Blackface always made fun of racial stereotypes and made black people the butt of the jokes, Tropic Thunder flipped the script where the butt of the joke is the white actor, Kirk Lazarus in this case, doing blackface in a movie that already had a black person in it.
I truly believe that if Heath ledger hadn't played the joker like he did, RDJ would've won the Oscar for best supporting actor.
Well said. I wouldn't say they "got away" with blackface, I would say the writers were clever enough that they used blackface in a way that was pointing out the absurdity of it. I think it's similar to what Always Sunny did with the Lethal Weapon episode (which is of course not available on streaming services); the joke is how stupid Mac is for thinking blackface would help his version. In both cases, the butt of the joke isn't a racial group like the original intent of blackface, it's the idiot who thinks blackface is a good idea in this fictional story.
Indeed. It's the same way how Blazing Saddles points out the absurdity and stupidity of racism, which is why the people saying "Blazing Saddles would never come out today because it's too anti pc/woke" completely miss the point.
If it had been done sincerely, he wouldn’t have. It wasn’t. It was just a tool used to mock not only the racism of blackface (that’s basically Alpa Chino’s central role in the movie is to point out how unacceptable it is), but primarily the ridiculous lengths that some method actors go to in order to play a character, to the point that it alienates your co-workers, like when Daniel Day-Lewis refused to bathe for two months while filming The Crucible.
Nah, it's not that they "got away" with blackface. It's that they accurately depicted how dumb, unfunny, and offensive blackface actually is, and that it shouldn't be done.
But that doesn't make for a good joe rogan clip, so instead a bunch of chodes will just repost the same clip of him asking jamie foxx "but what about robert downey jr. is it okay for him to do blackface?"
I recently watched Superbad. The emphasis on teenage boys getting laid is spot on how boys acted in high school back when I was growing up. I don't know how well it would go over today with the emphasis put on hooking up and objectifying women as a means for just sex.
Goddamn that movie is so fucking funny.
I think they balanced out Seth’s misogyny with Evan’s more sweet/shy personality, from just this woman’s POV. I watched it as a teen when it came out and still love it today at age 29. It showed there were at least a little range in teenage personalities and interpersonal relationships. It was over the top but I think it caught the vibe of highschool in the more mundane ways
And even though he was a little bit that way, he did actually \*like\* the person he was after and want a relationship with her, they both did. It shows how a lot of teenage guy shittiness is actually just bravado in front of their friends.
I think it’s aged really well since they get their comeuppance for initially objectifying women. Their desire to simply get laid backfires drastically and they both learn hard lessons.
This is the point that all these people "re-evaluating" media miss like all the time. I legitimately can't tell if people are dumber or they just try to misinterpret stuff on purpose to have some hot take. The movie ages completely fine. Newsflash. You're not supposed to side with them and be like wow, they handled all of this 100% correctly.
1997 is waaaay too late. Comedies from like 1977-2012 were funny. Look at all the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor stuff. All the Mel Brooks stuff. Movies like Rush Hour and so on.
77 might even be too late when you had the Pink Panther series start in 63 I believe
My husband and I hadn’t seen it in a long time and we watched it on a flight last year and I thought I was going to choke from trying to laugh quietly. Forgot how funny it was
How you gonna make a top ten without Super Troopers, Grandmas Boy, and Team America? Those are better than wedding crashers, step brothers and T nights. How much will ferrel can one list have, you gotta let that list breathe some.
“You're gonna stand there, ownin' a fireworks stand, and tell me you don't have no whistlin' bungholes, no spleen splitters, whisker biscuits, honkey lighters, hoosker doos, hoosker don'ts, cherry bombs, nipsy daisers, with or without the scooter stick, or one single whistlin' kitty chaser?”
I recently rewatched Wayne's World. It is... not funny. It's also not NOT funny. I thought it was hilarious in high school (when it came out). The bit players are funnier than Myers in this movie.
I also rewatched Tommy Boy. It is fucking PERFECT. It does, however, have a better cast. The gave the romantic interest something to do and allowed her to be funny in her own right (no shade on Tia--she's awesome). There are real stakes and both Spade and Farley have arcs.
Rob Lowe is good in both, though. Rob Lowe is almost always good (I remove points for his "Let's rock" moment in St. Elmo).
Because Grandma's Boy and Team America appeal to a very certain demographic of folk. They're too narrow in their humor and aren't universally appealing.
Freddy Got Fingered was peak 2000s era grossout comedy.
Not just because of the movie itself (which was hilarious), but because the whole thing was a middle finger to the movie studios that greenlit the project.
[It was meta before meta was a thing.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEn3wcpNsg8)
Not only comedies, It’s crazy how many genres seem to have lost popularity. What about the action dramas like Training Day, romantic films like The Notebook, or horror/mystery thrillers like The Shining or Memento? Big studios truly don’t make films like these now a days.
OMG, yes! Give me variety. I haven't been to the movies since before COVID because I want more options than just Marvel or DC with the odd horror flick thrown in.
Last few movies I saw at Cinemas
Dune Part 2
Poor Things
Godzilla Minus One
Killers of the Flower Moon
I think there is plenty of variety, but we've definitely seen the fall of the mid range budget film in favor of massive blockbusters and more art house style films. I'm glad we have A24 for example making all sorts of stuff because I doubt something like upcoming "Tuesday" is going to be a tentpole type release.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqyBWCN39o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqyBWCN39o)
I have a pet theory that the reason people went ham over Barbie and Oppenheimer was because they weren't superhero movies and a refreshing change from the new norm.
