Tag: comedy

Comedy Movies That Are Actually Horror

We love comedies because they are comforting, funny, and familiar. But every once in a while, someone explains the actual plot out loud and you realize, wait a second, this is terrifying.

Strip away the jokes, the soundtrack, and the charming actors, and some of our favorite comedy movies start sounding a lot more like psychological thrillers or straight-up horror films.

A recent list rounded up comedies whose basic premises feel unsettling once you stop laughing, and it is hard to unsee it after that:

  1. “Bruce Almighty”: A woman dates a man who suddenly has godlike powers, alters reality on a whim, messes with her body without permission, and triggers natural disasters to deal with his own insecurities.
  2. “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”: A reclusive factory owner lures children inside, employs unsettling workers, and watches as kids disappear in disturbing accidents until only one survives.
  3. “You’ve Got Mail”: A man secretly catfishes a woman online while actively sabotaging her business in real life, then reveals the truth after she has emotionally bonded with him.
  4. “Mrs. Doubtfire”: A divorced father creates an elaborate disguise to infiltrate his ex-wife’s home, violating boundaries and identities while hiding in plain sight. The prosthetics alone are nightmare fuel.
  5. “Never Been Kissed”: A reporter goes undercover as a high school student, and a teacher develops romantic feelings for her before knowing her true age. The timing makes it deeply uncomfortable.
  6. “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”: Dating someone requires physically fighting and defeating all of their exes one by one, with real violence and life-or-death stakes treated as casual obstacles.
  7. “The Hangover”: A group of friends wake up with no memory, a missing person, signs of violence, and a trail of criminal behavior they slowly uncover piece by piece.
  8. “Freaky Friday” and “The Hot Chick”: Characters wake up trapped in someone else’s body, losing their identity, autonomy, and control over their own lives overnight.
  9. “Airplane!”: An entire flight crew and most passengers become violently ill from food poisoning mid-flight, leaving an incapacitated plane hurtling through the air.
  10. “Sleepless in Seattle”: A woman becomes obsessed with a stranger she has never met, tracks him across the country, and inserts herself into his life without his knowledge.

Still funny? Absolutely. Slightly horrifying once you spell it out? Also yes.

The Best Sitcom Neighbors of All Time

Every sitcom needs a good neighbor. Sometimes they are lovable. Sometimes they are annoying.

Sometimes they exist purely to pop in uninvited and wreck everyone’s day. And every once in a while, they get so popular they basically hijack the entire show.

MSN.com just released a list of the 26 best sitcom neighbors ever, and their Top 15 is basically a love letter to the scene-stealers who lived next door. These characters weren’t just background noise — they delivered punchlines, stole scenes, and sometimes became the show.

Here’s who made the top of the list:

  1. Ned Flanders (The Simpsons)
    Homer’s relentlessly cheerful and overly wholesome neighbor since 1989. Started as a one-joke character and evolved into one of the show’s most developed (and beloved) personalities.
  2. Cosmo Kramer (Seinfeld)
    The human hurricane who never knocked, never worked, and somehow always thrived. His entrances alone are sitcom royalty.
  3. George Jefferson (All in the Family)
    A strong enough neighbor to get his own spinoff. And then become a legend.
  4. Ed Norton (The Honeymooners)
    Classic buddy-neighbor energy with Ralph Kramden. A true OG of the genre.
  5. Fred and Ethel Mertz (I Love Lucy)
    The grumpy but lovable landlords who were always part of Lucy’s schemes (whether they wanted to be or not).
  6. Gladys Kravitz (Bewitched)
    Possibly the original “nosy neighbor.” If you’ve ever side-eyed your window because of something weird next door, you’re channeling Gladys.
  7. Steve Urkel (Family Matters)
    Supposed to be a one-episode guest. Became the entire show. Did he do that? Yes. Yes, he did.
  8. Marie Barone (Everybody Loves Raymond)
    The ultimate meddling mom-next-door. Equal parts loving and overbearing.
  9. Wilson Wilson Jr. (Home Improvement)
    Wise, mysterious, and the only neighbor to drop life advice without ever fully revealing his face.
  10. Newman (Seinfeld)
    “Hello, Jerry.” Postal worker. Nemesis. Icon.
  11. Kimmy Gibbler (Full House)
    Loud, weird, and somehow always in the kitchen. She was every kid’s nightmare and every sitcom’s dream.
  12. Mr. Feeney (Boy Meets World)
    Neighbor, teacher, mentor, life coach — and always within earshot of a heartfelt moment.
  13. Barney Rubble (The Flintstones)
    Fred Flintstone’s best buddy and next-door caveman. Loyal, goofy, and still quotable.
  14. Rhoda Morgenstern (The Mary Tyler Moore Show)
    Brought sass, heart, and her own spinoff to the neighbor game.
  15. Roger (What’s Happening!!)
    Brought charm and cool-kid energy to the building, and a lot of laughs with it.

