Starting in 2003, with the release of “Old School” and then “Anchorman,” a comedy renaissance started with the boom of the Will Ferrell/Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen era (“The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “Superbad,” “Step Brothers” and “Walk Hard”). Then, the immense success of 2009’s “The Hangover” and 2011’s “Bridesmaids,” which leads us to where we are now. Despite a few great chucklers having been released, most of the recent comedy releases this past decade have been safe “star-based” movies (think Kevin Hart or Melissa McCarthy).
And so, what happened? The mainstream studio comedy has suffered quite a bit in the last few years. Nobody has really cracked the code since the Apatow/Hangover era. It’s incredibly telling that “Game Night” is considered one of the bigger hit comedies recently, and yet, it could only scrape $69 million domestically.
If anything, the 2010s have been characterized by alternative comedies becoming more mainstream. I’m thinking Taika Waititi, Wes Anderson, Armando Iannucci, Edgar Wright for example.
Here are the ten funniest comedies of the last 10 years.
Bridesmaids
This Paul Feig-directed movie tried to bring humane feminism to a genre lacking in it. Quite simply put, it started a revolution. Without “Bridesmaids” there would not be the countless female-led comedies we have gotten this decade. Hell, there may not even be a famous Melissa McCarthy. Of course, there’s pussy jokes and a hilarious, disgusting wedding dress shopping scene, but Feig and his immaculate actresses took advantage of Kirsten Wiig and Annie Mumolo’s witty and keenly written screenplay. The story, a fiery, battle-to-the-death competition between two maids of honor, boldly redefined the, supposed, conventional wisdom in the comedy genre about how women and men should act. There is gross-out humor in “Bridesmaids,” but also an incredible amount of heart.
This is the End
In terms of ballsy laughs, you couldn’t do much better this decade than “This is the End,” a fearlessly delivered meta-romp directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Mostly set at James Franco's posh L.A mansion, where Franco’s celeb friends —including a coked-out Rihanna and an ass-slapping Michael Cera — are partying the night away, the film positions the viewer to expect the unexpected. The party is interrupted by an apocalyptic earthquake that takes down everybody in sight, that is everybody except Franco, Rogen, Jay Baruchel, and Danny McBride, all of whom will do anything to survive. It's a satirical end-of-the-world jaunt that is wholly original and comic. Rogen and Goldenberg's post-apocalyptic stoner comedy doesn't let anyone off the hook. Hollywood is the target here as Rogen and company bite the hand that feeds them.
The Grand Budapest Hotel
It’s not just the distinctive visual and narrative style that makes “The Grand Budapest Hotel” special, it’s also the witty and joke-per-second humor that its director Wes Anderson infuses every frame of this film. It’s all anchored by a remarkable Ralph Fiennes performance, a theatric, yet compassionate performance. It’s not just Fiennes, the entire cast is uniformly good, as expected with any Anderson film. He even finds the time to sneak in long-time collaborator Bill Murray for a few minutes. It’s just that kind of movie, one where anything goes and the fun comes in watching the director perform a balancing act as Anderson juggles three different timelines and eras and plays around with the assortment of characters he has created in his little dollhouse. From the fake sets to the lightning-quick camera angles to the OCD-like attention to detail, this is the funniest movie he’s ever made.
MacGruber
Almost every movie that has derived from an SNL skit has been greeted with bad reviews, but some pull through the mediocrity and are embraced by cult audiences years later (“Wayne’s World,” and “The Blues Brothers”). SNL movies don’t usually catch my fancy either, but “MacGruber” has practically become a cult comedy classic. The film used cheap special effects and self-referential comedy in its attempt to construct some kind of coherent plot, all for the sake of making us laugh. That’s MacGruber for you in a nutshell, a nothingburger that has you laughing ‘til it hurts.