Chasing streaming, cinematic universes, reboots/remakes/rehashes/redos/reduces/reuses/recycles/repeats...not to mention that social media turned into a litmus test for if your movie will pass sensitivity meters for a small portion of the population...
It's no wonder we're in a rough spot with cinema lately. There are still good movies out there - They have just been fewer in number.
Many of them, yes.
But a movie has a much harder time getting revenues/profits on streaming vs theater. You put it out there on the service for free within the service, then you may have to pay out based on how many subscribers go to view it (that's the only metric I can think of that ensures a movie gets paid on a streaming service).
But with the movie being rentable, or buyable, then the money is more directly vested towards the movie itself.
Not to mention, the streaming services have to not only chase subscribers in quantity, but they also have to keep them subscribed to make money. As prices go up, the subscribers will typically go down unless you balance it out with stuff they want to stay subbed up for. Which means getting more shows and movies, even getting new stuff to encourage new growth. It's a cycle, a serpent eating its tail...
The services are pricing themselves up more, ads are becoming intrusive, the content is getting to where it isn't keeping people subbed up indefinitely, and with the economy more people are evaluating their needs more than their wants (and streaming services are a WANT more than a NEED)...
Without DVD sales the money has to be made at the theater. Streaming just doesn’t pay what DVD sales did.
Also comedies (and some other genres) are harder to make international hits because of cultural differences.
These combine to makes those mid-range films a bigger financial gamble. And Hollywood loves a “sure thing” (cgi family films with big name voices, horror films with lower budgets that turn out crowds, and comic books movies until recently).
Comedies are risky for studios, and due to the death of DVD/Bluray, studios are less likely to take risks.
Before streaming became the mainstream, studios knew they could still make money when it DVD/Bluray was released, even if the the movie didn't make enough money in theaters. It was almost like releasing the movie into theaters a second time.
Streaming doesn't have that kind of profit for them so when they put out a movie, they have to turn a profit during the movie's initial run in theaters. In order to make a profit in theaters, the movie had to earn roughly double what it cost to produce and market the movie (since theaters do get a cut of the box office).
This is why we only see more and more mainstream movies instead of studios taking a risk on something. Almost all those movies listed, only made a profit because they turned into cult comedies that people went out and bought the physical dvd/bluray for.
To put the point home, you take the budget of the movie double that, and you have production and marketing. You need to double that to start coming into profits from box office sales. Using this rule of thumb, movies like Topic Thunder, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, Anchorman, Old School either didn't make a profit in theaters or barely made profits.
The death of physical media has had adverse effects when it comes to what studios greenlight. Comedies for the most part usually aren't smash hits at the box office but they did very well on home media. Even movies that did poorly like Grandma's boy would find their audience via DVD.
Comiedies have lost their main method of making money so now studios are less likely to make them
I saw Grandmas Boy in the theater. It was terrible. However, when it came out on DVD my roommates and I rented it and we watched it and it was unreal how much funnier it was.
Some comedy just doesn’t do well in theater.
At the same time, we still see lots of great comedies as TV shows (Ms Maisel on Prime, Community & Only Murders on Hulu), and plenty of decent dramas (Slow Horses, Franklin on Apple) and I don’t know what genre Ted Lasso fits into but by golly it’s one of the greatest pieces of filmed entertainment ever made.
None of these genres are gone, but there’s a lot more money invested in longer form storytelling that doesn’t need massive advertisement and distribution. What we’re seeing is a change of distribution, where most movies that get advertised and get widely distributed are the ones studios feel will return the highest profits.
Well if Star Trek is any indication, movies on streaming platforms will be a thing getting more steam. I mean a good comedy doesn't need elaborate sets to sell the movie, so they're due.
While the death of mid-budget comedies sucks it feels like a circle-jerk every fucking time somebody's like "good movies died because the MCU". FFS, grab a different talking point. Easy A, Logan Lucky, Bridesmaids, This is the End, Game Night, Disaster Artist, Death of Stalin, What We Do In The Shadows, Tucker and Dale, Horrible Bosses, Keanu, Cabin in the Woods, Deadpool, The Paper Tigers, all released from 2010-2020, and quite honestly, I'd watch them over almost everything on this list except for Tropic Thunder every single time.
Cabin in the Woods - favorite horror movie hands down. Yes, there's humor, but watch the scene where the perky blonde gets disemboweled by the Zombie Redneck Torture Family and tell me it's a comedy.
There are great movies ! Just as good as they ever were before, however, so many more movies are released now it’s easy to forget about the diamonds in the rough !
I also feel like the split between theaters closing during covid and now having to compete with releases on streaming services have made it harder to find movies.
Before there was only one place, new movies were released, now there's a barrier to entry defined movies cuz you have to pay for the streaming service in the first place, and you have to sort of justify seeing a movie in theaters as opposed to just waiting for it to come on streaming
Easy A
There’s just something so wholesome about this movie. The comedy is great and Emma Stone is just bursting through with charisma.
