Looking for a Lifetime of Laughs? We've Got You Covered With the 120 Best Comedies of All Time

How can you tell if you’re watching one of the best comedies of all time? First off, they make you crack up every time you think of them: think the dinner party in Beetlejuice, the printer massacre in Office Space, Jack Lemmon celebrating his engagement in Some Like It Hot, Harpo Marx showing off his tattoos in Duck Soup. And they get funnier with every viewing: Marisa Tomei’s “hostile witness” testimony in My Cousin Vinny or Michael Palin announcing the name change of the Knights Who Say “Ni” in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 

With these major criteria in mind, we set out to determine the best comedy films and funniest movies of every decade for the past 100 years. We looked for films that are funny from beginning to end, even if the humor becomes increasingly warped (as in future classic Sorry to Bother You) or is interspersed with moments of pathos (like the British cult favorite Withnail and I). Strictly for simplicity’s sake, we limited the list to English-language films. And although some of these films hinge on jokes and plot points that wouldn’t work today, they’re funny enough to transcend their limitations and bring the laughs for generations of moviegoers.

Finally, there are a million wonderful movies that didn’t make the cut—and each one on the list can lead you down a rabbit hole toward more great screwball comedies, quirky mockumentaries or musical farces. Here, with links to streaming video, is Parade’s list of the 120 best comedies of all time. It’s-a very nice. 

Best Comedy Movies of the 1920s

Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Silent film legend Buster Keaton’s comedy is the shortest film on this list—but those 45 minutes showed the world how movies had their own, totally unique comic possibilities. Accused of a theft he didn’t commit, a lovelorn projectionist (Keaton) imagines himself into a mystery film as the heroic detective.

The Gold Rush (1925)

Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” seeks his fortune by joining the Klondike Gold Rush—only to face bears, avalanches and starvation—in this influential, ambitious and sometimes shockingly dark comedy. Among the silent movie’s iconic comic scenes are Chaplin’s dinner roll dance, and a Thanksgiving dinner scene in which he eats his own shoe.

Best Comedy Movies of the 1930s

Animal Crackers (1930)

A caper about a stolen painting that unfolds during an upper-crust Long Island Party, this adaptation of the Marx Brothers’ 1928 Broadway show stars Groucho Marx as renowned explorer Captain Spaulding, who has a great story about shooting an elephant in his pajamas. Harpo’s silent role as “the Professor” has some cringey interactions with women that are played for laughs, but also executes some of his funniest visual gags.

City Lights (1931)

Charlie Chaplin’s greatest film shows the jaw-dropping range that made him a cinematic legend: he could turn a plate of spaghetti into an uproarious gag, then break your heart with a love story.  In this silent romantic comedy, Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” character falls in love with a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) who mistakenly believes him to be a rich man. The film’s final scene, in which the Tramp meets the girl for the first time since she has regained her sight, is unforgettable.

Duck Soup (1933)

The Marx brothers’ funniest movie (and that’s saying something) casts Groucho Marx in the role of incompetent national leader Rufus T. Firefly, Chico Marx and Harpo Marx as equally incompetent spies, and Margaret Dumont as the nation of Freedonia’s wealthy benefactor. The political-satire plot is mainly a clothesline on which to hang some of the most hilarious sketches and gags ever captured on film, including the iconic “mirror scene” (where the brothers pretend to be reflections of one another) and a slapstick street-vendor battle that will have anyone between the ages of two and 92 rolling in the aisles.

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The Thin Man (1932)

No one has ever made marriage look like more fun than Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy), the gorgeous detective duo who specialize in strong cocktails, sparkling repartee and solving murders. Nick and Nora’s witty, flirty conversations, in both The Thin Man and its five sequels, are an experience to be treasured.

A Night at the Opera (1935)

The Marx Brothers bring their lovable anarchy to the classical-music world in a film that contains a whole lot of opera music, but also a few of their best bits, including Groucho and Chico’s contract negotiation and a legendary scene that crowds 15 people into a third-class cruise ship cabin.

My Man Godfrey (1936)

The quintessential Depression Era comedy tells the story of a bubble-headed heiress (Carole Lombard) and her kooky family, who hire a “forgotten man” (William Powell) off the streets as an act of charity. Lombard is hysterically funny in a film that, in typical Hollywood style, mercilessly skewers the rich while still making money the key to a happy ending.

Topper (1937)

A hard-partying but blissfully happy married couple (Cary Grant and Constance Bennett) crashes their car and dies at the start of Norman Z. McLeod’s supernatural screwball comedy. Unsure why they’ve become ghosts instead of ascending to heaven, George and Marion Kirby decide to do a good deed by giving a full-life makeover to their dowdy, depressed friend Cosmo Topper (Roland Young). Despite inspiring two sequels and multiple television adaptations, Topper has slipped through the cracks and is currently unavailable to legally stream or purchase.

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

The epitome of the “screwball comedy” genre that emerged during the Depression, Howard Hawks’ delightful film stars Katherine Hepburn as a ditzy, free-spirited heiress, and Cary Grant as the uptight paleontologist who gets caught up in her whirlwind. Hepburn and Grant could play beautifully opposite anybody, but they’re especially wonderful together, turning every moment of leopard-chasing, cross-dressing and jail-breaking into delightful foreplay.

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Best Comedy Movies of the 1940s

The Great Dictator (1940)

A daring satire of Adolf Hitler and a bold statement against fascism, Charlie Chaplin’s most controversial film has him playing both a Hitler-like dictator and the lookalike Jewish barber who’s mistaken for him. Watching Chaplin play the fool in the guise of modern history’s greatest monster—before the world fully understood the true horrors of the Third Reich—still feels subversive.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

On the day before her wedding to a self-made man (John Howard), fiercely independent socialite Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn) has her life complicated by two other bachelors: a struggling writer sent to profile her for a tabloid (James Stewart) and her wealthy first husband (Cary Grant). This sophisticated, witty and compassionate comedy was originally written for Broadway with Hepburn in mind, and she is sensational—though it’s Stewart who carries off the funniest drunk scene in film history.

Ball of Fire (1941)

Thanks to the Criterion Channel, Howard Hawks’ witty and risqué spin on Snow White—starring Barbara Stanwyck as a nightclub singer who hides out from the mob at the home of seven bachelor professors (among them Gary Cooper), in exchange for teaching them slang words for their encyclopedia—is available to watch for the first time in years.

The Road to Morocco (1942)

The best of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour’s “Road pictures” has all the magic ingredients of the seven-film comedy franchise: witty banter, amusing tunes, exotic locales and fourth-wall-breaking gags that were years ahead of their time.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Cary Grant (an ex-acrobat and underrated physical comedian) does some of the best double-takes ever recorded in Frank Capra’s cartoonish black comedy, about a Brooklyn drama critic (Grant) who discovers on his wedding day that the lovely old aunts who raised him (Jean Adair and Josephine Hull) are serial murderers.

Best Comedy Movies of the 1950s

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

MGM’s singing, dancing, Hollywood-spoofing crowd-pleaser is easily the best musical comedy Hollywood ever produced. It’s also among the funniest films of any genre, particularly when it comes to effervescent musical numbers like Donald O’ Connor’s “Make ‘Em Laugh” and Gene Kelly’s soaking-wet performance of the title song. Debbie Reynolds is a delightfully sassy ingenue, and Jean Hagen almost walks away with the film as a silent-movie star with a voice that could break glass.