where nosotros studied films and dissected them. When the lecturer announced next week'due south moving picture was When Harry Met Sally… my sister and I stopped going.
Get out it solitary.
Likewise picked by David Baddiel, who says:
Nora Ephron'due south masterpiece, I've noticed, just gets meliorate with every viewing. Information technology's the best e'er romantic one-act, because it recognises that relationships are also almost friendship. Meg Ryan and Baton Crystal have the finest chemistry ever seen on screen, and the dialogue is fantastic, particularly in the (at present impossible to imagine, a producer would insist on it being cutting) – long opening driving scene: "So you're maxim a human tin can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?" "Naah, you pretty much wanna nail them too."
David Baddiel
Born in New York and raised in London, David Baddiel first came to fame on BBC2'southward The Mary Whitehouse Experience, in partnership with Rob Newman, before collaborating with Frank Skinner on projects including the hit ITV show Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned. Since so, he has written screenplays, sitcoms and stage shows, including 2016's one-man bear witness My Family unit: Not the Sitcom. A prolific novelist and children's author, his latest book for kids, AniMalcolm, is out now (HarperCollins, £12.99).
5 Pitch Perfect
Jason Moore, 2012
I'm going to begin with a curveball. I don't think this volition exist on that many other lists: those who have not seen it will assume it's a musical (which it is), and a teenage girl's picture (which information technology is – I went to see it, non expecting that much, with my teenage girl). Only none of these things finish it from being brilliantly funny. Zinger for zinger, information technology's up there with the best, Rebel Wilson is hilarious and the singing is accamazing. Just don't bother with the sequel.
six Play It Again, Sam
Herbert Ross, 1972
The perfect point of Woody Allen, merely when he was stopping beingness a full slapstick clown but before he became too serious. The scene where he meets his blind date nigh the start may exist the funniest in all cinema. And the final scene, where he does a speech you half-recognise, and Diane Keaton says: "That's beautiful" and Woody says: "It's from Casablanca – I waited my whole life to say it," ever makes me cry and laugh at the aforementioned time, a place I like to alive in, comically, these days.
vii Team America: Earth Constabulary
Trey Parker, 2004
When the dust has settled, we may find that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, with The Book of Mormon, Due south Park and this ultra-funny potty-mouthed puppet chance, take won one-act for all time. I started watching this with my son the other solar day and just wanted to keep watching information technology with him, just following the Aids musical sequence, his mum insisted it wasn't advisable. She was right, of form, but at some level I think a flick this funny will always exist an appropriate education for my children.
8 Borat
Larry Charles, 2006
This is No 1 for me because I can call up more laughs watching this than any other movie. And I'm not even thinking of the naked wrestling scene, which, to be honest, makes me feel a chip dizzy and sick. Sacha Baron Cohen finds in Borat a classical, eternal clown – like Homer Simpson, no affair how wrong he is, you can't help rooting for him – but besides something unbelievably modern about globalisation and ethnicity and outsider culture and America. Plus it makes antisemitism hilarious, both in the scene when Borat thinks the Jewish B&B owners take turned into cockroaches and, in the (imaginary) Kazakhstan-set opening, the extraordinary Borat-commentated Running of the Jew ceremony: "Await, here comes Mrs Jew!!!"
Also picked past Sarah Millican, who says:
Yes, Sacha Businesswoman Cohen's Borat is hilarious. But the day I saw information technology at the movie house, information technology wasn't the only funny thing happening. Before the film started, my friend placed his massive tub of chocolate Ben & Jerry'southward on the seat while he took off his jacket. He forgot he'd done that and so threw himself fully down on to the ice-cream. I was crying with laughter before the movie fifty-fifty started. He scraped the bulk of it off his jeans and we watched the film, knowing full well that at the terminate, as we left the cinema, he would expect like he'd shat hisself. The flick was even so funnier.