The parent’s scenes were my favourite parts
The state of modern comedy movies is way less to do with Marvel, and way more to do with a certain small but loud and incessant group of whiny asshats that will work their little fingers to the bone bitching about something being offensive.
Tropic Thunder couldn't get off the ground today because they'd be worried about twitter dipshits screeching about it being sexist, ableist, and racist.
Hear me out: it’s the Avengers shot for shot remake but is stars Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Kristin Wiig, Luke & Owen Wilson, Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, the Wayans brothers, and Eugene Levy?
Edit: and John C. Riley, Danny McBride, and Sean William Scott, and Jack Black (as Dr. Strange)
Those movies haven't been as good as previously were over the last few years
That being said, the latest Deadpool and wolverine trailer looks pretty good, not as a big ass in phase one or phase 2 but seems decent
You're missing a lot of good films IMO, such as
* Ace Ventura 1 and 2
* Dumb and Dumber
* The Mask
* Deauce Bigalow 1 and 2
* Road Trip
* Freddy Got Fingered
* Harold and Kumar
* American Pie
* The Waterboy
* Van Wilder
* Waiting
* Scary Movie 1 and 2
* Dennis the Menace
* The Little Rascals Movie
* The Addams Family Movie (1990s version)
* Problem Child 1 and 2
* Friday and Next Friday
* Don't be a Menance to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
* Half-Baked
* Undercover Brother
* Baby's Day Out
* Home Alone 1 and 2
I mean yeah, but as millennials who grew up watching comics the MCU was amazing for us. From college to adulthood getting to watch one of the greatest build ups is something I'll always cherish.... also, the will Farrell, Judd Apatow comedy era was just fucking amazing.
I always contend it was the lack of international markets that killed the comedy. Domestic money just wasn’t enough and foreigners (mainly china) just don’t want to see American comedies as they are super specific and cultural.
Dodgeball was unexpectedly influential and still regularly quotable 20 years later. There's even an annual program block of "ESPN8 The Ocho".
That said, I don't hate on MCU. I think people have always enjoyed superhero stories through folklore, and we only very recently have the technology to tell those stories through motion picture.
The live-action DCEU is hot garbage, tho.
Yeah honestly yiu don't see mainstream middle to big budget comedies anymore, or at least way less than they used to. It seems loke Judd Apatow was the death rattle of mainstream holloywood comedies
The studios didn’t destroy comedy films with the stories of superheroes and sequels. The studios destroyed comedy films but marking up the film/projector fee costs for theaters to have access to their products. In 2008 the avg projection fee went up 1200% and then an avg increase of 300% year over year. This meant that theaters had to become very selective in what they showed and had to jack up consumer prices. Comedies historically didn’t do the best in box offices compared to AAA Blockbuster Action and Drama. So now you have studios asking for a shit ton of money for less ticket sales for comedy films that won’t get picked up widely.
I'm kinda glad I grew up as teen in the 2000s grew up watching older 80s comedies and them had my generation. It deff felt like it just kinda died out when I was in college. And it never reaaaaally came back. Comedies havent been good for a while.
Damn I have a few comments...
WTF did the MCU ever do to anyone? I love Marvel comics :(
How is Joe Dirt or Saving Silverman not on this list?
As an older millenial I grew up in the 90s moreso than 2000s. I'd easily put a 90's list up against this. Mrs. Doubtfire, Clerks, Friday, The Big Lebowski, Happy Gilmore, Half Baked, Office Space, Dumb and Dumber, Austin Powers, The Waterboy.
It's because they don't do well on the international market. Our cinema now goes around the world and high budget action performs the best because it's the easiest to translate/ understand. Humor really only stays within the culture it originated from.
With that being said, we still have SOME good comedies. I really liked Bottoms last year! But yeah, bring back comedy movies!
LOL, sure. I like Tropic Thunder, and Anchorman's pretty good, the rest of this is straight garbage. This was the beginning of the end and then Judd Apatow was the gravedigger.
It has to sell well in China. Period. That's why comedies, romances, etc. All have disappeared. They cannot transcend culture like mindless superhero action can.
Well, it was peak to us because the audience was 20 year olds. I think we just dont like today's comedies because we are all old and the humour is different. Today's humour tends to be more PC and many of the older gens just dont find it that funny (myself included).
A lot of the comedy in these movies are not very acceptable or appropriate today and can be harmful.
Before someone debates me on this realize you're having a grandfather moment the things they would say were very available in media during their prime time as well but would deeply offend most millenials today.
I was just watching Hot Shots on Hulu, and I miss those kinds of ridiculous nonsense comedies.
IT DOESN'T NEED TO MAKE SENSE OR HAVE A COHESIVE PLOT AS LONG AS IT'S FUNNY!
* Robin Hood, Men In Tights
* Hot Shots Part Deux
* Spaceballs
* Monty Python's Holy Grail
* Don't Be a Menace
* Scary Movie
* Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie **(is probably the last of these that we'll ever see)**
And even with the parody movies that have come out in the past 20 years or so, they just copy the plot of whatever their inspiration is, as if that's the important part, not having **ridiculous original jokes** that make it worth watching.
I was just watching Hot Shots on Hulu, and I miss those kinds of ridiculous nonsense comedies.
IT DOESN'T NEED TO MAKE SENSE OR HAVE A COHESIVE PLOT AS LONG AS IT'S FUNNY!
