2021 has been a rollercoaster of a year, but thankfully there have been some amazing comedies to lighten the mood. From unexpected indies to big-budget studio films, there have been plenty of gems to discover if you know where to look. So, without further ado, here are our picks for the 20 best comedy movies of the year.
Happily
In writer/director BenDavid Grabinski’s Happily, the pricks are Karen (Natalie Zea), Val (Paul Scheer), Patricia (Natalie Morales), Donald (Jon Daly), Maude (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), Carla (Shannon Woodward), Richard (Breckin Meyer), and Gretel (Charlene Yi). The subjects of their animus are Tom (Joel McHale) and Janet (Kerry Bishé), married for 14 years and incapable of not sneaking off to the bathroom at someone else’s house party for a quickie. They’re desperately in love and their friends can’t stand it. Happily lives in the porous space between genres, where horror, thriller, and several stripes of comedy—notably dark and romantic—commingle with one another. It’s a hoot, sharply made, wonderfully acted, and clear proof of Grabinski’s present skill and future potential.
Vicious Fun
The gritty, glowing neon textures of the ‘80s cover practically every frame of director Cody Calahan’s Vicious Fun, a horror-comedy caper that lovingly sends up the era’s genre tropes while never breaching egregious self-indulgence. The set and character design imbue a palpable adoration for the decade of acid wash jeans, glossy underground magazines, and VHS tape fuzz. In 1983 middle America, schlubby Joel is the “deputy assistant editor” and film reviewer for horror magazine Vicious Fanatics who realizes that his long-time crush/roommate Sarah is dating an apparent scumbag. Joel tails Sarah’s suitor to a Chinese restaurant on the edge of town, intending to tape his inevitably douchey comments and present it to her as grounds for dumping. He strikes up an awkward conversation with the man over strong cocktails, who eventually introduces himself as Bob, a local realtor who indeed has some scummy things to say about Sarah. Joel drunkenly stumbles into a broom closet and passes out until closing time. Upon waking, the only other people left in the joint compose an intimate gathering of self-professed serial killers—all of whom assume that he’s Phillip, their last anticipated attendee.
Slaxx
Did you know that pant zippers are the most common cause of adult penis injury? Thankfully, the fatality rate is pretty much nothing to worry about. Until now. In the vein of absurd inanimate antagonists ranging from Rubber’s killer tire to Killdozer!’s well…Killdozer, Shudder’s horror/comedy Slaxx is all about a pair of jeans out for blood. Director Elza Kephart (who co-wrote with Patricia Gomez) doesn’t hit below the belt with that particularly painful pinch, but her delightfully schlocky movie definitely ups the kill count contributable to denim—all stitched into a critique of the clothing industry, from the harvest to the high-end boutique.
Mandibles
A scenario of magical realism achieved as if through a scuzzy bong rip, French director Quentin Dupieux’s Mandibles follows two slacker friends who scheme to make some quick cash to scrape by with the friendly assistance of an oversized housefly. Though Dupieux’s previous films such as Rubber and Deerskin never shy away bloodshed and suffering, his latest effort is overwhelmingly defined by a sense of joie de vivre despite a typically surreal plot and the undeniable disaster left in its protagonists’ wake. The filmmaker’s absurdist comedy leanings are on full display, rendering Mandibles his most surprisingly exuberant film to date.
Werewolves Within
With the release of his feature film debut Scare Me last year, director Josh Ruben put himself on the horror-comedy map with his tale about horror writers telling scary stories. With Werewolves Within, Ruben further proves his skills as a director who knows how to walk that delicate line between horror and comedy, deftly moving between genres to create something that isn’t just scary but genuinely hilarious. The cherry on top? This is a video game adaptation. Werewolves Within is based on the Ubisoft game of the same name where players try to determine who is the werewolf. Unlike the game, which takes place in a medieval town, Ruben’s film instead takes place in the present day in the small town of Beaverfield. Forest ranger Finn moves to Beaverfield on assignment after a gas pipeline has been proposed to run through the town. But as the snow starts to fall and the sun sets behind the trees, something big and hairy begins hunting the townsfolk. Trapped in the local bed and breakfast, it’s up to Finn and postal worker Cecily to try to find out who is picking people off one by one.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run
There are many reasons why SpongeBob SquarePants has endured more than two decades of steadfast love and pop culture relevance. Part of it is the enduring positivity and ridiculousness of SpongeBob and the entire populace of their world. The characters are self-referential, consistent to their defining traits, and the writers have always created a duality of experience: Silliness for kids and a sly ascendance of wit that appeals directly to the older viewers. Director/writer Tim Hill (who also wrote 2004’s original The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie) understands that in this first, all-3D presentation. Hill and his team of artists—including Mikros Image, which is responsible for the CGI animation—play it smart by introducing a subtle transition for the viewer in the opening of Sponge on the Run. The film doesn’t aim to overwhelm audiences with overt tech bells and whistles. Instead, it presents the characters and world as an opportunity to experience the familiar in a new light, like appreciating the miniscule scale of a 3D-generated Plankton in comparison to his explosive rage—which makes him all the more hilarious.