Stewart Lee
Observer columnist and a stalwart of the standup circuit, Stewart Lee likewise had a Bafta-winning solo bear witness that ran for four series on BBC2: Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. Born in Shropshire, he began performing standup aged xx and in the 90s formed a comedy duo with Richard Herring. In 2001 he co-wrote Jerry Springer: The Opera, which went on to win four Olivier awards. His current show, Stewart Lee: Content Provider, is at Leicester Square theatre until 28 January and touring throughout 2017. See stewartlee.co.uk for details.
9 Carry On Screaming!
Gerald Thomas, 1966
The League of Gentlemen all cite the same 70s Tv screening of Conduct On Screaming! equally an influence. Considering information technology was parodying a cinematic milieu – British 50s and 60s horror – of which I as a little boy knew nothing, it seemed utterly unanchored, occurring in an incomprehensibly surreal globe of saturated-colour Frankensteins, Wolfmans and Draculas. Kenneth Williams, Fenella Fielding, Charles Hawtrey and Harry H Corbett are all superb. And, while remaining tonally accurate, the script bubbles with nifty stupid jokes. The banquet scene in Carry On Upwardly the Khyber is the series' highlight, but this is the funniest Bear On film and its Victorian gothic milieu protects it from the ravages of overnice social revisionism, which have rightly rendered many Carry Ons unwatchable.
10 Festen
Thomas Vinterberg, 1998
The start time I saw Festen's family reunion gone wrong I found it unremittingly dour. And then, years subsequently, I watched it once more and laughed my caput off. It's possible to view Festen as the blackest black comedy ever made. If y'all thought your family parties were bad, endeavour this one. Fierce beatings, abuse revelations, racist songs and suicides are all relayed via the puritanical dictates of the Dogme 95's manifesto in a lucid, watery, midnight sunlight. It's the cinematic equivalent of the standup who refuses to crack a grinning but gets yous in the finish.
11 Get Santa
Christopher Smith, 2014
A family unit moving-picture show that pleases everyone on the sofa without being remotely patronising is a blithesome thing and a relief for parents. Jim Broadbent, in a career-defining performance, is Santa, who crashes his sleigh into a shed, leaving estranged ex-con father Rafe Spall and his son to save Christmas and circular up the reindeer. The scene where Santa, now in jail, talks to the prisoners about their childhoods deftly avoids sugary sentiment. Santa's please at meeting jailbird Warwick Davis, whom he naively mistakes for an elf, is brilliantly handled. It's the funniest film no one has seen, except parents with young families, drastic for a moment'south respite at Christmas.
12 Who Dares Wins
Ian Precipitous, 1982
Why not spotter this reactionary anti‑CND activeness thriller while imagining it is actually a Comic Strip parody and pretending it stars Keith Allen instead of Lewis Collins? In i of the nastiest films ever made, coming off like Richard Littlejohn writing The Professionals, married SAS homo Collins goes undercover with peaceniks to gallantly probe their firebrand leader (an admirably committed and oddly out of place) Judy Davis, only to murder her in cold blood later. Fairport Convention appear as some kind of beardo commie new wave ring, playing a weird boingy protest music that never existed anywhere except in the imagination of the makers of this hilarious barbarism. Wine'south Oz Clarke has a pocket-size part as a man looking suspiciously through a window, merely refused my requests to appear on stage when I screened Who Dares Wins in the Barbican's Bad Moving-picture show Club season.
thirteen The Unbelievable Truth
Hal Hartley, 1989
When I was twentysomething, Hal Hartley seemed to speak directly to me. I was a fan of his in the manner I'd been a Smiths fan in my teens, eager for his next release. The Unbelievable Truth is his first and funniest film and stars the luminous, now late, Adrienne Shelly. Few of Hartley'southward subsequent movies are really comedies and I really similar his mid-period stuff where he experiments with movement and trip the light fantastic, but his sense of the absurd persists into his current, crowd-funded and criminally neglected work. In The Unbelievable Truth, small-town American parent-kid disharmonize is realised with a kind of Chekhovian minimalism. Deadpan characters spew out lengthy standup soliloquies in crimped cul-de-sacs. Nobody works the jokes. They just lie at that place, asking for your consideration, indifferent to your approval.