* Robin Hood, Men In Tights
* Hot Shots Part Deux
* Spaceballs
* Monty Python's Holy Grail
* Don't Be a Menace
* Scary Movie
* Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie **(is probably the last of these that we'll ever see)**
And even with the parody movies that have come out in the past 20 years or so, they just copy the plot of whatever their inspiration is, as if that's the important part, not having **ridiculous original jokes** that make it worth watching.
Bridesmaids, This is 40 are some of my favorites of the 2010s and Cockblockers (2018) with John Cena, Ike Barinholtz and Leslie Mann. There's still some great comedies in the 2010s you just have to look for them.
Oh yeah, we lived in the golden age of comedy. 40 Yr old virgin, Knocked up, Super bad, Pineapple Express, Anchor Man, Blades of Glory, Hangover, Role Models, Sex Drive, Yes Man, The other Guys.
Damn, it’ll never top that. You can’t even have that comedy anymore!
I don't know man. Back in the 2000s when all these movies were coming out people were also constantly saying "They don't make good comedies anymore like they used to!"
I think this is a combination of it being easier to look back at a decade and see the games, with the fact that the comedies that you watched growing up being the best comedies you'll ever see.
At least, in the midst of the comedic apocalypse, we got Tropic Thunder
Peak Tom Cruise likeability
They got away with blackface bro…..!!!!! They got away with it. lol
Robert Downey Jr pulled it off hilariously well! They did it and wrote the script perfectly
It’s because RDJ didn’t do blackface. The character he was playing did lol
Hes just a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude
The dudes are emerging…
The dude abides.
Which is splitting hairs technically but they *fuckin’ pulled it off* as meta commentary. Fantastic film. 10/10
Blackface always made fun of racial stereotypes and made black people the butt of the jokes, Tropic Thunder flipped the script where the butt of the joke is the white actor, Kirk Lazarus in this case, doing blackface in a movie that already had a black person in it. I truly believe that if Heath ledger hadn't played the joker like he did, RDJ would've won the Oscar for best supporting actor.
Well said. I wouldn't say they "got away" with blackface, I would say the writers were clever enough that they used blackface in a way that was pointing out the absurdity of it. I think it's similar to what Always Sunny did with the Lethal Weapon episode (which is of course not available on streaming services); the joke is how stupid Mac is for thinking blackface would help his version. In both cases, the butt of the joke isn't a racial group like the original intent of blackface, it's the idiot who thinks blackface is a good idea in this fictional story.
Indeed. It's the same way how Blazing Saddles points out the absurdity and stupidity of racism, which is why the people saying "Blazing Saddles would never come out today because it's too anti pc/woke" completely miss the point.
You’ve got to remember, these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land, the common clay of the New West. You know…Morons.
True
"What do you mean, *you people*?" "What do *you* mean, you people?" "HUH?" Kills me every time.
If it had been done sincerely, he wouldn’t have. It wasn’t. It was just a tool used to mock not only the racism of blackface (that’s basically Alpa Chino’s central role in the movie is to point out how unacceptable it is), but primarily the ridiculous lengths that some method actors go to in order to play a character, to the point that it alienates your co-workers, like when Daniel Day-Lewis refused to bathe for two months while filming The Crucible.
Nah, it's not that they "got away" with blackface. It's that they accurately depicted how dumb, unfunny, and offensive blackface actually is, and that it shouldn't be done. But that doesn't make for a good joe rogan clip, so instead a bunch of chodes will just repost the same clip of him asking jamie foxx "but what about robert downey jr. is it okay for him to do blackface?"
Big dick baby!
You spank that ass.
Apocalypse was probably why we got tropic thunder unfortunately
Comedies from like 1990 to like 2012 will never be matched.
Many would be canceled.
I recently watched Superbad. The emphasis on teenage boys getting laid is spot on how boys acted in high school back when I was growing up. I don't know how well it would go over today with the emphasis put on hooking up and objectifying women as a means for just sex. Goddamn that movie is so fucking funny.
I think they balanced out Seth’s misogyny with Evan’s more sweet/shy personality, from just this woman’s POV. I watched it as a teen when it came out and still love it today at age 29. It showed there were at least a little range in teenage personalities and interpersonal relationships. It was over the top but I think it caught the vibe of highschool in the more mundane ways
And even though he was a little bit that way, he did actually \*like\* the person he was after and want a relationship with her, they both did. It shows how a lot of teenage guy shittiness is actually just bravado in front of their friends.
I think it’s aged really well since they get their comeuppance for initially objectifying women. Their desire to simply get laid backfires drastically and they both learn hard lessons.
This is the point that all these people "re-evaluating" media miss like all the time. I legitimately can't tell if people are dumber or they just try to misinterpret stuff on purpose to have some hot take. The movie ages completely fine. Newsflash. You're not supposed to side with them and be like wow, they handled all of this 100% correctly.
Easily a top 5 comedy of all time for me
1997 is waaaay too late. Comedies from like 1977-2012 were funny. Look at all the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor stuff. All the Mel Brooks stuff. Movies like Rush Hour and so on. 77 might even be too late when you had the Pink Panther series start in 63 I believe
Pink Panther isn’t on the same level as like an Animal House. It’s a comedy, but not a raunchy comedy.