From the wacky to the wise, these sitcom neighbors made their mark — and in a lot of cases, they’re the ones we remember most.

Is There Such a Thing as a Perfect Comedy? These 10 Come Pretty Close

Is there such a thing as a perfect comedy movie? Probably not, because comedy is wildly subjective.

What makes one person laugh until they cry might barely get a nose exhale from someone else. But Collider.com decided to give it a shot anyway, rounding up what they call the 10 nearly perfect comedies of all time and ranking them from top to bottom.

Their list spans decades, styles, and generations, from sharp political satire to absurd slapstick and endlessly quotable bro comedies. And while you will absolutely argue with at least one of these placements, that’s kind of the fun.

Taking the top spot is Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” from 1964. Yes, a Cold War nuclear satire somehow beat out fart jokes and improvised man-children. Collider praises it for being fearless, dark, and still painfully relevant decades later. Not bad for a movie about the end of the world.

Right behind it at number two is “Airplane!” from 1980, a film that basically redefined parody comedy. It is relentless, absurd, and packed with jokes so fast you probably miss half of them on the first watch. Number three goes to “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” the 1975 classic that turned medieval legend into coconuts, killer rabbits, and quotes that refuse to die.

Rounding out the top five are “Some Like It Hot” from 1959 at number four and “Ghostbusters” from 1984 at number five. One is a black-and-white classic with Marilyn Monroe, the other has proton packs and a giant marshmallow man. Both somehow belong on the same list.

The rest of the rankings lean into cult favorites and modern comedy staples. “The Big Lebowski” lands at number six, followed by “Groundhog Day” at seven, a movie that somehow gets funnier and more thoughtful every time you see it. “Step Brothers” takes eighth place, proving that yelling and drum sets can age surprisingly well.

Closing out the list are two late-2000s comedy giants: “Superbad” at number nine and “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” at number ten.

So are these the 10 nearly perfect comedies of all time? Maybe. Or maybe your favorite is missing entirely. Either way, this list is a pretty solid excuse to cancel your plans and start a comedy marathon.

Adam Sandler Lists the 10 Reasons He Knows He’s Old

Adam Sandler has never been shy about poking fun at himself, but he really leaned into it while being honored at the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards.

The Sandman received a Career Achievement Award, and shared his personal list of “10 Reasons Why I Know I’m F***ing Old.” And yes, it went exactly where you think it did.

Here’s a recap of all 10 from his speech:

1.  “The other day, I had to swallow a Viagra just to take a [pee].  And of course I had to call my doctor because of [pee] lasting for more than four hours.”

2.  “When I sit down, it sounds like a semi-truck driving over a family of lobsters cracking their knuckles and eating Pop Rocks.”

3.  “My tongue only has one taste bud left.  Everything I eat now tastes like oatmeal, except oatmeal which tastes like Vaseline.”

4.  Using a font so big that his texts “can be read by anyone with a window seat on a Delta flight.”

5.  “[Using] a Dude Wipes on my pee-hole.”

6.  “When I dive to the bottom of the pool, most of my back skin stays floating on top of the water.”

7.  “At my high school reunions, I spend most of the night saying, ‘I’m so sorry to hear that.'”