14 Thundercrack!
Brusque McDowell, 1975
McDowell took porn money to fund George Kuchar's weird comedy noir script. Today, I don't know if I'd stomach the hairy 70s hardcore scenes he was obliged to include, but Thundercrack! remains a work of deranged genius. Harsh lighting and ponderous piano frame vi storm-tossed travellers pursued by an amorous ape, sheltering in the home of a crazy lady whose sexually deformed son is locked in the cellar. In 1994 I turned away from Kuchar's San Francisco door, having failed to pluck up the courage to congratulate him on his ludicrous vision.
Stephen Merchant
Best known for co-creating the award-winning sitcoms The Function and Extras with Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant began his comedy career doing stand up-upwardly in his home town of Bristol. In 2010 he and Gervais co-wrote and co-directed the motion picture Cemetery Junction and he has since worked extensively, both writing and performing, in Tv set and film. He has won four British comedy awards, three Baftas and an Emmy.
15 Monkey Concern
Norman Z McLeod, 1931
There's a punk-similar chaos to the Marx Brothers that I actually admire and find very funny. This is my favourite of their films. It'southward essentially plotless – it's just them as stowaways on a cruise liner running amok, briefly hitting the land, so running amok over again at the cease. Virtually comedy acts effort to live within the parameters of society, but the Marx Brothers are similar crazy blithe characters walking over furniture and over conventions. Everything is off-white game for them to mock and they have no respect for annihilation: authorization, people, danger or each other.
sixteen MacGruber
Jorma Taccone, 2010
I almost never express joy out loud when I'm on my ain simply while channel-surfing in a hotel room I happened to discover this picture and was in hysterics. Information technology stars Will Forte, who's a Saturday Night Live alumnus. He had this character on the show chosen MacGruber, who was substantially a pastiche of action moving picture hero characters, like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. The sketches were quite popular and so they made a film, which was substantially considered a flop at the time. But equally time's gone on information technology'due south got a cult following. I'grand not even a big fan of spoof movies – I e'er think it's a bit piece of cake to spoof something – merely this is just giddily funny in the mode that I retrieve Airplane! was for me as a teenager. It never seems to go for the obvious joke.
17 Meet the Parents
Jay Roach, 2000
I love a film congenital on a very existent-life feet like coming together your partner'due south parents. Here, the father is a former CIA amanuensis and the fellow'due south got to impress him. They squeeze every drop of funny out of it; you lot never feel shortchanged. When nosotros were making The Office, effectually the same fourth dimension this film came out, we likewise played a lot on discomfort and clumsiness, and I call back they did that really well in this film. Being given a polygraph test past your prospective male parent-in-police force is just such a nifty idea for comedy.
18 The Wolf of Wall Street
Martin Scorsese, 2013
Martin Scorsese for me is one of the keen underrated comedy directors. When he goes for laughs, he's really good. I actually like Later on Hours, and The King of One-act makes me express mirth harder every time I sentry it. But The Wolf of Wall Street, though not a one-act, has one of the funniest sequences in contempo history: the bit where the Jordan Belfort character, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, has taken drugs and they've zombified him, but he has to become abode in his Lamborghini. The scene where he is trying to go down some stairs to his car is one of the best pieces of one-act I've always seen. And because the stakes are raised – the FBI are on to him, he desperately has to get back – it's merely twice as funny. Then there's that great gag where he thinks he collection back seamlessly and you discover he totalled his Lamborghini.
19 The Road to Utopia
Hal Walker, 1945
I grew up watching Bob Hope films with my dad. The rapport that he had with Bing Crosby in this film is just delicious. He's lambasted now, seen as a sort of dinosaur of comedy, but when he first came forth in that location was something effortless, cool and gimmicky virtually him. He wasn't simply slapstick, he was joking most sex and modernistic life. He was subversive. In that location's lots of looking at the camera, breaking the quaternary wall and talking to the audition; all the things that we associate with postmodern one-act that came later, like Monty Python. You can see he influenced Woody Allen and I'm sure Chevy Chase and Tom Hanks, too.