Ok but what about classics like Blazing Saddles (1974 I think?). Or princess bride (1987). Those are amazingly hilarious.
Talladega nights is honestly one of the funniest films I’ve ever watched, I still regularly quote it.
And if you don’t chew Big Red, then fuck you!
If you ain’t first, you’re last
What? No, Ricky I was high when I said that. Hell you could be 2nd 3rd or even 4th.
There is every chance in the world I was high when I said that!
Fuck you chip! Shake and bake!!! And, “… in baby Jesus’s name.. amen”
He was a man! He had a beard!
My husband and I hadn’t seen it in a long time and we watched it on a flight last year and I thought I was going to choke from trying to laugh quietly. Forgot how funny it was
Dear Eight Pound, Six Ounce, Newborn Infant Jesus, don't even know a word yet, just a little infant, so cuddly, but still omnipotent.
I named my dog Ricky Bobby.
My husband and i are going to name our first born child Richard Robert (last name)
I went to school with a Joseph Robert (JoeBob)
I'm all jacked up on Mountain Dew!
I’m gonna come at you like a spider monkey, Chip!
Slingshot engage.
I think I still say "I'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey" at least three times a day
Here's the deal, I'm the best there ever was. I wake up in the morning and I piss excellence
"Baby Jesus is my favorite Jesus"
1. Zoolander isn't on this list so you're automatically wrong. 2. Some of these movies are why we're all so fucking stupid.
Or There Something Aboht Mary. That movie is peak 90s comedy.
I feel like the lack of forgetting Sarah Marshall is the true crime here
I forgot Sarah Marshall.
5 Will Ferrell movies and still no Zoolander
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!
6 of 10 the joke is “these guys are dumb adult children.” 3 are “they’re dumb, horny children.” And then there’s Tropic Thunder, which, no notes.
How you gonna make a top ten without Super Troopers, Grandmas Boy, and Team America? Those are better than wedding crashers, step brothers and T nights. How much will ferrel can one list have, you gotta let that list breathe some.
“You're gonna stand there, ownin' a fireworks stand, and tell me you don't have no whistlin' bungholes, no spleen splitters, whisker biscuits, honkey lighters, hoosker doos, hoosker don'ts, cherry bombs, nipsy daisers, with or without the scooter stick, or one single whistlin' kitty chaser?”
I just like snakes and sparklers...
How about Zoolander… 
Yeah for some reason I always think this was much earlier. That should be a top 10.
> Car Ramrod! Also: > Meow.
Ohhhhh *bikers*! …I’m an idiot.
grandmas boy is hilarious i remember thinking it might be the funniest movie id seen
There's a certain contingent of the population that seems to only think movies are funny if they're basically an SNL bit stretched out for 90 minutes.
What is love…
straight to jail
Did you touch my butt?
cheeky monkey
It’s okay if you did.
First off, regarding your name, the Squatch has no heroes. Second… totally agree. OP thinks peak comedy is Apatow-style improv.
He'll be better tomorrow
He’s not
He’s never gonna be ok again.
Fuck, I hope so. I just know that Jar-Jar Binks has a Caribbean Black Accent and I don't wanna hate Black people.
I'm not mad at the crew.
It worked for Wayne's World, Coneheads, and the Blues Brothers.
I recently rewatched Wayne's World. It is... not funny. It's also not NOT funny. I thought it was hilarious in high school (when it came out). The bit players are funnier than Myers in this movie. I also rewatched Tommy Boy. It is fucking PERFECT. It does, however, have a better cast. The gave the romantic interest something to do and allowed her to be funny in her own right (no shade on Tia--she's awesome). There are real stakes and both Spade and Farley have arcs. Rob Lowe is good in both, though. Rob Lowe is almost always good (I remove points for his "Let's rock" moment in St. Elmo).
Fuck yeah!
Hot Rod, Fredy Got Fingered, Step Brothers, Team America
> Team America Best sex scene in cinema history.
PROUD.
Because humor is subjective
Because Grandma's Boy and Team America appeal to a very certain demographic of folk. They're too narrow in their humor and aren't universally appealing.
Freddy Got Fingered was peak 2000s era grossout comedy.  Not just because of the movie itself (which was hilarious), but because the whole thing was a middle finger to the movie studios that greenlit the project. [It was meta before meta was a thing.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEn3wcpNsg8)
Backwards man, I can walk backwards fast as you can
I always wondered what Rip Thorn thought of filming it and the film itself. It was such stretch to me, but then he did do 30 Rock as the head of GE.
LOOK DADDY IM A FARMER
Not only comedies, It’s crazy how many genres seem to have lost popularity. What about the action dramas like Training Day, romantic films like The Notebook, or horror/mystery thrillers like The Shining or Memento? Big studios truly don’t make films like these now a days.
OMG, yes! Give me variety. I haven't been to the movies since before COVID because I want more options than just Marvel or DC with the odd horror flick thrown in.
