The Movie Forums Top 100 Comedies Countdown

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Kinda crazy [Do the Right Thing] didn't make the list.
Kinda crazy that you both seem to classify it as a comedy.
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Grail was my Number 7.

I would peg it as the most classic comedy movie, personally.


That said, I grew up with all the Monty Python movies and have seen them all repeatedly and at the end of the day I gave And Now For Something Completely Different my Number 1. Perhaps it's the anti-climax of Grail, or the fact that they confined themselves to an actual story, but I honestly remember their first ever movie best, which was just a mash-up of re-shot best-of moments from Monty Python's Flying Circus. Every scene is just a new random skit, and they're pretty much all great. Hell's Grannies, Self-Defense Against Fresh Fruit, The Dead Parrot, How Not To Be Seen...

I think this movie has had the greatest individual influence on my sense of comedy.



1. And Now For Something Completely Different (1971)
2. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
3. Black Dynamite (2009)
4. Clue (1985)
5. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
6. Rush Hour (1998)
7. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
8. HK: Forbidden Superhero (2013)
9. Gothic & Lolita Psycho (2010)
10. Dragon Tiger Gate (2006)
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Like others, I'd thought we'd be seeing Monty in the top 3 at least. I did have that one at #5 by the way.

Holy Grail is the equivalent of a Bugs Bunny/Animaniacs cartoon for 90 minutes. There's the silly (chanters hit their heads with wooden planks every so often), the clever (strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government), and the hysterical (we are the knights who say ni). Sure, there's some parts that wouldn't pass muster on a Saturday morning (the cute bunny, the women who beg to be spanked), but then again, some of Tex Avery's cartoons wouldn't make broadcast TV at that hour either. There is a story, but it kind of goes off the rails at times. What's left is the humor which hits everything from lowball humor to highbrow.

We want...a shrubbery!



Kinda crazy that you both seem to classify it as a comedy.
I have American Beauty high on my list, so I have a loose definition.
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I have just discovered to my infinite torment that I could have nominated SNL: Best Of compilations.

Talk about biggest influences on my sense of comedy, Toonces and Friends has got to be a Top 3 for me.





Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Great stuff, but I haven't seen it in years. I do remember my sisters and I banging something together and pretending to be riding horse afterwards among other response to this classic bit of nuttiness.
No vote from me. Not sufficiently old enough I guess.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
I've seen both of the Monty Python movies that made the countdown, but I guess they're just not my type of humor.
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You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
The highest placed film on my ballot that did not make the Top 100 was...

...Harvey (1950). One of Jimmy Stewart's most charming turns is as Elwood P. Dowd, a happy fella in a small town whose best friend is the title character. Elwood describes Harvey as a 6'31⁄2" white rabbit. He is a pooka, a creature of Celtic mythology, and Elwood's companion. Most of the people in town who know Mr. Dowd accept his eccentricity, including his sister and niece who live with him. But after some of Harvey's antics ruin an important party, his sister Veta (Josephine Hull) reluctantly decides to have him committed to a sanitarium. What follows is a lovely little tale about what being "normal" even means, with Stewart and his unseen associate at the center.

I didn't suspect Harvey would be anywhere near top twenty-five material for the collective, but I did expect it would show in the bottom half. Alas. It was eleventh on my ballot, good for fifteen points.

Despite being one of the biggest and most beloved movie stars of all time, James Stewart did not make the list at all. Harvey and The Philadelphia Story were likely his two best shots but he also starred in Destry Rides Again, The Shop Around the Corner, and You Can't Take It with You and all are certainly worthy of consideration for such an exercise. Oh, well.
I also expected Harvey to show up somewhere in the lower half of the countdown, and it's disappointing that it didn't make the countdown at all. It's one of my favorite Jimmy Stewart movies, and it was #24 on my list.


While not as iconic a star, another actor with plenty of well-regarded comedy classics and near-classics who isn't going to have a showing on the Top 100 is Richard Dreyfuss.

Let it Ride (1989) is a movie I did not hold out any hope for showing, but I used my twenty-fifth spot for it just the same. Because I LOVE this little underseen gem about a chronic gambler's last day at the track turned lucky. I tried to talk some of you MoFos into checking it out or remembering it for your lists HERE before the ballots were due. It did not seemingly make much difference, though since Let it Ride was not revealed in the initial one-pointers at the beginning that means at least one of you voted for it, too.