20 Swingers
Doug Liman, 1996
I showtime saw Swingers when I was reviewing films for a magazine in Bristol. I didn't know who any of the actors were, no one knew them at the fourth dimension, it was this minor, independent moving picture. Within five or 10 minutes, I was completely enamoured of the actors and their earth. Information technology captured something nearly the style that men speak to each other in their early 20s, the attempts at machismo and the vulnerability behind that. I watched information technology again recently. It absolutely nails everything about those times when you were trying to exist cooler than you were or sexier or wittier or smarter. It has so many great lines, such as when they're in a club and it'due south really going off, information technology'southward totally wild, and someone says: "Let's get out of here" and the other says: "Yeah, this identify is dead anyway, man."
Bridget Christie
In 2013, after years on the one-act excursion, Bridget Christie won the Edinburgh comedy award for best evidence with her feminist-themed A Bic for Her. Christie, now 45, studied at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in Wandsworth and later barbarous into standup. Her debut book, A Book for Her, was published final year and her live evidence, Because You Demanded It, is at Leicester Square theatre 31 Jan to 11 February then touring until June. Details at bridgetchristie.co.uk .
21 Best in Show
Christopher Guest, 2000
I beloved this mockumentary comedy moving picture so much I can watch information technology over again and once again. It'due south laugh-out-loud funny just also profound and moving. And it has dogs in it. It follows five entrants (iv couples and one man) as they travel to, and compete in, a dog show with their beloved pets. Knowing that much of the dialogue was improvised makes it all the more impressive. Eugene Levy and Jane Lynch are especially sublime, but all the performances are glorious.
22 The Male monarch of Comedy
Martin Scorsese, 1982
This black one-act stars Robert De Niro every bit Rupert Pupkin, an aspiring, unsuccessful standup comedian and fantasist. Pupkin, a stage-door autograph hunter, briefly meets the famous comedian and talkshow host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) when he is mobbed by fans. Pupkin sees this gamble coming together equally his "large break". He turns upward at Langford's offices with a tape of his standup begging for a slot on the show. Later on constant rejections from Langford, Pupkin becomes increasingly psychopathic and eventually kidnaps him. Information technology's equal parts hilarious and horrifying and Sandra Bernhard is outstanding.
Too picked by Tim Central, who says:
Scorsese and De Niro accept a crack at comedy here and information technology turns out pretty well, actually. The lengths our hero goes to to make his dreams come true are hilarious and underneath it all there's a grim prescience of the celebrity-worshipping times we are stuck with now. 1 of their greatest collaborations.
23 This Is Spinal Tap
Rob Reiner, 1984
A satire on the behaviour of heavy metallic bands and a parody of rock documentaries of the fourth dimension, this classic follows a fictional British heavy metal band, Spinal Tap, on tour. Mainly improvised, and directed by Rob Reiner, it is a comedic masterpiece from start to terminate. My family and I were obsessed with it in the 1980s. My brother, who I rarely see because he lives in Sweden, volition ship a text at present and and then merely saying: "Who'due south in here? No i" or: "These go to 11" or: "Do you wear black?" I'll probably quote Spinal Tap on my deathbed.
24 The Aristocrats
Paul Provenza, 2005
The Aristocrats is a documentary comedy in which 100 comedians tell variations on the aforementioned joke that's been told by comedians since the vaudeville era. The set up-upward (a family pitching an idea for an human activity to a talent agency) and the punchline – "We call the act The Aristocrats" – leaves the middle department costless for the comedian to call up of the worst, most obscene, offensive and taboo act they tin can imagine. I laughed and then much watching this film I was wearied and covered in sweat past the stop; Gilbert Gottfried's decision to tell the joke at the 2001 roasting of Hugh Hefner is ane of the virtually awe-inspiring pieces of standup I've ever seen.