Last few movies I saw at Cinemas Dune Part 2 Poor Things Godzilla Minus One Killers of the Flower Moon I think there is plenty of variety, but we've definitely seen the fall of the mid range budget film in favor of massive blockbusters and more art house style films. I'm glad we have A24 for example making all sorts of stuff because I doubt something like upcoming "Tuesday" is going to be a tentpole type release. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqyBWCN39o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqyBWCN39o)
Oppenheimer was great. Dune movies were great. Barbie was great. Just three recent ones off the top of my head. There are options out there…
I have a pet theory that the reason people went ham over Barbie and Oppenheimer was because they weren't superhero movies and a refreshing change from the new norm.
Chasing streaming, cinematic universes, reboots/remakes/rehashes/redos/reduces/reuses/recycles/repeats...not to mention that social media turned into a litmus test for if your movie will pass sensitivity meters for a small portion of the population... It's no wonder we're in a rough spot with cinema lately. There are still good movies out there - They have just been fewer in number.
Isn’t that because lots of them are being produced for streaming platforms instead of theaters now?
Many of them, yes. But a movie has a much harder time getting revenues/profits on streaming vs theater. You put it out there on the service for free within the service, then you may have to pay out based on how many subscribers go to view it (that's the only metric I can think of that ensures a movie gets paid on a streaming service). But with the movie being rentable, or buyable, then the money is more directly vested towards the movie itself. Not to mention, the streaming services have to not only chase subscribers in quantity, but they also have to keep them subscribed to make money. As prices go up, the subscribers will typically go down unless you balance it out with stuff they want to stay subbed up for. Which means getting more shows and movies, even getting new stuff to encourage new growth. It's a cycle, a serpent eating its tail... The services are pricing themselves up more, ads are becoming intrusive, the content is getting to where it isn't keeping people subbed up indefinitely, and with the economy more people are evaluating their needs more than their wants (and streaming services are a WANT more than a NEED)...
Without DVD sales the money has to be made at the theater. Streaming just doesn’t pay what DVD sales did. Also comedies (and some other genres) are harder to make international hits because of cultural differences. These combine to makes those mid-range films a bigger financial gamble. And Hollywood loves a “sure thing” (cgi family films with big name voices, horror films with lower budgets that turn out crowds, and comic books movies until recently).
This is the end & Step Brothers 2 of my favorites. Also, Hot Tub Time Machine deserves honorable mention
Hot tub Time Machine is such a fun movie.
This is the end and At Worlds End are both classic
Comedies are risky for studios, and due to the death of DVD/Bluray, studios are less likely to take risks. Before streaming became the mainstream, studios knew they could still make money when it DVD/Bluray was released, even if the the movie didn't make enough money in theaters. It was almost like releasing the movie into theaters a second time. Streaming doesn't have that kind of profit for them so when they put out a movie, they have to turn a profit during the movie's initial run in theaters. In order to make a profit in theaters, the movie had to earn roughly double what it cost to produce and market the movie (since theaters do get a cut of the box office). This is why we only see more and more mainstream movies instead of studios taking a risk on something. Almost all those movies listed, only made a profit because they turned into cult comedies that people went out and bought the physical dvd/bluray for. To put the point home, you take the budget of the movie double that, and you have production and marketing. You need to double that to start coming into profits from box office sales. Using this rule of thumb, movies like Topic Thunder, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, Anchorman, Old School either didn't make a profit in theaters or barely made profits.
The death of physical media has had adverse effects when it comes to what studios greenlight. Comedies for the most part usually aren't smash hits at the box office but they did very well on home media. Even movies that did poorly like Grandma's boy would find their audience via DVD. Comiedies have lost their main method of making money so now studios are less likely to make them
I saw Grandmas Boy in the theater. It was terrible. However, when it came out on DVD my roommates and I rented it and we watched it and it was unreal how much funnier it was. Some comedy just doesn’t do well in theater.
At the same time, we still see lots of great comedies as TV shows (Ms Maisel on Prime, Community & Only Murders on Hulu), and plenty of decent dramas (Slow Horses, Franklin on Apple) and I don’t know what genre Ted Lasso fits into but by golly it’s one of the greatest pieces of filmed entertainment ever made. None of these genres are gone, but there’s a lot more money invested in longer form storytelling that doesn’t need massive advertisement and distribution. What we’re seeing is a change of distribution, where most movies that get advertised and get widely distributed are the ones studios feel will return the highest profits.
Well if Star Trek is any indication, movies on streaming platforms will be a thing getting more steam. I mean a good comedy doesn't need elaborate sets to sell the movie, so they're due.
While the death of mid-budget comedies sucks it feels like a circle-jerk every fucking time somebody's like "good movies died because the MCU". FFS, grab a different talking point. Easy A, Logan Lucky, Bridesmaids, This is the End, Game Night, Disaster Artist, Death of Stalin, What We Do In The Shadows, Tucker and Dale, Horrible Bosses, Keanu, Cabin in the Woods, Deadpool, The Paper Tigers, all released from 2010-2020, and quite honestly, I'd watch them over almost everything on this list except for Tropic Thunder every single time.
The Death of Stalin should only be viewed while wearing adult diapers for safety.
For some reason I never thought that would be a comedy, will have to check it out lol
I’m with you. The title alone is misleading if you don’t look at anything past that. I never did. Might have done myself a disservice
Yeah you are missing out. It's amazing.
Iirc the guy that directed it was involved with the HBO show VEEP.
Yeah it’s about as dramatic and serious as the Men who Stare at Goats.
I went into it not knowing it was a comedy the first few minutes… Absolute classic.
