My Favorite Oscar Worthy Performances in Comedy Films

"Dying is easy...comedy is hard." It's a pretty short list...Charles Coburn, Walter Matthau, Whoopi Goldberg, John Gielgud, Jessica Lange, Kevin Kline, Alan Arkin...actors who have won Oscars for their performances in comedy films. The Academy has always stuck their noses up at comedy performances, despite the fact that the Hollywood Foreign Press provides a separate category for comedies and musicals, making it easier for these performances to be acknowledged. This is my list of performances in comedy films that that deserved, at the least, an Oscar nomination, if not the bloody statue itself:

40.

Steve Carell, Little Miss Sunshine



Alan Arkin won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in this film, but I think the award should have gone to Carell for his vivid and heartbreaking performance in the same film. I think Arkin winning was a "Body of Work" award rather than for this particular performance.

39.

Thelma Ritter, Pillow Talk



Ritter, received one of her seven Oscar nominations for her performance as Doris Day's housekeeper, encouraging Doris' hate/hate relationship with Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) to become something more. Ritter's encounters with an elevator operator and her drink-off with Hudson provide some of the film's funniest moments.

38.

Jim Carrey, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone



A performance I only discovered recently but I still think it belongs on this list...Carrey steals every scene he is in with his lampoon of magician Criss Angel...this was the performance I went away from this movie remembering and I can't remember the last time I said that about a Jim Carrey performance.

37.

Hayley Mills, The Parent Trap



Anyone who has followed my threads regularly can't be shocked by the inclusion of this performance on my list.

36.

Jack Lemmon, The Prisoner of Second Avenue



I know you guys must be tired of me shoving this Neil Simon comedy down your proverbial throats, but if I can get one person on this site to watch this movie and love it as much as I do, then all the shoving will be worth it. Lemmon's rich performance as man who loses his job and eventually a grip on his sanity was definitely Oscar worthy.

35.

Jennifer Tilly, Liar Liar



She was nominated for her performance in Bullets on Broadway, but her performance as a vivacious client of Fletcher Reed (Jim Carrey) was also worthy of a nomination.

34.

Jackie Gleason, Smokey and the Bandit



Some found this performance over the top, but Gleason had me on the floor in this movie and I definitely could have seen a supporting actor nomination for him.

33.

Richard Mulligan, S.O.B.



Mulligan was given the movie role of his career and ran with it as a movie director whose latest film is a flop and decides to resurrect it by turning it into a soft porn spectacular in which his wife/star (Julie Andrews) will bare her breasts. Some found this performance over the top, but I think it's brilliant.

I know taste is subjective and all, but if The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is on your list in any capacity you need to stop making lists and immediately see a lot more comedies. Don't even take the time to respond to this, just get up and start a movie or two.

Mulligan was certainly the most frenetically comic thing in Blake Edwards' S.O.B., but for me his greatest film performance is definitely as General George Armstrong Custer in Arthur Penn's Little Big Man. Only his work on "Soap" should be in the discussion for his next best, for me, though he was generally a welcome addition to anything. Another one of my favorite performances from him, though a bit obscure because the movie has been forgotten in the sands of time, is in Teachers (1984) which was a starring vehicle for Nick Nolte. Dated social commentary stuff, but Mulligan has a wonderful supporting part of an outpatient from a nearby mental institution who is mistaken for a history teacher, goes along with it, and has a marvelous time showing up in costumes and generally making his students love coming to class and learning.

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Is this for real?

Carell and Tilly were both alright, don't agree with them given oscar worthy performances though. Baffled to see Burt Wonderstone here, not that i have seen it or ever will.

Carell maybe could have gotten nominated, but the rest are really asinine choices. The only real comedy performance that I've seen that I think should have won was RDJ in Tropic Thunder.

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I've seen these movies and while I can't recall their individual performances as it's been years, the comic actors themselves are amazing talents.

Thelma Ritter, Pillow Talk...Thelma Ritter is golden in everything she did.
Hayley Mills, The Parent Trap...So's Hayley, golden
Jack Lemmon, The Prisoner of Second Avenue...Lemon, golden
Richard Mulligan, S.O.B....Always funny, especially in Soap.
Jennifer Tilly, Liar Liar...I usually like her characters
Jackie Gleason, Smokey and the Bandit...they man!
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Steve Carell, Little Miss Sunshine....Loved the movie but don't remember Carell and not sure if I've seen him in other things.

I haven't seen:
Jim Carrey, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, but Carrey is a fav so I will have to see this movie someday.

Citizen, I highly recommend The Incredible Burt Wonderstone just for Carrey's performance alone...he's made a lot of bad movies in the past decade or so, but he was the best thing about this movie.

OK, thanks for keeping an open mind and I hated Mulligan in Teachers.

32.

Dudley Moore, Micki & Maude



Moore plays a married TV journalist who has an affair with a cellist (Amy Irving) and gets her pregnant and plans to divorce his wife (Ann Reinking) to marry the cellist until he learns his wife is pregnant as well, so he marries the cellist too. With the aid of director Blake Edwards, Moore offers one of his most underrated performances that blends slapstick comedy with romantic leading man sensibilities and did earn Moore a Golden Globe, but I could have gotten behind an Oscar nomination as well.

31.

Cloris Leachman, Young Frankenstein



Leachman's comic channeling of Judith Anderson in the Mel Brooks classic is perfection and is one of the most underrated elements of the film.

30.

Christopher Guest, This is Spinal Tap



Guest pretty much stole this 1983 classic as one of the lead guitarists of the has-been rock group who has a speaker that goes to "11" and is writing a concerto called "Lick My Love Pump."

29.

Tom Ewell, The Seven Year Itch



Though it's one of Marilyn's most famous roles, it's easy to overlook Ewell's work in this film, which I thought was at least worthy of a nomination.