8.  None of his toenails are the same color anymore and they look like “a box of Crayola crayons” when he takes his socks off.

9.  “I called the Depend diaper headquarters and asked them if they ever considered getting into the sweatpants game.”

9.5.  (He wrote a second #9 in case the first one didn’t work.)  “My testicles are sagging so low that I now have to walk while wearing four shoes.”

10.  He starts a movie and falls asleep almost immediately.  Quote, “To every one of you fellow artists out there who are getting all the accolades, I must say I loved the first 30 seconds of all of your movies.”

Variety’s Top 20 Comedy Movies Spark Outrage After “Airplane!” Lands at #62

If you want to start a fight in a group chat, just ask everyone to name the greatest comedy movie of all time.

Variety apparently did exactly that, then poured gasoline on the internet by ranking Airplane! at a criminally low #62. Sixty. Two. At that point, why even make a list? But hey, their Top 20 still gives plenty to argue about, especially if you’re into classic comedies, cult favorites, or movies your parents insist “you just had to be there” to appreciate.

For anyone Googling best comedy movies, top comedy films ever, or funniest movies of all time, here’s what Variety says belongs at the top of the pile.

Their number one pick is The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and honestly, that’s a choice with big goofy energy.

Leslie Nielsen’s deadpan genius absolutely deserves recognition, even if we can debate whether it’s the single greatest comedy ever made. Right behind it is Some Like It Hot, the 1959 classic that’s still quoted, referenced, and studied today. Billy Wilder fans are celebrating, teenagers everywhere are shrugging, and film professors are pumping their fists in victory.

Meanwhile, Annie Hall sits at #3, followed by The Great Dictator at #4, proving the list leans heavily on iconic, influential films, not just the ones that make you spit out your drink laughing. By the time you hit the middle of the Top 10, the list really starts to feel like a comedy hall of fame: Waiting for Guffman, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Duck Soup, Fargo, Young Frankenstein, and Groundhog Day. This is basically the comedy starter pack for anyone who wants to pretend they’re serious about cinema.

Spot #11 goes to Buster Keaton’s silent-era masterpiece Sherlock Jr., which probably delighted exactly three cinephiles while confusing everyone who just wanted to know where Step Brothers is.

Tootsie, Dr. Strangelove, and Sideways follow, giving the list a nice mix of satire, character comedy, and movies your dad quotes annually.

Then you get deep cuts like Playtime and His Girl Friday, plus cult classics like The Heartbreak Kid and mockumentary legend This Is Spinal Tap. Rounding it out are It Happened One Night and Superbad, the lone modern teen comedy in the Top 20, representing an entire generation that believes McLovin is basically Shakespeare.

Is this list perfect? Absolutely not. Is ranking Airplane! outside the Top 10 a cinematic crime? Yes. Should we still enjoy arguing about it? Always.

Here’s the full Top 20 according to Variety:

  1. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
  2. Some Like It Hot (1959)
  3. Annie Hall (1977)
  4. The Great Dictator (1940)
  5. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
  6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
  7. Duck Soup (1933)
  8. Fargo (1996)
  9. Young Frankenstein (1974)
  10. Groundhog Day (1993)
  11. Sherlock Jr. (1924)
  12. Tootsie (1982)
  13. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
  14. Sideways (2004)
  15. Playtime (1967)
  16. His Girl Friday (1940)
  17. The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
  18. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
  19. It Happened One Night (1934)
  20. Superbad (2007)

Feel free to yell your disagreements into the void. Variety probably can’t hear you over the sound of all that chaos they just caused.

10 of the Funniest and Most Raunchy Movie and TV Scenes Ever

Raunchy humor is among the best kinds of humor. Some of the most cringe-worthy, disgusting, and downright filthy scenes in movies and TV are also the ones that make us laugh until we can’t breathe.