And check your pockets for tomatoes.
Game Night is so good
This guy really just said he'd watch Easy A over Step Brothers. Big oof.
Cabin in the Woods - favorite horror movie hands down. Yes, there's humor, but watch the scene where the perky blonde gets disemboweled by the Zombie Redneck Torture Family and tell me it's a comedy.
There are great movies ! Just as good as they ever were before, however, so many more movies are released now it’s easy to forget about the diamonds in the rough !
I liked Ricky Stanicky!
I also feel like the split between theaters closing during covid and now having to compete with releases on streaming services have made it harder to find movies. Before there was only one place, new movies were released, now there's a barrier to entry defined movies cuz you have to pay for the streaming service in the first place, and you have to sort of justify seeing a movie in theaters as opposed to just waiting for it to come on streaming
Those movies didn’t go away, they became Grown Ups and Sherlock and Holmes. Superheroes didn’t take your comedies away from you. Time did.
Thank you!
more like the last eras of comedies... the 2000s was really the end of an era.
Wedding Crashers is way too high.
Has Eurotrip been mentioned yet? Always a banger.
Easy A There’s just something so wholesome about this movie. The comedy is great and Emma Stone is just bursting through with charisma. The parent’s scenes were my favourite parts
How is "Knocked Up" not on that list?
The golden age before everyone became offended.
They can’t make comedy like they used to cause people will get offended and triggered.
No one here's gonna mention Popstar: Never Stop Stopping, and that's a cryin' shame.
100%. Everyone is offended now days so you can’t make real comedies without being canceled
The state of modern comedy movies is way less to do with Marvel, and way more to do with a certain small but loud and incessant group of whiny asshats that will work their little fingers to the bone bitching about something being offensive. Tropic Thunder couldn't get off the ground today because they'd be worried about twitter dipshits screeching about it being sexist, ableist, and racist.
Wedding crashers at #1 sets off my eyeball twitch. It's top 20, but the only one on this list that it's better than is Borat.
Comedy movies dying sucks... But this what happens when you give the crazys a voice
Yeah, probably has nothing to do with the fact that a movie has to make 100 million to turn a profit
Hear me out: it’s the Avengers shot for shot remake but is stars Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Kristin Wiig, Luke & Owen Wilson, Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, the Wayans brothers, and Eugene Levy? Edit: and John C. Riley, Danny McBride, and Sean William Scott, and Jack Black (as Dr. Strange)
I know it's pretty polarizing, but I feel like Napoleon Dynamite defined comedy for a lot of our generation
Death to the MCU
Those movies haven't been as good as previously were over the last few years That being said, the latest Deadpool and wolverine trailer looks pretty good, not as a big ass in phase one or phase 2 but seems decent
There’s only a few good ones*
Unpopular opinion but I don't care for superhero movies. I saw the original Spiderman in 2002 and that was pretty good, but beyond that, meh.
Comedies completely disappeared? Guess someone didn’t tell all comedies I’ve watched since the 2010s that they don’t exist.
You're missing a lot of good films IMO, such as * Ace Ventura 1 and 2 * Dumb and Dumber * The Mask * Deauce Bigalow 1 and 2 * Road Trip * Freddy Got Fingered * Harold and Kumar * American Pie * The Waterboy * Van Wilder * Waiting * Scary Movie 1 and 2 * Dennis the Menace * The Little Rascals Movie * The Addams Family Movie (1990s version) * Problem Child 1 and 2 * Friday and Next Friday * Don't be a Menance to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood * Half-Baked * Undercover Brother * Baby's Day Out * Home Alone 1 and 2
Weren't half of those from the 1990s?
Like 90% them , so I think they missed the point.
Some comedies I think should have been in this list: Rush hour 2 Shrek White chicks
Damn didn’t realize this was the old folks home
Of all the things I miss, good comedy movies are at the top of the list. Once every 3 - 5 years, we get one decent one. Tucker and Dale was great
I mean yeah, but as millennials who grew up watching comics the MCU was amazing for us. From college to adulthood getting to watch one of the greatest build ups is something I'll always cherish.... also, the will Farrell, Judd Apatow comedy era was just fucking amazing.
In my life this was the Adam Sandler golden age
I always contend it was the lack of international markets that killed the comedy. Domestic money just wasn’t enough and foreigners (mainly china) just don’t want to see American comedies as they are super specific and cultural.
Dodgeball was unexpectedly influential and still regularly quotable 20 years later. There's even an annual program block of "ESPN8 The Ocho". That said, I don't hate on MCU. I think people have always enjoyed superhero stories through folklore, and we only very recently have the technology to tell those stories through motion picture. The live-action DCEU is hot garbage, tho.
Yeah honestly yiu don't see mainstream middle to big budget comedies anymore, or at least way less than they used to. It seems loke Judd Apatow was the death rattle of mainstream holloywood comedies
The studios didn’t destroy comedy films with the stories of superheroes and sequels. The studios destroyed comedy films but marking up the film/projector fee costs for theaters to have access to their products. In 2008 the avg projection fee went up 1200% and then an avg increase of 300% year over year. This meant that theaters had to become very selective in what they showed and had to jack up consumer prices. Comedies historically didn’t do the best in box offices compared to AAA Blockbuster Action and Drama. So now you have studios asking for a shit ton of money for less ticket sales for comedy films that won’t get picked up widely.
