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BBC asked 253 critics to determine the best comedies ever made. The results are...

Vice

Member
Good to see Airplane so high up. A truly great parody. After watching so much disaster film junk on TV that movie was one of the first parodies I totally got.
 
Based on the GAF feedback in this thread-I'm not sure if I should complain about the lack of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein from those lists.

Guess my humor skews old.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein would be first on my list. I'm really surprised the two aren't on the list at all which is baffling.
 

Anedar

Member
Hot take: Duck Soup is far from the best Marx Brothers movie, it's not even the best one starring Zeppo.
A night in Casablanca is secretly the greatest.
 

daviyoung

Banned
Hot take: Duck Soup is far from the best Marx Brothers movie, it's not even the best one starring Zeppo.
A night in Casablanca is secretly the greatest.

that take is so hot and smelly you should put some police tape and a out of order sign on the bathroom door
 

Prez

Member
I kind of get that Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day are considered comedies and I love both but they definitely didn't make me laugh.
 

kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
Typical critic votes. Meanwhile they have seen said film 1 time over 30 years ago.

I get that they are pretty great movies back then and still are, but for pure laughing entertainment now that is a pretty bad list.

Be honest, how many of the top 10 movies have you actually seen?
 
17. Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938)
14. His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)

Best list. And why does no one ever put A Clockwork Orange in those kind of list? It's easily one of the funniest movie ever. Oi, oi, oi!
 
Airplane isn't a good movie, and it shouldn't be on the list

Guys, airplane isn't funny.

hTDGHhb.gif
 
Some of you lot need slapping with a banana peel, that’s an excellent list. So many masterpieces you could laugh yourself stupid.

Ok The Hangover has no place there at all and I could do with some mid-eighties Eddie Murphy. Otherwise excellent.
 

sans_pants

avec_pénis
critics are notoriously bad at rating comedies


they usually rank actual laughs low on their criteria


duck soup has a lot of laughs only cause they throw a million zingers at the wall and like 40% of them still work


also i really dislike Tati movies, they are like OG mr bean
 

Septimius

Junior Member
Excited to see The General in the top ten. I didn't use to think films from that era had any redeeming qualities, but god damn, if seeing Buster Keaton throwing logs of woods at other logs of wood to remove them from the track in what you know is absolutely a movie without special effects, you appreciate the whole movie as a fantastic performance, where they eventually just drive a train into a lake. For reals.

I mean, movies today have way bigger productions, way more money, but there's just something about how real that movie is that gives the comedy an edge I have never experienced before.
 
Excited to see The General in the top ten. I didn't use to think films from that era had any redeeming qualities, but god damn, if seeing Buster Keaton throwing logs of woods at other logs of wood to remove them from the track in what you know is absolutely a movie without special effects, you appreciate the whole movie as a fantastic performance, where they eventually just drive a train into a lake. For reals.

I mean, movies today have way bigger productions, way more money, but there's just something about how real that movie is that gives the comedy an edge I have never experienced before.

Yeah, if I'm gonna recommend a silent film for someone to check out, it's probably gonna be The General.
 
does it make a critic just not cool if they include anything from the year 2000+?

great movies in the top ten, i just always find these lists weird, as if they are saying nothing that tops those movies has come out in like 30 years. idk about that

first one is 33. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Adam McKay, 2004)


Nostalgia is one hell of a drug!
That being said, as I grow older, I realize that every year that goes by the chance of a movie making it into my top 20 is lower than before. The same goes for books and games (not so much regarding music though). We tend to get attached to the stuff that somehow "changed" or marked us. There have been really good comedies in recent years
 

bomma_man

Member
Hell they included one movie from 85 onward in the top 10 and that was GHD.

Comedies peaked in the early 70s going by their top 10.

I gonna guess that your taste in comedy probably ossifies in your mid twenties, and I am going to take a wild stab that most of these critics were born in the 50s and 60s.

Edit: to the point above, almost all my favourite books/movies/music are what I read/saw/listened to when I was an emotionally vulnerable 17-21 y/o with a lot of time on my hands. Not so much with games, which probably speaks to how little (generally) I value their thematic and emotional content.
 
Old white People like old white people movies, news at 11.

GAF poster wants to give their hot take without reading the article, news at 11.

We asked 253 film critics – 118 women and 135 men – from 52 countries and six continents a simple: ”What do you think are the 10 best comedies of all time?"

The individual ballots.

Don't mean to be rude or single you out, it's just that people around here are a bit too quick to dismiss this list with a snarky comment. That's an exceptional list of films any way you look at it. Sure there are some weird entries and a few omissions but hey, nobody's perfect.
 

Switch Back 9

a lot of my threads involve me fucking up somehow. Perhaps I'm a moron?
Life of Brian over Holy Grail?

Oh god. I don't know where I stand on this. I'm having an internal crisis now trying to rank them.

GAF poster wants to give their hot take without reading the article, news at 11.



The individual ballots.

Don't mean to be rude or single you out, it's just that people around here are a bit too quick to dismiss this list with a snarky comment. That's an exceptional list of films any way you look at it. Sure there are some weird entries and a few omissions but hey, nobody's perfect.

You should single that poster out. Shitposts like that are why Off-Topic threads get so messy and shitty.
 

Switch Back 9

a lot of my threads involve me fucking up somehow. Perhaps I'm a moron?
but holy grail has the knights of ni

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life though...


But the Black Knight and the peasant's rant about government...

Godamn. I'm torn. Oh well, they're both better than Meaning of Life.
 

Ferrio

Banned
People taking shit about Duck Soup.

Some of you need to do yourselves a favor and watch some Marx Brothers movies. I first saw them as a kid and they were amazing even then.
 
does it make a critic just not cool if they include anything from the year 2000+?

great movies in the top ten, i just always find these lists weird, as if they are saying nothing that tops those movies has come out in like 30 years. idk about that

first one is 33. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Adam McKay, 2004)

It's a hipster critic thing to only like or talk up older movies. I guess it's not different than when I say music has sucked since 2002, though.

it really has gotten shittier. Pop, rock,
rap, all of it.
 

Dalek

Member
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein would be first on my list. I'm really surprised the two aren't on the list at all which is baffling.

I showed this movie to my daughter and her friends this weekend. At first they were saying "aw man, black and white???".

Ten minutes in, they were rolling with laughter. Funny is funny-regardless of how old the movie is.

"I'm something of a wolf, myself."
 
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