25 Men in Black
Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997
While Men in Black certainly isn't the almost hilarious pic ever made, Vincent D'Onofrio equally Edgar the Problems, an alien problems who crashes on to Globe and steals a farmer's peel, is the funniest piece of concrete comedy I've ever seen. Information technology is astounding how in control of his body D'Onofrio is and how he manages realistically to convey a issues conflicting trying to go to grips with the human being form. While I'm in awe of how superb and hilarious his performance is, I am as well jealous I wasn't asked to do the office.
Romesh Ranganathan
Raised in Crawley, Ranganathan was a maths instructor before becoming a comedian in 2010. He was nominated for best newcomer honour for his 2013 Edinburgh bear witness Rom Com and in 2015 presented BBC3's Asian Provocateur , in which he explored his Sri Lankan roots. His standup show Irrational is out now on DVD and digital download.
26 Planes, Trains and Automobiles
John Hughes, 1987
Steve Martin and John Processed play two terribly matched travelling companions trying to get habitation for Thanksgiving. This movie is the perfect odd couple road movie. It has two stunning performances from the leads and manages to transform a familiar comic set up-up into something that feels completely new and exciting. The film would be brilliant even without the emotional gut punch of the finale.
27 Ghostbusters
Ivan Reitman, 1984
Three scientists and a regular fella form a team of paranormal investigators and save the world. I oasis't been able to spotter the remake, less because of my misogyny and more considering I cannot comport to see it tampered with. The interim is superb – Bill Murray manages to make someone bordering on predatory feel charming and hilarious and Dan Aykroyd manages the near impossible task of making puppy-domestic dog enthusiasm funny. Harold Ramis is note perfect as Egon and Annie Potts is not bad as Janine. I will even forgive the one-dimensional and racially dodgy nature of Winston's character every bit he has the best line in the moving-picture show: "Ray, when someone asks you if yous're a god, yous say aye!"
28 Bad Santa
Terry Zwigoff, 2003
Billy Bob Thornton plays a horrible, horrible conman using a job as a department shop Santa to rob the stores. What I love about this picture is that Thornton is and then completely unlikable and horrid, nevertheless you still root for him and the inevitable turnaround of attitude doesn't feel too saccharine. The bickering betwixt him and his elf (Tony Cox) is achingly funny and the relationship with the child he befriends is beautifully and hilariously played out. I wasn't too keen on the bizarre scene involving an Indian man struggling with his sexuality who starts shouting at Santa in a car park, but that aside, it's pretty much perfect.
29 Coming to America
John Landis, 1988
This flick is Eddie Potato at his very best, playing a range of characters, and not in a rubbish way similar in The Nutty Professor. Arsenio Hall is excellent equally his right-hand man and James Earl Jones nails comedy with gravitas. The movie is littered with catchphrases – "The purple penis is clean, your Highness", "Freeze, y'all diseased rhinoceros pizzle" – and there is a phone call-back to Trading Places that blew my heed. It has some bug with stereotyping, of class, but if you can forgive that, it really is testament to Spud'south comic talents and near made me forgive him for making Norbit.
30 Dumb and Dumber
Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 1994
Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels play 2 idiots. On paper, I should detest this film, a story of a quest undertaken by two nuclear-level morons, but it is brilliant. The Farrellys say that the script sabbatum on their shelf for years, when they would occasionally bring information technology out and read it to friends. They knew bits weren't funny enough when they would rush through them to get to expert bits, so they went back to those bits and reworked them. This evolution procedure was manifestly effective, as the gag rate on the moving picture is amazing. When Harry had to deal with a failing toilet at the offset of a date I had to pause the film considering I was laughing so much. Information technology is lowbrow for sure, but excellent. Shame the sequel was and so breathtakingly dire.
Tim Central
Brought up in Cambridgeshire, actor and poet Tim Fundamental won the 2009 Edinburgh comedy honour for The Slutcracker and has since toured several acclaimed standup shows. He also works in theatre, Television receiver, radio and film, including equally poet-in-residence on Newswipe and as Sidekick Simon to Alan Partridge in Alpha Papa . He is currently starring in Art at the Old Vic, London SE1, until 18 February.
