Items50The creator’s order
  1. 1Some Like It Hot (1959)Some Like It Hot (1959) 8.2/10 on IMDbReleased 19 Mar 1959Billy Wilder makes every attempted escape create a more awkward social performance. Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe give the farce warmth as well as speed, so its famous final turn feels earned. The cross-dressing premise carries period assumptions, but the comic pleasure comes from…0
  2. 2The Apartment (1960)The Apartment (1960) 8.3/10 on IMDbReleased 21 Jun 1960Office ambition and romantic humiliation give Wilder's comedy unusually sharp stakes. Jack Lemmon's attempts to remain agreeable make the small physical jokes as revealing as the dialogue. A superb choice for laughter with genuine hurt underneath, with loneliness, exploitation and suicide-related…0
  3. 3Modern Times (1936)Modern Times (1936) 8.5/10 on IMDbReleased 5 Feb 1936Charlie Chaplin turns work into a physical rhythm the body cannot comfortably obey. The machinery is funny because the Tramp keeps trying to preserve a little dignity inside it. An accessible mostly silent comedy whose visual invention and social anger remain closely joined, rather than separate…0
  4. 4City Lights (1931)City Lights (1931) 8.5/10 on IMDbReleased 6 Feb 1931Chaplin lets a small misunderstanding grow into a delicate contest between pride, generosity and longing. The set pieces are superbly timed, but the emotional force comes from a character who cannot secure the status he briefly appears to have. Choose it for comedy that can become moving without…0
  5. 5Duck Soup (1933)Duck Soup (1933) 7.7/10 on IMDbReleased 12 Nov 1933The Marx Brothers turn diplomatic ceremony into a system that collapses whenever anyone takes language literally. Groucho's authority and Harpo's disruption make the satire feel wonderfully unstable. A short, fast route into anarchic studio comedy, with period stereotypes and a plot that exists…0
  6. 6Bringing Up Baby (1938)Bringing Up Baby (1938) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased 18 Feb 1938Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant make incompatible temperaments the fuel for an escalating chain of disasters. Howard Hawks keeps the physical action and verbal interruptions moving at the same breathless speed. Choose it when relentless farce appeals; the heroine's refusal to respect boundaries is…0
  7. 7His Girl Friday (1940)His Girl Friday (1940) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased 18 Jan 1940A newsroom and a former marriage become overlapping contests for control of a story. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell make the rapid dialogue feel like action, with interruptions revealing who can hold the room. Brilliantly paced screwball comedy with an unusually sour view of journalism,…0
  8. 8Sherlock Jr. (1924)Sherlock Jr. (1924) 8.1/10 on IMDbReleased 17 Apr 1924Buster Keaton turns a projectionist's wish to enter the screen into an astonishingly clear series of visual impossibilities. The precision makes each new change of space a joke the viewer can immediately understand. At roughly forty-five minutes it is the shortest route here into silent comedy's…0
  9. 9PlayTime (1967)PlayTime (1967) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased 13 Dec 1967Jacques Tati makes modern architecture a field of simultaneous jokes, many of them quietly developing away from the centre of the frame. Looking around becomes part of the comedy. Give it a large screen and patient attention rather than expecting a conventional hero-led plot; the pleasure is…0
  10. 10Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) 8.3/10 on IMDbReleased 29 Jan 1964Military procedure becomes terrifyingly funny when nobody can stop obeying its logic. Kubrick and his ensemble keep the performances controlled enough for the absurdity to emerge from apparently serious decisions. A compact, blackly comic choice whose subject is nuclear catastrophe, with a…0