15 years ago, Adam McKay and Will Ferrell gave the world one of the funniest movies ever made, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. With its battling news teams, endless string of celebrity cameos, and invincible dog, Anchorman positions itself squarely in the absurdist school of humor.
What you expect to happen, based on the laws of physics and the unwritten rules of society, is thrown out the window, and Ron and his team swooped in to surprise you. Unfortunately, filmmakers don’t make many absurdist comedies anymore. However, we’ve found 10 to watch if you liked Anchorman.
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Mike Myers’ curious blend of homaging ‘60s swinger culture and spoofing the tropes and motifs of the James Bond franchise birthed two of the most iconic comedy characters ever created: Austin Powers, the titular hippie parody of 007, and Dr. Evil, a pitch-perfect take on Bond’s megalomaniacal nemeses bent on world domination, particularly Ernst Blofeld.
Although it has a traditional first act setting up its premise and a traditional third act building up to a climactic action sequence, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery has a mostly gag-based plot, segueing from one sketch into another – but they’re all great sketches, so that’s not a problem.
They Came Together
The spoof film was all but killed off by the interminable slew of movies with the word “Movie” in the title that were devoid of commentary. But one recent gem is David Wain’s They Came Together, an absurdist parody of the clichés and conventions of the romantic comedy genre.
Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler star as a spot-on satire of every mismatched couple in rom-com history. Rudd and Poehler have enough chemistry to carry an earnest romantic comedy, but David Wain and Michael Showalter’s smart and absurdist script adds a satirical layer to its use of the romcom’s tired tropes.
The Naked Gun
Adapted from the short-lived, yet brilliant police procedural parody Police Squad!, The Naked Gun succeeds mostly by relying on Leslie Nielsen’s lead performance as bumbling detective Frank Drebin. The jokes in the movie are hilarious, too, with a timeless quality. It’s as laugh-out-loud now as it was in 1988 when it first hit theaters.
The movie sees Drebin attempting to thwart an assassination plot against the Queen of England, who is visiting the town, but that’s just an excuse to spoof the film noir and action movies. Director David Zucker infused slapstick humor that works into car chases, shootouts, and fistfights.
Step Brothers
Like Anchorman, Step Brothers was directed by Adam McKay and stars Will Ferrell. But unlike Anchorman, the duo collaborated with a third co-writer when cracking the film’s story. John C. Reilly worked with the two to craft a vehicle that would bring out the best in Ferrell and Reilly’s unique on-screen chemistry, first showcased in Talladega Nights.
The team’s goal with the movie was to be so outlandish that it would probably bomb at the box office (it actually ended up being a surprise hit), but would at least be fun to make. The result of this is a movie that’s undeniably wacky and oddball, but endlessly entertaining.
The Blues Brothers
Behind the scenes of Saturday Night Live’s earliest seasons, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi bonded over a shared love of blues music. So, they created the characters of Jake and Elwood Blues, and released albums and performed on SNL under the guise of the Blues Brothers.
They might not have seemed like the right characters to star in their own movie, but under the direction of John Landis, The Blues Brothers became a comedy classic. Intent on getting the band back together to buy the orphanage that raised them back from the bank, the brothers are pursued by a band of neo-Nazis, a mysterious woman with murderous plans, and dozens of cop cars.
Dumb and Dumber
The Farrelly brothers helmed this three-laughs-a-minute road trip comedy starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. They play two characters who are so stupid that they have no sense of logic or reason, and they’re racing across the country to return a briefcase full of ransom money that was supposed to be left behind.
Much like Anchorman, Dumb and Dumber was followed by a belated sequel that brought back the older versions of the original actors. However, where Anchorman 2 arrived nine years after the original and satisfied most fans, Dumb and Dumber To arrived 20 years after the original and bitterly disappointed fans. Still, that doesn’t detract from the original being a comedy classic.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
After making television history with their BBC sketch series Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the Pythons put their heads together to come up with their first feature film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. On the surface, the movie is a bunch of Python sketches based on Arthurian legend, loosely strung together by the quest for the Holy Grail.
But on top of that is a subversion of traditional story structure and a parody of film itself, with an intermission, jokey opening titles, and lots of breaking the fourth wall. The Pythons made a few movies – and never a bad one – but Holy Grail is arguably the best.
Blazing Saddles
Mel Brooks’ parody of the western genre transplanted 1974 jokes and references and attitudes into its 1874 setting. The final act of Blazing Saddles sees the characters fleeing the set of their own movie and taking their fight across the studio lot, crashing the set of a lavish Hollywood musical and destroying the cafeteria. Then, the leads go to a movie theater to watch the end of their film, as they ride off into the sunset, then dismount from their horses and get into the back of a car.
Blazing Saddles is a deconstruction of the western genre, the actual historical period of the Old West, and film as a whole.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
In a satirical take on sports movies about underdogs rising up to defeat more traditional champions, Dodgeball stars Vince Vaughn as the owner of a gym for regular people who don’t want to be judged by fitness buffs and Ben Stiller as the owner of a chain of gyms for fitness buffs.
The two make for a well-matched pairing of hero and villain as they go head-to-head in a dodgeball tournament that will determine the fate of their respective establishments. Dodgeball is a hysterical movie with timeless jokes wrapped around a couple of very real emotional arcs.
Airplane!
When they were writing and performing in a sketch show, David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker used to tape late-night TV to search for commercials they could spoof. Usually, they’d skip through the programming, but one night, they found a movie filled with comedic potential: Zero Hour!, a black-and-white disaster movie about a plane going down after the in-flight meal makes the crew sick.
The team wrote a zany version of the movie that played its ridiculous moments completely straight, then filled in all the gaps with hysterical jokes and sight gags. Airplane! is the gold standard for the comedy film.