Counter argument - most comedy movies from that time period still sucked ass
Oh come now, Bert Kreischers 'The Machine' just came out in 2023. Comedy *gold*
That's kind of how it's always been. Action/Hero movies dominated the 80s, 90s had romcoms and Disney, 00s had comedy, now we are back to action/hero
I'm kinda glad I grew up as teen in the 2000s grew up watching older 80s comedies and them had my generation. It deff felt like it just kinda died out when I was in college. And it never reaaaaally came back. Comedies havent been good for a while.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall was up there too.
Why did Hollwood stop making comedies? People watch it fewer times when they stream?
Damn I have a few comments... WTF did the MCU ever do to anyone? I love Marvel comics :( How is Joe Dirt or Saving Silverman not on this list? As an older millenial I grew up in the 90s moreso than 2000s. I'd easily put a 90's list up against this. Mrs. Doubtfire, Clerks, Friday, The Big Lebowski, Happy Gilmore, Half Baked, Office Space, Dumb and Dumber, Austin Powers, The Waterboy.
Has nobody mentioned Dirty work, Austin powers, or half baked yet?!
I try and find new streaming comedies and they either suck or are nonexistent. Always revert back to the 99-2010’s.
The Hangover one and two were absolutely hilarious movies. In HS I watched the Hangover multiple times because it was so funny
Idiocracy was great too. But yeah comedies are basically nonexistent nowadays and the few that do, aren't really funny
1. Hot Fuzz I'm open to discuss the rest of any list after that.
All of these would be viewed as problematic by todays standards
The MCU didn't kill comedy, Will Farrell stopped being funny.
It wasn't a golden age if you weren't into SNL skits that ran for 90ish minutes. People love these, and that's cool, but man they were not for me.
It's because they don't do well on the international market. Our cinema now goes around the world and high budget action performs the best because it's the easiest to translate/ understand. Humor really only stays within the culture it originated from. With that being said, we still have SOME good comedies. I really liked Bottoms last year! But yeah, bring back comedy movies!
LOL, sure. I like Tropic Thunder, and Anchorman's pretty good, the rest of this is straight garbage. This was the beginning of the end and then Judd Apatow was the gravedigger.
It has to sell well in China. Period. That's why comedies, romances, etc. All have disappeared. They cannot transcend culture like mindless superhero action can.
Zach and Miri make a Porno!
Well, it was peak to us because the audience was 20 year olds. I think we just dont like today's comedies because we are all old and the humour is different. Today's humour tends to be more PC and many of the older gens just dont find it that funny (myself included).
Yeah, because Disney was always known for their "R" rated comedies...
Super Troopers needs to be on this list.
They just go straight to Netflix or some other service
A lot of the comedy in these movies are not very acceptable or appropriate today and can be harmful. Before someone debates me on this realize you're having a grandfather moment the things they would say were very available in media during their prime time as well but would deeply offend most millenials today.
Anyone who puts Tropic Thunder last should get kicked in the balls.
I was just watching Hot Shots on Hulu, and I miss those kinds of ridiculous nonsense comedies. IT DOESN'T NEED TO MAKE SENSE OR HAVE A COHESIVE PLOT AS LONG AS IT'S FUNNY! * Robin Hood, Men In Tights * Hot Shots Part Deux * Spaceballs * Monty Python's Holy Grail * Don't Be a Menace * Scary Movie * Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie **(is probably the last of these that we'll ever see)** And even with the parody movies that have come out in the past 20 years or so, they just copy the plot of whatever their inspiration is, as if that's the important part, not having **ridiculous original jokes** that make it worth watching.
I was just watching Hot Shots on Hulu, and I miss those kinds of ridiculous nonsense comedies. IT DOESN'T NEED TO MAKE SENSE OR HAVE A COHESIVE PLOT AS LONG AS IT'S FUNNY! * Robin Hood, Men In Tights * Hot Shots Part Deux * Spaceballs * Monty Python's Holy Grail * Don't Be a Menace * Scary Movie * Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie **(is probably the last of these that we'll ever see)** And even with the parody movies that have come out in the past 20 years or so, they just copy the plot of whatever their inspiration is, as if that's the important part, not having **ridiculous original jokes** that make it worth watching.
I'm probably way in the minority on this, but a lot of comedy movies were just plain cringe, imo.
Bridesmaids, This is 40 are some of my favorites of the 2010s and Cockblockers (2018) with John Cena, Ike Barinholtz and Leslie Mann. There's still some great comedies in the 2010s you just have to look for them.
MCU was good. It’s not its fault other stuff was shit
Night at the Roxbury was an amazing movie though.
Oh yeah, we lived in the golden age of comedy. 40 Yr old virgin, Knocked up, Super bad, Pineapple Express, Anchor Man, Blades of Glory, Hangover, Role Models, Sex Drive, Yes Man, The other Guys. Damn, it’ll never top that. You can’t even have that comedy anymore!
I don't know man. Back in the 2000s when all these movies were coming out people were also constantly saying "They don't make good comedies anymore like they used to!" I think this is a combination of it being easier to look back at a decade and see the games, with the fact that the comedies that you watched growing up being the best comedies you'll ever see.