The Funniest Movies...Ever
The qualifications for this list are simple: if while watching a movie I injured myself in any way, shape, or form that resulted from laughter then it's a contender for this list. While watching Liar Liar, which was only able to place 3, for the second time, I fell off a hotel bed...twice. That's the competition that these movies had to go up against. Simply put, these are the funniest movies ever in my opinion.
| The Top Ten Funniest Movies | |
|---|---|
| Rank | Title |
| 1 | Baseketball |
| 2 | Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back |
| 3 | Liar Liar |
| 4 | American Pie |
| 5 | Mallrats |
| 6 | High School High |
| 7 | Dude, Where's My Car |
| 8 | American Pie 2 |
| 9 | Dirty Work |
| 10 | 10 Things I Hate About You |
Baseketball
Quite simply, the funniest movie ever made. This creation of Trey Parker & Matt Stone (the guys who created "South Park") stars them as Joe Cooper and Doug Reemer, two friends who make up a new sport at a party. The sport takes off and both become stars and, in turn, the stardom tears them apart.
That sounded tearjerking, didn't it? Not that it matters that much; plotline is almost incidental as they try and cram as much funny stuff as they can into the course of this movie. It's kind of like a Naked Gun movie in that you can usually find lots of funny things going on in the background (which helps when you watch a movie as many times as I've watched this). The Psyche Outs are hilarious (my favorite either goes to "How to Speak San Fransiscan" or Squeak's psyche-out of Big Greg Tuttle), Trey and Matt have the best facial expressions and over the top acting ever and Dian Bachar ("Squeak") is my favorite actor that no one knows about. I have yet to find anyone who has criticized this great flick (or at least I stopped listening right after the praise part).
Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back
As the fifth and final installment in Kevin Smith's Jersey Chronicles, this film had a lot to live up to. Not only did it have to follow a rather impressive lineage (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy & Dogma), but it also had to transform the omnipresent Jay & Silent Bob from a sideshow to THE show. As much as I was looking forward to this movie, I have to say that made me a bit apprehensive. As the move itself states, they are best "in small doses, if at all...Who would want to see a movie about Jay & Silent Bob?" This movie proved me wrong, as they carry this bad boy from beginning to end and keep the laughs coming at a rapid pace. I had seen American Pie 2 the week before and felt safe in proclaiming it the best and funniest movie of the summer; that didn't last long.
Among the many things I loved about this movie were the self-referential bits as it broke down the "4th wall" (a theater term for the imaginary fourth wall of the room that separates the actors from the audience). Along this line, we have a character played by Ben Affleck dissing Good Will Hunting (but not fully dissing himself because "Affleck was the bomb in phantoms, yo."), the aforementioned "Who would want to see a movie about Jay & Silent Bob" quote (followed by Affleck, Smith and Mewes all pausing for 5 seconds to look out at the screen, then mug for the camera), and many many others. I read a review of this that actually compared it to Blazing Saddles in that respect, and I don't think they were that far off. In fact, I think this movie stepped it up quite a bit over that vaunted level.
Besides the self-referential bits, there were also hilarious cameos from actors playing (and demeaning) themselves. Affleck, Matt Damon, Jason Biggs, and James Vanderbeek were among those who stopped by to poke fun at themselves. But they aren't the only entertaining characters. Mewes and Smith (Jay & Silent Bob) have really stepped up their act big time. It's kind of amazing to compare Jay from Clerks and Mallrats to Jay now because he's actually become a decent actor (he was always funny as hell). Similarly, Smith's facial expressions are among the funniest things in the film. We've also got Shannon Elizabeth in a key role and she shines as well. And then Will Ferrell comes in as Federal Wildlife Marshall Willenholly and is actually able to steal scenes from the expert scene stealers Jay & Silent Bob. Damn near everyone on this huge cast delivers and delivers huge. This is also one of those movies with so many jokes packed in (and some of them surprisingly subtle) that you catch new ones about verytime you see it. So far I've seen it 6 times (5 times in theaters and once at a film festival...impressive considering I've only seen one other movie even twice in theaters), and it's holding up real well under repeat viewings. A phenomenal movie.
Liar Liar
To show you how close the top 4 were, at one point both this and American Pie were almost pegged at #1. All four definitely passed the gut-busting test (If your entire body is sore from laughing...), but this one topped the others in sheer physical harm...on my second time watching it nonetheless. I was watching it on a hotel PPV with my family and I was laughing so hard that twice I fell off the ultra-bouncy beds, once hitting my head on the wall. That should start to give you an idea of how funny this movie is.
This is a story of one day in the life of Fletcher Reede (played by Jim Carrey), a slick and morally challenged lawyer. This is no ordinary day for him, though, as his son has put him under a curse via a birthday wish: he can't lie. As you can expect, this causes a few problems. In my opinion this is the single best movie of Carrey's career and I dare anyone to argue with me on that. I have yet to see Grinch but otherwise I've viewed every other Carrey movie since he broke out with Ace Ventura. None of the others even come close. Particularly memorable are some of the courtroom scenes and the scene where he beats himself up ("I'm kicking my ass! Do Ya Mind?!?!")(a precursor to Me, Myself and Irene). A very, very funny movie.
American Pie
I remember the first time I watched this movie. My cousin and I saw it at Hastings and we figured that even if it sucked we knew there was nudity. It was with that can't-miss gambit that I stumbled upon one of my all-time favorite movies. We ended up watching it 3 times that night (I know I stayed up for all 3) and the rest is history.
American Pie is the king of the teen comedies, hands down. 10 Things I Hate About You may be close in music, and She's All That may be close in one-liners, but nothing comes close to AP's overall greatness (or it's overall chick-hotness). It's hilarious, great music (including one of the best ever uses of music in a film "she's up and waiting for more..."), has 3 very hot chicks in Tara, Mena and Shannon, and some of the most quoteable dialogue in any movie.
Mallrats
The first time I saw this I thought it was kinda funny, but not great. That was probably because I saw it right after Clerks (also by Kevin Smith) and still hadn't gotten over some of the lines in it (Randal to a chick who is dating an Asian design major "At least we have something in common...we both eat Chinese" "Dick" "Exactly"). So, when I get this movie which was a bit slicker (not tough considering Clerks was shot on a $27,000 budget) and I didn't take to it immediately. The 2nd time I watched it I caught a lot more funny things in it and warmed up to it more. That's happened damn near every time since. And I've seen it about 30 times now. I may finally have found everything funny in it, but I'm not sure. Just a few times ago I found a very funny bit that makes an entire thread of seemingly bizarre things extremely funny ("That kid is back on the escalator!").
I was liking this movie so much that I got the DVD for it only a month after I'd gotten the video version. I just had to have more (and the DVD has tons and tons more). This has probably my favorite movie character ever in Brodie (played by the great Jason Lee in his first ever movie role!(he was a pro skateboarder before this)) and too many memorable scenes and lines to count. In fact there are only 2 scenes in the entire movie that I don't love and one of them (the stinkpalm one) is actually one of the more popular ones for most people. Even Jeremy London can't bring this one down (although it seems like he's trying). Save London's T.S., pretty much every other character, from Ethan Supplee's Willam to Shannen Doherty' Rene to Renee Humphreys' Trisha "Trish the Dish" Jones to the irreplaceable Jay & Silent Bob are memorable. I love it more and more every time I see it.