“I don’t just want to be a cute girl in a comedy or the actress who just does the same thing over and over again. I want to play roles that are distinct. I want to have a more varied career like actresses Viola Davis or Angela Bassett – those are the people that I grew up watching and admiring.”

-Naturi Naughton

“I have to say I enjoy physical comedy and I’ve always loved to kind of take risks. I don’t like worrying too much about how I look or how I come across, so that can sometimes… You know, I like to play those kinds of deluded but fun characters.”
-Amy Poehler

“I don’t like to be entertaining. I don’t like the feeling of being entertaining. If there was a musical or a comedy that was not just for entertainment but was rooted in something I could relate to on a real level, then I think I would do it.”
-Ryan Gosling

If I would feel the urge to do some research, I am sure that it would turn out that there are some comedies which won major awards in film history, but if so, it is certain that this happens very rarely. As far as I know there is still no “Best Comedy” category among Oscar Awards to this day, but we do not have to even go that far: the films in question are dared to be categorized only with the disdainful, hackneyed praise of “summer night cinema with popcorn” even by no name film critics.

Perhaps the situation is slightly better in the case of TV series – they now receive more recognition than the movies, although their artistic value is still underestimated by many people. What makes a movie funny? The comedy genre is based on humorously exaggerating different life situations, language, actions, and characters.

They observe the gaps, weaknesses, phobias and frustrations of life, giving a moment of fun and escape from the gray unanimity of our monotonous days. They usually have a happy ending, though the humor often has a serious or pessimistic side.

Let’s take a look now at the top 6 comedies of all time according to our point of view:

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6. Hannah and Her Sisters

Looking at Woody Allen’s fifty-year career, it can be identified most commonly by the chemically pure comedies, but we may also find quite gloomy ones (like Match Point, Interiors, and Husbands and Wives) among his films. Allen was the most in his element when he gave a typical melancholic flavor to the New York intellectual comedies in the seventies and eighties.

The peak age of his directing he was able to balance between huge jokes and the wry, bittersweet mood as a trapeze artist. Most of us would probably mention Annie Hall or Manhattan as the best ones, but it’s worth watching again the Oscar-winning Hannah and sisters on murky days : this very low-key, real autumn Allen film is full of funny and touchingly lyrical scenes.

The encompassing, diverse family story is framed by the American’s intimate family celebration m Thanksgiving Day. Hannah, Holly, and Lee, the daughters of a New York artist family are gathering for the feast. However, given the infidelity of the insurance agent husband turns the events upside down.

Elliott fell in love with the sister of his almost unbearably perfect wife, moreover, Lee returns his “wild” passion. However, the ear of the neurotic third sister, Holly begins to ring, it is possible, that she has a brain tumor.

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5. Paul Thomas Anderson: Punch-Drunk Love

This is Paul Thomas Anderson’s film and it’s most likely to win a kind of fantasy category “the strangest romantic movie of all time”. It’s hard to imagine Adam Sandler in a role to be taken seriously, but Anderson -who is one of the greatest natural talents in actor leadership – succeeded to bring out the Bergman actor from the infantile jerk played in the fart comedies.

Punch-Drunk Love is like a psychedelic roller coaster ride in the brain of a very lonely and a little crazy lover. Barry (Adam Sandler) , the toilet pump agent terrorized by his seven sisters, Ba finds love on a beautiful day in Lena (Emily Watson).

But it is not easy for Barry to get over his own repressed inhibitions,But it is not easy for Barry to get over his own repressed inhibitions, in addition, a mobster manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of a phone sex company also dumps on him.

At the critical moment, the alpha erupts as a geyser from Barry. Anderson’s film is both funny and sensually surreal: Jon Brion’s familiar melancholy film music often mingles with strange noises and incongruous sounds, and the film is repeatedly interrupted with abstract patches of color as if it really was a drunk, delirious dream.

Punch-Drunk Love is the most original romantic comedy of the last decades, despite all it’s slips and knows very well how to dandle the viewer into a bittersweet, intoxicating stupor.

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4. Harold Ramis: Groundhog Day

Bill Murray is an actor who built his career on a devilish mix of mischievous humor and a melancholic simplicity: he is capable of combining deep sorrow, stoic negligence, and cynical jerkiness with his great sense of comedy.

He almost could exchange this ability to an Oscars award at the millennium with Lost in Translation which was nothing more than a sad anthem written to “Murrayness”. Harold Ramis‘s absurd comedy shot in the Eighties is almost always classified among the world’s best comedies, not undeservedly, who would not laugh at it?

Murray plays a totally burnt-out weather reporter who has to prepare a report in a boring little town  if the town’s mascot marmot predicts the spring or not. The conflict begins when Murray’s character wakes up every morning on the same day: he has to live again and again that particular boring work day.

The frenetic idea – which almost scours the depths of ancient Greek philosophy – is taken to the heights of heaven by Murray’s frustrated, shocked and cynical play. Those scenes, when the same melody is heard over and over again in the morning radio broadcast are just hilarious, guaranteed pleasure capsules.

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3. Mike Leigh: Happy-Go-Lucky

The British director’s work is mostly hallmarked by a mood expressing depression and hopelessness, wherewith it represents the life of the British working-class impregnated with social problems. Happy-Go-Lucky’s main character is Poppy (played by the wonderful Sally Hawkins) is the kind of annoyingly optimistic figure, whom the expression refers to in the title.

A positive attitude manifests from her personality in all life situations, the joviality and good humor that emanates from her does not know any barriers. If Poppy is an epitome of happiness, then Scott, the driving instructor is that of hate.

Their relationship with each other is similar to the connection between an unstoppable ball and an impenetrable wall. Their contrast i is an inexhaustible source of humor, the endorphin overdose is guaranteed.

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2. Nicole Holofcener: Enough Said

As a consequence of changes in the romantic comedy genre in the huge number of previous films was born in the last ten years that was brave enough to break-up with the boring cliches of mainstream movies produced on the assembly line.

The latest representatives of this underground line are Silver Lining Playbook (2012), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), or Love is Strange (2014), and even Nicole Holofcener‘s 2013 film, Enough Said. The aging James Gandolfini (The Sopranos) with his teddy-bear physique, his clumsiness embodies perfectly the human hero type of new romantic comedies and draws attention to the changed needs of viewers.

The time of bikini models and the romance of superheroes has expired. Those movies are able to fill us with real satisfaction, where the first date goes wrong just as in real life where extra pounds, wrinkles, and ex-wives mean the initial difficulties of a relationship.

The hilarious ordinariness of Enough Said is just as bittersweet as our own life if we have enough self-irony.

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1. Wes Anderson: The Darjeeling Limited

There are film directors, whose entire oeuvre could fit on this list. Wes Anderson is certainly among them, he is actually the black belt grand master of bittersweet comedies. Anderson – who is obsessed with the details – always shoots the movie with the same illustrious team.He upholsters his carefully worked out world with the patience of a little child infatuated with his doll’s house.

The characters deployed in the films have a problem without exception: they are all lonely freaks who seek the company of others stoically drifting. Anderson’s films are permeated by  an irresistible melancholy, which sucks in at once the susceptible audience. Darjeeling Limited may probably be the least known opus of the 18th-century Russian prince-looking director’s career, which is the reason why we recommend it.

The story of three eccentric brothers will certainly put off everyone from the autumn melancholy. The best moments of the Anderson movies are connected the brilliantly edited music: when for example we can hear The Strangers from The Kinks and meanwhile the typical slow motion is whirling, most of the viewers will experience a quite immersive sensation.

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Thank you for reading our article. The next one will be about the top 6 art movies of all time. We hope that you will join us.