El Planeta
The frequently complicated relationship between mother and daughter has fostered plenty of cinematic investigation, but El Planeta easily distinguishes itself as a uniquely meta and universal addition to the canon. The film follows London-based fashion student Leo upon returning to her rainy hometown of Gijón, Spain, after the death of her father in order to comfort her mother, María, whose chronic joblessness leaves debts piling high. In order to stave off eviction and support their solidly middle-class lifestyle, the two begin a series of elaborate ploys to scam and scrape by. El Planeta finds charm and levity despite the encroaching anxiety of crumbling finances, a fact that has everything to do with the Ulmans’ beautiful on-screen chemistry and the strength of Amalia’s scriptwriting. Humor and misery mingle effortlessly, primarily through evoking the uniquely Spanish tradition of picaresque melodrama, perfectly encapsulated by luxurious fur coats and nonchalant comments of “Thanks, it’s Moschino” as the heat and electricity get shut off. El Planeta is able to remain self-aware where other films have faltered through Ulman’s peppering in her family’s own lived experiences throughout the film.
Coming 2 America
Coming 2 America effectively uses the legacy of Zamunda to expand the narrative space not only of the classic original but for Black diasporic affinity at large. At the end of the 1988 romantic comedy, the royal marriage of Akeem Joffer and Lisa McDowell further symbolically enmeshed the interconnected experience between African-Americans and Black Africans. In this sequel, the legacy of that union is explored through the gendered opportunities of Prince Akeem’s lineage and the pressure he faces to determine his royal successor—all while appeasing the tyrannical leader of Zamunda’s neighboring country, Nextdoria, General Izzi. Coming 2 America reinforces themes from the original film while offering new, intriguing points of tension, nodding to old gags in a way that rewards fluent fans without alienating newbies.
The Suicide Squad
How is James Gunn one of the only people that actually seems to know how to make a comic book movie feel like it was built out of a comic book? The Suicide Squad achieves some of the same delirious multimedia fidelity in live-action with his bombastic, silly, and self-aware revisionist take on the super-group of screw-ups coerced into jobs too tough, dangerous, and/or undesirable for the conventional wetworkers of our humble government. Gunn’s action has such a clear and confident tone that it can pepper in filmmaking winks—like quick Bourne-like zooms when Task Force X director Amanda Waller plays God with the lives of costumed crooks from the safety of her command center—to add a little more visual flavor to its already over-the-top, R-rated, downright enjoyable adaptation. The Suicide Squad’s contemporaries. Whatever power its additional The gave it couldn’t completely divorce it from some expected genre limitations, but it’s helped continue and solidify the way Warner Bros. is responding to Marvel’s utter dominance of the form: Not by getting more serious but by seriously investing in the idiosyncrasies of its comics.
Bad Trip
What’s most distinguishable about Bad Trip is the way that it depicts the public which it interacts with. The film never aims to humiliate or dehumanize its subjects—instead of being disparaged or mocked in the name of comedy, bystanders are portrayed as more of a righteous tribunal than mere crabs in a barrel. The reprehensible behavior showcased always stems from Andre, Haddish, or Howery, with spectators taking it upon themselves to moralize and attempt to salvage any remaining shred of the incognito actors’ perceived dignity—perhaps all too perfectly exemplified in a scene with a parking lot Army recruiter who civilly declines Andre’s offer of a blowjob in exchange for execution during a profound period of hopelessness. This ability to invoke public reaction—with no rubric for hardline emotions that the actors must elicit—is what allows the fabric of Bad Trip’s humor to shine through. With the professional actors shouldering the burden of both maintaining character for the benefit of the film’s overarching narrative as well as ensuring that the orchestrated gags play perfectly, the public’s only obligation is reacting genuinely, whether that be expressing anger, frustration, disdain, or bewilderment.
The Paper Tigers
When you’re a martial artist and your master dies under mysterious circumstances, you avenge their death. It’s what you do. It doesn’t matter if you’re a young man or if you’re firmly living that middle-aged life. Your teacher’s suspicious passing can’t go unanswered. So you grab your fellow disciples, put on your knee brace, pack a jar of IcyHot and a few Ibuprofen, and you put your nose to the ground looking for clues and for the culprit, even as your soft, sapped muscles cry out for a breather. That’s The Paper Tigers in short, a martial arts film from Bao Tran about the distance put between three men and their past glories by the rigors of their 40s. It’s about good old fashioned ass-whooping too, because a martial arts movie without ass-whoopings isn’t much of a movie at all. But Tran balances the meat of the genre (fight scenes) with potatoes (drama) plus a healthy dollop of spice (comedy), to similar effect as Stephen Chow in his own kung fu pastiches, a la Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer, the latter being The Paper Tigers’ spiritual kin.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Animated generational divides have never been more like a sci-fi carnival than in The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Writer/director Mike Rianda’s feature debut is equal parts absurd, endearing, and terrifying. Its genre-embedded family bursts through every messy, jam-packed frame like they’re trying to escape, creating the most energetic, endearing animated comedy so far this year. And its premise begins so humbly. Filmmaker and animator Katie is leaving home for college and, to get there, has to go on a road trip with her family. You might be able to guess that Katie and her dad don’t always see eye-to-eye, even when Katie’s eyes aren’t glued to her phone or laptop. That technocriticism, where “screen time” is a dirty phrase and the stick-shifting, cabin-building father figure wants his family to experience the real world, could be as hacky as the twelfth season of a Tim Allen sitcom. The Mitchells vs. the Machines’ spin on the Spidey aesthetic comes from meme and movie-obsessed Katie, whose imagination often breaks through into the real world and whose bizarre, neon, and filter-ridden sketchbook doodles ornament the film’s already exciting palette with explosive oddity.
There you have it, the 20 best comedy movies of 2021. Whether you're in the mood for supernatural shenanigans, absurd adventures, or heartfelt family stories, there's something on this list for everyone. So grab some popcorn, sit back, and get ready to laugh your way through the year with these fantastic films.