31 Safety Last!
Fred C Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1923
I used to have that iconic image on my wall of Harold Lloyd dangling off that clock. I never really considered what the feature motion picture it came from might be like until a couple of years agone. Well, the characteristic is chosen Safety Last! and it's astounding. A sweet, sweet tale about a young man trying to earn money in the big city to send back to his fiance. Working hard. Existence sneaky. And ultimately hanging off a clock in the type of death-defying stunt that was Lloyd's trademark. Wonderful flick. Even improve than the poster.
32 The Flat
Baton Wilder, 1960
The piffling guy, getting hosed downwards past the alpha males at the part, as they borrow the keys to his apartment and romance their mistresses in there. Poor old Jack Lemmon. He plays the underdog to a T, bumbling, put upon, kicking his heels in the streets as these fiends enjoy his primal heating. And, ultimately, Lemmon winning. It'due south inch-perfect stuff – laughter through tears.
33 Nuts in May
Mike Leigh, 1976
I love Nuts in May. A simple tale nearly a couple of well-meaning campers, adamant to have a overnice time in the country only thwarted by that archetype fly in the ointment: "other people". Alison Steadman and Roger Sloman are scenic as the cocky-righteous holidayers. You watch grinning as they plod around Corfe Castle and sing their songs and Steadman says: "It'south non off-white, Keith", then, whoops, your grinning evaporates as it all goes a fleck pear‑shaped.
Also picked by Aisling Bea, who says:
I came late to Basics in May. I saw it on the BBC as an adult already working in one-act and it but felt so ahead of its time in terms of its underplayed one-act performances, which we would subsequently see in The Office. It'due south such a glorious exploration of character and British manners, specially by Alison Steadman, who I love. I think Mike Leigh left with some actors who have nothing to do but put up with each other is Mike Leigh at his best.
34 Human being Bites Dog
Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel and Benoît Poelvoorde, 1992
This is that classic comedy staple, the Belgian series killer mockumentary. A mockumentary before mockumentaries had been washed to expiry, this is a jet-black comedy nigh a skeleton crew of Belgian students following a murderer as he kills people and disposes of bodies. Information technology'south diabolical stuff and gets more appalling and funnier the more blood is spilled and the more our killer, Benoît Poelvoorde, spews his philosophies and opinions about the world and near the weight necessary to keep a corpse on the bed of a canal.
35 Acquit On at Your Convenience
Gerald Thomas, 1971
In that location has to be a Behave On in my listing. In terms of laughter coaxed out of me these films win hands down. Largely considering I was a piddling boy and I couldn't believe what was going on on our telly, but as well because I recall the whole family unit laughing. Also, this scoops up some of the slap-up comedians of the day, Williams, James, Jacques and my favourite, Bernard Bresslaw, plodding about with his loftier-pitched voice.
Aisling Bea
Born in County Kildare, Ireland, Aisling Bea is an player, comedian and writer. Later on training at Lamda she moved into one-act and in 2012, won the So Yous Recollect You're Funny? award for new standups at the Edinburgh festival, just the second female winner in its 25-twelvemonth history. The following year, she was nominated equally best newcomer in the Edinburgh comedy awards for her debut solo show. She has appeared in t he sitcoms Dead Boss and Trollied and this year joined the bandage of BBC2 drama The Fall (series iii out now on DVD).
36 Happy Gilmore
Dennis Dugan, 1996
At that place are people who will crucify me for putting an Adam Sandler flick in my listing, but the pure silliness of Happy Gilmore gave a teenage me such joy. It is one of the few movies that I accept re-watched. There is a sense with all the actors, specially Christopher McDonald playing baddy character Shooter McGavin, that he is playing his operation to make the coiffure laugh and that he himself is on the cusp of laughing and not getting through the take.
37 Sisters
Jason Moore, 2015
I went to scout this Tina Fey and Amy Poehler funstravaganza last Christmas with my mother and sister to get united states of america out of the business firm. Its premise isn't very complicated – they throw a party – but what I honey virtually unproblematic plots is that they requite the actors time to play and explore the characters; even all the side characters are hilarious. My favourite is Greta Lee, who plays Hae-Won, who owns what could have been an "Asian stereotype character".