Cracked.com recently rounded up some of the funniest raunchy scenes of all time, and the list is basically a highlight reel of moments you can’t believe actually made it past studio executives. Here are the best of the best:

  1. There’s Something About Mary – The infamous “hair gel” scene. You know it. You can’t unsee it.
  2. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me – Mike Myers takes slapstick to a new level when Austin drinks something he definitely shouldn’t.
  3. Animal House – John Belushi’s “I’m a zit, get it?” gag remains gross-out comedy royalty.
  4. Dumb & Dumber – Jeff Daniels’ explosive bathroom disaster. Fun fact: Daniels says Clint Eastwood once told him that exact thing happened to him on a date. Yes, THAT Clint Eastwood.
  5. Bridesmaids – Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph’s dress-shopping meltdown that ends in full-on public restroom chaos.
  6. Crazy, Stupid, Love – A wildly uncomfortable moment where a 17-year-old gifts nude photos to a 13-year-old who’s crushing on her. The laughs here come from how horrified Steve Carell’s character is when he finds out.
  7. Ghostbusters – Dan Aykroyd gets… a supernatural favor of the oral variety. This one confused a lot of kids in the ‘80s.
  8. Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls – Jim Carrey being “reborn” from the back end of a rhino is still one of the most talked-about physical comedy moments ever.
  9. Zack and Miri Make a Porno – Kevin Smith goes full raunch, with a cameraman suffering the world’s worst job hazard during a “backdoor” scene.
  10. American Pie – One time, at band camp… do we even need to finish the sentence?

Raunchy comedy isn’t just about shock value, though. These scenes became legendary because they balance gross-out gags with clever timing and characters we actually care about. It’s the same formula that’s kept comedies like Superbad, The Hangover, and South Park alive in the cultural conversation for years.

And if you’re clutching your pearls reading this list, remember: you laughed too.

Is “The Bear” a Comedy or Drama?

If you’ve ever watched “The Bear” and found yourself wondering, “Wait… is this supposed to be a comedy or a drama?” you’re not alone. The hit FX series about a struggling Chicago sandwich shop has been called both. It’s intense, stressful, heartbreaking, and yet, somehow, it keeps racking up wins in comedy categories.

In fact, “The Bear” has already taken home several trophies as a comedy, and it’s up for Best Comedy Series again at the 2025 Emmys. Which begs the question: are we all laughing through tears, or has someone at the awards shows been mixing up their ballots?

Ayo Edebiri, who plays chef Sydney on the show, was asked to weigh in on the debate. Her answer? Basically, don’t ask her.

“My feeling is that that is a question that is honestly above my pay grade,” she told “The Hollywood Reporter“. “That’s a question for the studios. We get asked a lot about it as actors and they don’t ask the producer, so that’s kind of my answer to that.”

Translation: the cast just makes the food chaos look real. What you call it is someone else’s problem.

The debate isn’t new. Awards voters have been blurring the line between comedy and drama for decades.

Remember when “Orange Is the New Black” started off competing as a comedy, despite making people cry more often than laugh? Or when “Shameless” hopped back and forth between categories? It’s a Hollywood tradition at this point.

So maybe “The Bear” is less about punchlines and more about pressure-cooker comedy. The kind of “funny” that comes when your co-worker sets the kitchen on fire or your boss has a meltdown mid-shift. Not ha-ha funny… more like, “if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry” funny.

Either way, Ayo Edebiri is officially out of the classification game. Call it what you want, just don’t expect the actors to settle the debate. For now, it looks like “The Bear” will keep cooking in the comedy section—whether or not it actually makes you laugh.

God Help Me, I (Kinda) Liked “The Naked Gun”

I was born in 1969.  That means I was a ’70s kid and an ’80s teen.  As such, the acronym ZAZ is very sacred to me.

David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker are the team of writer-directors who, from 1977 to 1994, produced some of the most uproarious comedies of all time, including “The Kentucky Fried Movie,” “Airplane,” “Top Secret,” and, of course, the “Naked Gun” trilogy.

When I heard there was going to be a “Naked Gun” remake/reboot/sequel, I didn’t freak out.  Remakes can actually be good. 

They can also be brilliant, like John Carpenter’s “The Thing” or Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspira.”

So my first reaction to these kinds of announcements is generally somewhere between “Who cares?” and “Let’s see what happens.”