Game Night
"Game Night" has Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams playing game-loving married couple Max and Annie. It’s a comedy that can only work if the on-screen actors nail the right comedic timing and chemistry to keep us invested in the stakes at hand. That’s what happens here. The stakes are raised when Max’s overachieving brother (Kyle Chandler) invites Max, Annie and their friends to his mansion, but this time he concocts a game devoid of cardboard and mostly devised of hired-actors. The rules are simple, one of the contestants will be taken by fake mobsters and the rest will have to follow clues to save the hostages. Problem is, by sheer coincidence, actual mobsters (Danny Huston and Michael C. Hall) do show up at Kyle's and take him with them. Car chases, bar fights, and gun fights ensue, all staged by directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. However, it's Gary (a scene-stealing Jesse Plemons), Max and Annie's socially-awkward, divorced cop neighbor, who they always try to avoid inviting to game night, that is the comic peak of the movie.
21 Jump Street
The most entertaining crime-fighting duo since Batman and Robin, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum’s comedic team-up was followed by a successful sequel. But the first time was truly the charm as Tatum and Hill’s clumsy cops, Schmidt and Jenko, try to take down a nefarious high school drug ring. They were only tasked for the job due to their youthful looks, which has them posing as two high school students on opposite spectrums of the geek/jock spectrum. The result was not only a thrilling action movie but one filled with hilariously staged shootouts, drug trips, and the rousing chemistry between the two leads.
The Heat
Paul Feig, that guy again, decided to follow-up his “Bridesmaids” triumph with “The Heat." Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock in a buddy cop comedy? Whoever had the genius idea of casting the two marvelous lead actresses deserved a raise! Bullock and McCarthy manage to find the kind of chemistry that feels all-too-rare in comedies these days, both performances are firmly planted in an idealic mix of realism and total absurdity. Feig would go on to direct a third successful venture with McCarthy (“Spy”) in 2015.
Neighbors
Seth Rogen owned the comedy genre this decade. There’s just something about the 30-something white male schlub that he plays which not only works for laughs but actually makes you believe this is Rogen just riffing on his own life experiences. “Neighbors” is no exception. Rogen and Rose Byrne play Mac and Kelly, a young married couple who buy a new house in the wrong neighborhood. Things get out of control when college student, Teddy (Zac Efron), and his gang of frat boys move in next door, and hilarious episodic slapstick ensues. Of note is the playful performance from Efron as the fraternity ring leader.
Four Lions
Many attempts to mix the outwardly-delicious peanut butter and chocolate tone of comedy and politics have shown that it can be a deceptively tricky genre hybrid to get right. “Four Lions” scribe Sam Bain knew that, and ‘Lions,’ a high-wire act in risk-taking political humor, was one of the best comedy screenplays of the last decade because of Bain’s bracing refusal to adhere to political correctness. Infused with political and satirical sting, Bain sets his sights on Islamic radicalism, as a group of young Muslim men living in Sheffield decide to wage jihad, hatching an inept plan to become suicide bombers. Omar (Riz Ahmed) and Waj (Kayvan Novak) visit a Pakistan training camp, which turns into a total mess due to their dim-witted clumsiness, while Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) works on an unlikely scheme to train birds to carry bombs. It all culminates at the London Marathon, where the stakes become all-too-real and the audience wonders whether it’s a good time to laugh or be shocked by the outcome.
What We Do in the Shadows
Before Taika Waititi became the whiz-kid for Disney and Marvel, he created a hilariously blood-soaked vampire comedy. Tackling three Vampire housemates (Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, Jonathan Brugh) trying to cope with the complexities of modern life, “What We Do in the Shadows” re-energized the mockumentary genre with wit and infectious energy. Waititi used the film’s tightly-knit 86 minute runtime with the offhanded acceptance of the basic premise – that these goofy vampires are going to kill to survive – and all the violence and gore that comes with it, making for a delightfully amoral movie.
The Nice Guys
“The Nice Guys” can be included in practically any repertory cinema’s Shane Black double feature. Black, the director of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, once again tackled the buddy cop genre and turned it into a self-referential bucket of witty urban-hipster wisdom. Starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as cops caught up in an almost-too-impossible-to-explain byzantine plot having to do with the investigation of an apparent suicide and the missing case of a girl named Amelia, the film rests on Black’s deliciously subversive dialogue and the excellent chemistry between its two leads. My advice is, don’t follow too intensely the purposely complicated plot Black has concocted and just go along with his darkly assembled ode to bromancing.
Earlier this year, Zack Snyder mentioned having seen James Gunn’s “Superman.” Heaping praise on it. Now he’s saying he actually hasn’t caught up with it yet?