Dreyfuss, who won an Oscar for The Goodbye Girl, didn't see it nor Down in Out in Beverly Hills, Tin Men, What About Bob?, Stakeout, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, American Graffiti, nor my Let it Ride come within a whiff of the Top 100.
I watched Let it Ride when you recommended it, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't make my list. However I did consider several other Richard Dreyfuss movies for my list, with Stakeout being a near miss, but one of his movies did land the final spot on my list. The Goodbye Girl isn't my favorite of his movies, but it's my favorite comedy of his movies, and it was #25 on my list.



Welcome to the human race...
Holy Grail was my #14. Those who have been following my recent top 100 (which could probably use an update at some point) will notice that I originally listed it in my overall top 10 in both my 2005 list and 2013 list, but now it's dropped down to #83 on the 2022 list. Hard to pinpoint why that is - even the funniest jokes lose a little of their lustre eventually, and being one of the most quotable comedies ever created is always going to be a bit of a mixed blessing as the jokes can get run into the ground and make the prospect of actually revisiting the film itself feel redundant or even undesirable. At the same time, I have to acknowledge how instrumental this was in forming my sense of humour from a first-time viewing at the age of 12, laughing myself stupid at the cartoon bloodiness of the Black Knight and appreciating the wit of scenes like the witch-burning or the Bridge of Death. I still feel its moments of dead air more and more ("The Tale of Sir Galahad", anyone?) and that's a big part of why I don't go back to it as often as I used to, but this is a comedy list after all and to not include it would just feel wrong.

Speaking of not including things, I forgot to mention this when going through the titles I'm sure won't make the list...



Army of Darkness was my #21. If Evil Dead II could barely squeak into the low end of the list even with a top 3 vote from myself, then I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that the subsequent adventure of lantern-jawed buffoon Ash Williams didn't crack the main list. I definitely appreciate how it takes a sharp turn away from the cabin-in-the-woods horror that defined its predecessor in order to make its wisecracking anti-hero take a jaunt through the Middle Ages, allowing him more freedom to give and take as much humour and slapstick as Sam Raimi and co. can conjure.
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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Comedy is not really my thing, but this list isn't as awful as I thought it'd be.

My suggestion for the next countdown: Melodrama Countdown!

Always looking forward to checking what makes MoFos cry.
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Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a beloved movie in my household. And in my high school best friend's household also. We saw it at the same time and have been quoting it ad nauseam every since for most of our close ones. I was already hooked on the series so seeing it at the cinema was a no-brainer and seeing this for the first time was a great highlight of my moviegoing life. And yes, it's so endlessly quotable. The scene that @mark f posted is one of my favorites as well, with great lines like, "Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide!," "He'll do you up a treat, mate!" "Look at the bones!" I caught myself doing the latter line just the other night in reaction to something on cable, I forget what. And from those quotes you can probably guess that Tim the Wizard is my favorite character in the movie, but then there's so many great characters in addition to him. And again, I think Graham Chapman did a much better acting job here (or a just being silly job!), even though he was plastered throughout much of the filming. I thought his "Brian" role had him mainly reacting to things instead of leading the charge, if you will. But, I guess I'm in the minority here at MoFo about which role is better acted.

Cleese is definitely my favorite Python in this film at least. His rude French soldier is a hoot: "I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

I love this scene, particularly the middle with "Roger the Shrubber"



Monty Python and the Holy Grail is my #10.

My list:
#2.Arthur-#111
#4.The In-Laws
#5.Blazing Saddles
#8.Stripes
#9.The Blues Brothers
#10.Monty Python and the Holy Grail
#11.Arsenic and Old Lace
#12.Tootsie-#108
#13.Raising Arizona
#14.Animal House
#18.Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
#22.Caddyshack
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Kinda crazy that you both seem to classify it as a comedy.

Imdb lists it as a comedy, drama, and Wikipedia describes it as a comedy-drama, so clearly we are not the only ones who consider it a comedy. Why I think so highly of the movie is how it explores very important and serious themes through a comedy format. This scene is typical of the entire movie. It's funny, and it's played for laughs, but within the humor there's a lot of content. But, what do I know.

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I think very highly of Do the Right Thing, it is on my Top Ten for the decade. An amazing film that resonates as loudly now as it did three decades ago. And one I would not call a comedy. And that's the double truth, Ruth.

But as you were.





454 points, 30 lists
Young Frankenstein
Director

Mel Brooks, 1974

Starring

Gene Wilder, Teri Garr, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle


#4




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