The casting of Liam Neeson in the lead put this one firmly in the latter category for me.

Remember, before Abrahams and the Zucker boys cast Leslie Nielsen in “Airplane,” he was a serious actor, playing serious characters in serious films.  Their brilliance was to take a serious actor and give him a serious character, but drop it into the most unserious scenarios they could write.

While he was only a supporting character in the “Airplane” movies, giving him the lead role in the original “Naked Gun” made him a comedy god.

Neeson, with his “very particular set of skills,” may have been the best possible bulb to screw into that socket.  So when they announced him as the lead in this one, I was intrigued and, against my better judgment, a little excited.

And then came the marketing campaign, and that excitement left my body faster than all the lesbian celebrities left America after the 2024 election.

Observing the absolutely unavoidable deluge of trailers, TV commercials, and social media ads over the past few months, I think I laughed once… maybe twice.

This movie looked terrible.  I quickly relegated it to the “who cares” bin and went on with my life.

But then, over the past week, something bizarre and totally unexpected happened.  The reviews started coming in, and they were good.  Hell, some were great.

“The Naked Gun” is rated 90% fresh on RottenTomatoes.com, with a 79% audience rating.  It’s got a slightly lower score of 75 at MetaCritic, which still notes that the reviews have been “generally positive.”

More importantly, some friends whose opinions I actually trusted saw it Friday night and liked it.

So now, of course, I had to see it.  And I did.  On Saturday afternoon, with four other people in the theater.  Three of us were there by ourselves.

And we laughed.  Kind of a lot.

I’m not gonna say it’s great, and I’m not gonna say it stands up to the originals.  But I was entertained. 

Liam Neeson was as good in the part of the new Frank Drebin (the son of Nielsen’s character from the originals) as I thought he’d be.

And Pamela Anderson, who already proved she can act in 2024’s “The Last Showgirl,” shows off some legit comedy chops.  Her “performance” in the jazz club is one of the highlights of the movie.

Their chemistry is great, which is probably why they’re kickin’ it in real life, too.

The one complaint I have is the ending, which takes place at a WWFC mixed martial arts event.

There are no zany sight gags involving the fighters, no jokes about the sport or its audience; you know, the way they parodied Major League Baseball in the original, or the Oscars in Part 3.  It was just an MMA event going on in the background.

Even when the entire audience starts brawling, there are no heads being punched off, no obvious dummies being tossed around… not even a random tiger attack.  Mostly it’s just extras throwing punches in the background.

Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker would have never let that happen.  And although they weren’t involved in this movie and didn’t seem to support it, the new guys should never had made this mistake.

Still, I did feel enough of the ZAZ spirit in this new “Naked Gun” to believe that if they should decide to see this movie, they might, against their better judgment, actually like it.

Just like I did.

Is Adam Sandler Still Funny? The Internet Has Spoken

With “Happy Gilmore 2” dropping on Netflix tomorrow, Adam Sandler is back in the spotlight— but does he still got jokes? According to a new YouGov poll of over 2,200 Americans, 71% of the country thinks the Sandman is at least somewhat funny.

Specifically, 44% of people say he’s “somewhat funny,” while another 27% gave him full comedy credit with a “very funny” rating. Only 13% think he’s not very funny, and 9% said he’s not funny at all. That leaves 8% who are still on the fence—or maybe just haven’t seen “Billy Madison”.

This mini national referendum comes just ahead of Sandler’s return to one of his most iconic roles in “Happy Gilmore 2”, the long-awaited sequel to his 1996 golf comedy.

While Sandler has had some career ups and downs (and a few Razzie nominations to his name), his diehard fanbase clearly still finds him funny enough to click “play.”

The numbers show that his brand of goofy, lovable weirdness still resonates—at least more than it doesn’t. And when you stack up decades of hits (“The Wedding Singer”, “The Waterboy”, “Big Daddy”, and yes, even “Uncut Gems”) alongside his infamous flops, it kind of makes sense that “somewhat funny” took the top spot. He’s got a little something for everyone.

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