My Top 5 Favorite Comedies

Hi, this is Matt from The Basement Vagrants, and I've compiled a list of my top 5 favorite comedies. These are all movies that I have watched at least 20 times, have entire scenes, or even the entire film, memorized, and still laugh at after years and years of watching. It was hard to narrow it down to 5, but I'm pretty happy with my list.

Please, I beg you, if you haven't seen any of these movies, you're doing yourself a great disservice by not seeing them. Unless your tastes are wildly different from mine (For example, if you think The Hangover is the pinnacle of comedy), in which case disregard this and watch some Dane Cook clips on YouTube instead.

5. The Producers



The Mel Brooks classic The Producers is one of the comedy legend's first movies, and indeed one of his best. It's a musical comedy starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel about a Broadway producer who, in order to steal a large sum of money from investors, produces the worst play in history. I love comedies that can be completely summed up in one sentence, the less complicated the better. The centerpiece for this movie is the main musical number Springtime For Hitler, and if you haven't heard this song, watch the movie, don't go find a clip on YouTube. It's so much better in context.

Here's a clip of another one of my favorite scenes.

4. Airplane!

In an age where the word "parody" is used primarily to describe films like Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans you might think that that's what a parody film is, but you'd be wrong. So very, very wrong. Airplane! is the greatest parody ever put on film by the two greatest parody writers who ever lived, Jerry and David Zucker. The amazing thing about this film is that the movie that Airplane! is parodying (Zero Hour) has been almost completely forgotten and Airplane! remains a revered comic masterpiece. Airplane! relies on mainly physical comedy and visual gags, as well as amazing performances by serious actors Leslie Nielsen and Robert Stack who play their comedic roles completely straight laced, and come off as the funniest characters in the entire picture.

3. A Fish Called Wanda

It's sad that A Fish Called Wanda has almost been completely forgotten by people today. It is one of the funniest movies ever made and one of the few comedies to ever win an Oscar (Best supporting actor, Kevin Kline). It stars Pythons John Cleese and Michael Palin, as well as Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline. Like I said about The Producers the funniest movies can be explained in one sentence and A Fish Called Wanda is about a diamond heist gone wrong. Kevin Kline is the standout performance in the film as Otto, a pseudo-intellectual ex-CIA agent who hates to be called stupid. It seems that nobody talks about A Fish Called Wanda anymore, but it is honestly one of the sharpest, funniest well acted and written movies I have ever seen.

(The foul person who uploaded the clip I want to show you has disabled embedding so here it is )


2. Monty Python and the Holy Grail/Life of Brian


Ok, I'm kindof cheating on this one, but honestly I cannot choose between them. Holy Grail and Life of Brian are such unbelievable pieces of comic genius that picking which one is my favorite is like Sophie's Choice, only harder. Monty Python's Flying Circus is one of the funniest shows ever put on television, and it's six members are some of the greatest writers and comedic actors that have ever lived. The downside to these movies are that if you don't like Python, you wont like them, non-python fans just don't seem to get it. At one point several years ago I had every single line of dialogue from Holy Grail memorized I've seen it so many times. While I will agree that Holy Grail may have more funny moments than Life of Brian, Brian is funnier in a grander sense since the story itself provides most of the humor, and there isn't nearly as much story in Holy Grail as it is more of a series of sketches. These movies are also a testament to how far god writing and good acting can go towards making a great film for little money. Both films had very tiny budgets, not many actors to work with, hectic shooting schedules and absolutely no special effects or fancy camera work. Pure talent and hard work went into making these pictures.

As far as Meaning of Life and And Now For Something Completely Different go, they're also great Python movies, but sadly come nowhere close to the sheer level of comedic brilliance that their predecessors do.

1. Blazing Saddles

I have been watching Blazing Saddles since I was 10 years old. Since then I have watched it 73 times (yes, I've been counting), that means I've been averages 5 watches a year for 14 years and still I laugh uproariously at nearly every scene. This is Mel Brooks' masterpiece, and a true example of timeless comedy. Cleavon Little, Harvey Korman, Gene Wilder and Madeline Kahn star in this slapstick, offensive and off-the-wall western about a black sherriff that is put in charge of a small town under attack by thugs. This is one of the two movies in the list that I have at one point memorized from the first line "Come on boys" to the last line "Come on". There is no excuse to not have seen this movie yet, it's 37 years old but is just as funny now as it was back then. Seriously, you need to see this movie.

I'm not even going to post clips from it. See it.








NOW!