38 Large Business concern
Jim Abrahams, 1988
This is from Bette Midler's comedy heyday. I'thou a large fan of her acting. Information technology is an 80s film that myself and my sister would have gotten out on VHS in the 90s. The premise is every bit old as time: a mixed-up pair of twins swapped at birth, town mouse and land mouse. Midler and Lily Tomlin each get to play very dissimilar sets of twins and you can practically feel their enjoyment and please most getting 2 different parts in 1 movie buzzing through the screen.
39 SuperBob
Jon Drever, 2015
One of my best friends, Brett Goldstein, is the author and star of this motion-picture show, yet I still managed to be just an audience member and got lost watching it, which is ofttimes hard to practice with friends' piece of work. Information technology is so encarmine funny and warm! It is a romcom superhero motion picture and even though the ideas have not reinvented the bicycle, it feels original. It is one of my favourite films that I've seen this decade.
40 Mrs Doubtfire
Chris Columbus, 1993
Robin Williams was such a huge influence on me. This is a family movie, just if you rewatch the film as an adult, his performance has layers that are revealed the more life stages you get through. It seems particularly pertinent now, seeing the masks Williams uses to amuse and hibernate behind in the movie, and knowing the sadness he experienced while making then many people laugh.
Alan Davies
In 1991, anile 25, Alan Davies was named best young comic by Time Out magazine. Now 50, the Essex-born comedian, actor and writer is best known for his part as BBC1's amateur sleuth Jonathan Creek and as a panellist on the quiz evidence QI. His latest standup show, Alan Davies – Little Victories, is out now on DVD and download.
41 Monty Python's Life of Brian
Terry Jones, 1979
Graham Chapman was probably my favourite Python but at different moments they were all hilarious – that was the smashing matter about them. I recollect this is out on its own as the funniest, cleverest and near interesting pic. It came out when I was near xiii and a lot of usa were quoting from it. It'south such a proficient idea, so brilliantly executed, and still holds up completely every bit quite an important slice of piece of work likewise as being a express joy-out-loud funny film. When Brian addresses a huge crowd and says: "You are all individuals" and one person shouts: "I'1000 non!", I however retrieve that's the best joke that's been written.
42 Fauna House
John Landis, 1978
This is a kind of superior frat house comedy made by the National Lampoon magazine people, so at that place's some quite sophisticated comic minds behind it. At one point, they decide to have a toga political party. They're in existent problem, the dean of the university is going to shut them down, they've got terrible grades, they're having unruly, drunken parties and one of them says: "Well in that location's merely one thing to practice at a time like this" and someone else says: "Toga political party!" When I was 16, my parents went away and my friends and I had a toga political party – we propped up a portable record role player in the corner and danced around in the garage wearing sheets! I admittedly loved that film.
43 Jackass: The Movie
Jeff Tremaine, 2002
This is the moving picture I've laughed near loudly at. I similar Jackass, Johnny Knoxville and all the original gang. There's a scene in it where they get to a posh golf course and hide in the bushes with an air horn and every time this guy goes to hit a shot they allow the air horn off. There was a sort of raucous atmosphere in the cinema in a way that you never get – it was joyous. There'due south something that goes past your analytical mind, past your brain near; something primeval near the laughter, howling with laughter at the stupidity of these people.
44 Broadway Danny Rose
Woody Allen, 1984
It's then difficult to choose one Woody Allen film, but I think this is my favourite. It's about a theatrical amanuensis, shot in black and white, and all of his acts are terrible. As soon as any one of them gets skilful they go out him for a bigger agent, but he's incredibly loyal to them and he believes in them. Information technology's got Mia Farrow in it and there's a scene where she'south telling him about someone who got shot in the eyes and he says: "He's blind?" and she says: "Dead." I've been maxim that for years. He'south the greatest to me in terms of comic films, he's unequalled.
