NOW has loads of movies to have you laugh! Rory Doherty picks a healthy selection of the very best.
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Babylon (2023)
Watch on NOWA bitterly cynical and ultimately melancholy comedy, but a comedy nonetheless. La La Land director Damien Chazelle goes as debaucherous and slapstick as possible for three whole hours in his epic tale of Hollywood corruption festering from the earliest days, with Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt handing in comic performances that feel very reminiscent of ones they’ve done before—but maybe that’s the meta point? Regardless, Chazelle can stage a comic set-piece with incredible poise and energy.
Bad Neighbours (2014)
Watch on NOWRetitled in some markets to avoid confusion with a certain Aussie soap (hint: the original title wasn’t Home and Away), this Seth Rogen comedy of a young family feuding with the frat house next door is one of the few films that knew exactly how to properly utilise the comedic beefcake Zac Efron. It’s directed with an appropriately extravagant boisterousness, but the camera knows when to hone in on eccentric performances to get laughs.
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Watch on NOWThis isn’t Eddie Murphy’s first film, or even his first cop comedy (that honour goes to the much rougher 48 Hrs) but it’s hard to imagine a better breakout hit than this electric ode to the cultural divides in America. Murphy stars as Axel Foley, a Detroit cop who takes umbrage with the hands-off approach to criminal investigation he finds on a visit to LA. Murphy owns every minute of screen time he’s given, which wisely is a lot.
Biosphere (2023)
Watch on NOWBiosphere throws us in the deep end from the opening moments: Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown are humanity’s last survivors, living in a hermetically sealed biodome with little hope of the species surviving beyond them—until an evolutionary miracle turns the film into a sparky, affecting co-parenting comedy. You’ve never seen a film about this, and you’ve never seen it treated in such an amusing, frank and sweet way.
Brian and Charles (2022)
Watch on NOWAI may soon come for us all, but until then we can still laugh at its charming inadequacies. The valleys of Wales may not be the most likely location for creating cutting-edge robotic life, but when hopeless inventor Brian creates an android out of a washing machine, a rubber mannequin head, and god knows what else, it’s a surefire recipe for offbeat hilarity. Physical comedy dressed as an eight-foot robot is no easy feat, and Charles pulls it off commendably.
Cocaine Bear (2023)
Watch on NOWWhat if a bear did cocaine? Well, one did, but it didn’t really do anything funny. But what if, Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear supposes, it did? It feels strange to critique this action-comedy for not delivering on its asinine premise and blunt title, and it shrewdly casts a wide range of talented character actors and seasoned comedy stars to stress that it’s taking its story seriously and also not seriously at all. Oh, and there’s also a bear on cocaine.
Ghostbusters (1984)
Watch on NowIf you want to watch a Ghostbusters film, who ya gonna call? No film except the original, a perfect storm of wacko supernatural ideas (from Dan Aykroyd), sharp-as-nails joke writing (Harold Ramis), excellent direction (the late Ivan Reitman), and whatever the hell Bill Murray is doing. It meshes timely Reaganist, small business satire with some excellent gross-out 80s creature effects—a recipe for a stone cold comedy classic.
I Love My Dad (2022)
Watch on NOWThe only thing stranger about this cringefest, where an estranged father (Patton Oswalt) catfishes his son in an attempt to re-enter his life, is the fact that writer-director-star James Morosini based it on personal experience. You may be watching it through your fingers and with gritted teeth (it’s not gruesome, just really, really embarrassing) but there’s a pathos to the discomfort, and it’s undeniably a finely tuned piece of comedy drama.
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Watch on NOWAt the time, critics were sniffy about this explosively silly ABBA jukebox musical (or maybe everyone was too busy lauding The Dark Knight, which came out the same day in 2008), but by the time Here We Go Again arrived 10 years later, everyone had retroactively acknowledged how delightful the original was. Showcasing levels of joy and horniness previously undocumented in Meryl Streep movies, it’s impossible to get through five minutes without shrieking with glee.
Matilda (1996)
Watch on NOWKids movies are goldmines of unexpected comedic genius, and this Roald Dahl adaptation directed by Danny DeVito is filled with iconic bonkers moments. Mara Wilson kills it as the telekinetic child-genius, what’s great is that none of the film feels pandering to its child audience; all the weird, twisted elements of the original story are actually dialled up. The angles are canted, the soundtrack pops…in short, the Netflix musical adaptation has a lot to live up to.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
Watch on NowChevy Chase is likely best remembered by today’s youth as the old man who quit Community, but back in the day he was the king of comedy. This superior entry into National Lampoon’s holiday franchise pastiches every insufferable, infuriating quirk of the Christmas season, with Chase once again cranking up family man Clark Griswold’s worst homemaking impulses. Neighbours, extended family, even your own children—everybody is a source of nuisance during the holidays.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Watch on NOWParody movies are a lost art, but thankfully The Lonely Island keep receipts. Parodying the slew of artistic docs/concert films that filled the early 2010s, Popstar assembles an enviable cast of real-life and fictional music industry personalities to tell the story of Conner4Real (Andy Samburg), a struggling pop artist who must return to his Backstreet/Beastie Boys-inspired roots. The songs, the asides, the impeccable gag-rate—Lonely Island is a worthy update of Spinal Tap.
Risky Business (1983)
Watch on NOWBefore he went without shirt in Top Gun, Tom Cruise shed his trousers in this incredibly Reagan teen comedy, where a jumped-up yuppie schoolkid hires sex workers for his empty-nest party blowout. Has it aged well? Absolutely not. It’s more of a time capsule of dated values and undeserved smugness, but Cruise was a star in the making, and his chemistry with Rebecca De Mornay is off the charts. John Hughes wished he had this much edge!
Ted (2012)
Watch on NOWNo-one’s calling this the most sophisticated comedy, but it’s got a lot more charm than its contemporary season of Family Guy. Not only is Seth McFarlane the perfect choice for a washed-up, fantastical celebrity, but Mark Wahlberg’s muscle-headed dudebro-isms make a perfect match. It’s a buddy comedy with off-colour jokes and appropriately forced sentimentality. You shouldn’t feel bad about loving it. Well, maybe a little bit.
Ticket to Paradise (2022)
Watch on NOWIn 2022, many celebrities staged their efforts to draw audiences back into the cinema, but few were as delightfully light and frothy as this destination wedding romcom from titans of chemistry, George Clooney and Julia Roberts. Mamma Mia 2 director Ol Parker whisks them to Bali for a classically breezy romp about divorced parents trying to save their young daughter from a hasty marriage, and it’s worth watching just to see two legendary A-listers treat each other with complete resentment.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Watch on NOWThe best comedies don’t just make us howl with laughter, they implicate us in what we’re laughing about. So goes Scorsese’s three-hour saga of unregulated Wall Street crime; it’s such a frenetically edited and hilariously performed ordeal of moral rot that you eventually find yourself considering why we’re hard-coded to find these crimes exciting and amusing in the first place. Never has Leo more strongly made the case that he is, at heart, a comedian.
