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Comedy

A film whose main purpose is to amuse and induce laughter, comedy deals with the preposterous and absurd aspects of human behavior with a sense of humor. The comedy is usually meant to make the viewer feel good, projecting the foibles of characters onto the screen for the audience to use as scapegoat for the ridiculousness of life. Always a hugely popular genre, there are many types of screen comedy: slapstick (the Mack Sennett shorts), screwball (The Lady Eve), conceptual (Schizopolis, The Meaning Of Life), satirical (The Seven Year Itch, Bob Roberts), the spoof (Airplane!), anarchic (Duck Soup), black comedy (Dr. Strangelove)...the list goes on. Comedy in films can also be an effective way of commenting on aspects of society, examining hypocrisies by showing how absurd they are (Dr. Strangelove, for example, makes fun of the arms race and the Cold War by exposing how world leaders act like bullies in a playground sandbox); some comedy, such as the black comedy, seeks to deal with the painful aspects of life in such a way that the humor not readily apparent in such things as Nazism or racism is used to diffuse the horror surrounding it. Even if a comedy is meant to disturb (such as the media satire Man Bites Dog), its primary goal, regardless of happy ending or likable characters, is to look at all things with a sense of humor.

Major Works
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Rating
Year
 Title
 
 Director
  9 Stars 1999 Being John Malkovich   Spike Jonze
    9 Stars 1913 Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life   Mack Sennett
  9 Stars 1932 Trouble in Paradise   Ernst Lubitsch
    9 Stars 1924 Sherlock Jr.   Buster Keaton
  9 Stars 1964 Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb   Stanley Kubrick
  9 Stars 1978 National Lampoon's Animal House   John Landis
  9 Stars 1974 Young Frankenstein   Mel Brooks
  9 Stars 1938 You Can't Take It with You   Frank Capra
  9 Stars 1987 Withnail & I   Bruce Robinson
  9 Stars 1989 When Harry Met Sally   Rob Reiner
  9 Stars 1982 Tootsie   Sydney Pollack
  9 Stars 1942 To Be or Not to Be   Ernst Lubitsch
  9 Stars 1984 This Is Spinal Tap   Rob Reiner
  9 Stars 1941 Sullivan's Travels   Preston Sturges
  9 Stars 1959 Some Like It Hot   Billy Wilder
  9 Stars 1991 Slacker   Richard Linklater
  9 Stars 1952 Singin' in the Rain   Stanley Donen
  9 Stars 1987 Raising Arizona   Joel Coen
  9 Stars 1968 The Producers   Mel Brooks
  9 Stars 1940 The Philadelphia Story   George Cukor
  9 Stars 1935 A Night at the Opera   Sam Wood
  9 Stars 1924 The Navigator   Donald Crisp
  9 Stars 1936 My Man Godfrey   Gregory La Cava
  9 Stars 1953 Mr. Hulot's Holiday   Jacques Tati
  9 Stars 1987 Moonstruck   Norman Jewison
  9 Stars 1974 Monty Python and the Holy Grail   Terry Gilliam
  9 Stars 1958 Mon Oncle   Jacques Tati
  9 Stars 1936 Modern Times   Charles Chaplin
  9 Stars 1983 Local Hero   Bill Forsyth
  9 Stars 1941 The Lady Eve   Preston Sturges
  9 Stars 1934 It Happened One Night   Frank Capra
  9 Stars 1940 His Girl Friday   Howard Hawks
  9 Stars 1950 Harvey   Henry Koster
  9 Stars 1964 A Hard Day's Night   Richard Lester
  9 Stars 1940 The Great Dictator   Charles Chaplin