45 Expressionless Men Don't Wear Plaid
Carl Reiner, 1982
It's very hard to have a listing of my favourite funny films that doesn't take a Steve Martin moving picture. This is a black-and-white spoof of a 50s, private detective flick. Steve Martin's funny all the manner through it. He's not doing the wild and crazy, wacky nutcase, he'southward doing this kind of Bogart, gumshoe matter. He makes a fool of himself but tries to style it out all the time and it'due south really funny. It's something I watched over and over with my friends when I was young.
Andi Osho
Subsequently a career in TV production, eastward Londoner Andi Osho turned to acting and one-act in the mid 00s. She made her solo Edinburgh festival debut in 2010 with her prove Afroblighty and regularly appears on Michael McIntyre'southward Comedy Roadshow and Alive at the Apollo. Her latest film role is Emma in the supernatural horror Lights Out, which is out at present on DVD.
46 Back to the Future
Robert Zemeckis, 1985
I was infatuated with Michael J Fox for a solid two years, and then that's probably partly why this is on the list. But it'southward as well brilliantly structured, the characters are so well drawn and information technology'southward full of well-written gags. One of the all-time is when, quite near the beginning, they set up that Marty's Uncle Joey is in prison and and then when Marty goes dorsum in time, he meets his Uncle Joey every bit a baby in a crib on the floor and whispers to him: "Amend get used to these bars, kid." But there's and then much proficient slapstick as well, similar when Marty plays guitar and gets catapulted across the room.
47 Trading Places
John Landis, 1983
I've watched this moving picture so many times. It'south from a bygone era when Eddie Potato was however making funny films, and then I concord it very dear to my center. Dan Aykroyd is an amazing comic player too. He plays this snooty, entitled rich guy who unwittingly swaps lives with Eddie Murphy'south homeless conman. Dan Aykroyd does what some people find difficult in one-act: he totally commits to the absurdity of the role, and so he makes it funnier and more than ridiculous. When he gets arrested, it's the worse thing that could happen to somebody like him, but when Frank Oz, the police officeholder, is going through the stuff in his wallet and he mispronounces La bohème, he corrects him. It'southward like, he's just institute drugs on yous and yous're worrying well-nigh the fact that he's mispronounced the name of an opera!
48 Shaun of the Dead
Edgar Wright, 2004
Shaun of the Dead combines my two favourite things: comedy and zombies; I'm a huge fan of The Walking Expressionless. What I like about those sorts of films is what such extreme situations make people become; they're non really about the zombies, they're nigh people forced to human action purely on instinct rather than making decisions. Then to put a comic spin on that is only perfect for me. Simon Pegg is bully as the lowest; he's completely relatable as this person who is going nowhere in his job, he'due south on autopilot in his life, so when the zombie apocalypse starts he doesn't even discover. Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are such a nifty combination, they're always fun to picket together. Only I didn't similar the follow-ups as much.
49 The Truman Evidence
Peter Weir, 1998
This moving-picture show holds upwardly a actually good mirror to the highly individualised earth we now live in, with our relationship to social media and how we collaborate with the earth. It's central theme is "This world isn't what you retrieve it is" and I dearest that the lead is a not bad comic actor, Jim Carrey, in a kind of serious role merely with comic moments. One of my favourite scenes is when Truman goes into a edifice and they oasis't withal put the facade up and so he sees the backstage surface area and they speedily cover it up. The one-act comes out of the truth of the state of affairs that he's in.
50 Jerry Maguire
Cameron Crowe, 1996
This was such a different role for Tom Cruise – a successful sports agent who falls from the pinnacle – and we didn't really know who Renée Zellweger was at that time. I just love how quotable this picture is. There are probably about 20 I could recite for you: "Y'all complete me"; "Show me the money"; and "I honey black people!" But that line from Cuba Gooding Jr as Rod Tidwell almost Jerry having sex with a single mother – "a existent man wouldn't shoplift the pootie from a unmarried mom" – is merely brilliant.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/18/the-50-funniest-comedy-films-chosen-comedians-stewart-lee-sarah-millican-david-baddiel