  9 Stars 1967 The Graduate   Mike Nichols
  9 Stars 1925 The Gold Rush   Charles Chaplin
  9 Stars 1927 The General   Clyde Bruckman
  9 Stars 1931 The Front Page   Lewis Milestone
  9 Stars 1950 Father of the Bride   Vincente Minnelli
  9 Stars 1982 Fast Times at Ridgemont High   Amy Heckerling
  9 Stars 1933 Duck Soup   Leo McCarey
  9 Stars 1938 Bringing Up Baby   Howard Hawks
  9 Stars 1974 Blazing Saddles   Mel Brooks
  9 Stars 1940 The Bank Dick   Edward F. Cline
  9 Stars 1977 Annie Hall   Woody Allen
  9 Stars 1980 Airplane!   Jim Abrahams
  9 Stars 1949 Adam's Rib   George Cukor
  8 Stars 2001 Shrek   Andrew Adamson
  8 Stars 1999 Election   Alexander Payne
  8 Stars 1915 The Tramp   Charles Chaplin
  8 Stars 1995 Clueless   Amy Heckerling
  8 Stars 1994 Four Weddings and a Funeral   Mike Newell
    8 Stars 1925 Kiss Me Again   Ernst Lubitsch
  8 Stars 1955 Mister Roberts   John Ford
  8 Stars 1988 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown   Pedro Almodóvar
  8 Stars 1942 Woman of the Year   George Stevens
  8 Stars 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit?   Robert Zemeckis
  8 Stars 1982 Victor/Victoria   Blake Edwards
  8 Stars 1934 Twentieth Century   Howard Hawks
  8 Stars 1986 Tampopo   Juzo Itami
  8 Stars 1984 Stranger Than Paradise   Jim Jarmusch
  8 Stars 1928 Steamboat Bill, Jr.   Buster Keaton
  8 Stars 1975 Smile   Michael Ritchie
  8 Stars 1973 Sleeper   Woody Allen
  8 Stars 1964 A Shot in the Dark   Blake Edwards
  8 Stars 1940 The Shop Around the Corner   Ernst Lubitsch
  8 Stars 1986 She's Gotta Have It   Spike Lee
  8 Stars 1975 Shampoo   Hal Ashby
  8 Stars 1955 The Seven Year Itch   Billy Wilder
  8 Stars 1987 Roxanne   Fred Schepisi
  8 Stars 1985 The Purple Rose of Cairo   Woody Allen
  8 Stars 1992 The Player   Robert Altman
  8 Stars 1964 The Pink Panther   Blake Edwards
  8 Stars 1942 The Palm Beach Story   Preston Sturges
    8 Stars 1923 Our Hospitality   John G. Blystone
  8 Stars 1937 Nothing Sacred   William Wellman
  8 Stars 1939 Ninotchka   Ernst Lubitsch
  8 Stars 1944 The Miracle of Morgan's Creek   Preston Sturges
  8 Stars 1941 The Man Who Came to Dinner   William Keighley
  8 Stars 1975 Love and Death   Woody Allen
  8 Stars 1985 Lost in America   Albert Brooks
  8 Stars 1955 The Ladykillers   Alexander MacKendrick
  8 Stars 1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets   Robert Hamer
  8 Stars 1949 The Inspector General   Henry Koster
    8 Stars 1917 The Immigrant   Charles Chaplin
  8 Stars 1938 Holiday   George Cukor
  8 Stars 1941 Here Comes Mr. Jordan   Alexander Hall
  8 Stars 1971 Harold and Maude   Hal Ashby
  8 Stars 1993 Groundhog Day   Harold Ramis
  8 Stars 1984 Ghostbusters   Ivan Reitman
    8 Stars 1933 The Fatal Glass of Beer   Clyde Bruckman
    8 Stars 1916 Easy Street   Charles Chaplin
  8 Stars 1950 Born Yesterday   George Cukor
  8 Stars 1958 Big Deal on Madonna Street   Mario Monicelli
  8 Stars 1988 Big   Penny Marshall
  8 Stars 1937 The Awful Truth   Leo McCarey
  8 Stars 1984 All of Me   Carl Reiner
  8 Stars 1931 À Nous la Liberté   René Clair
  7 Stars 2001 Bridget Jones's Diary   Sharon Maguire
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