Comedies That Make You Laugh So Hard It Hurts

From 'Duck Soup' to 'The Party': Comedies that make you double over with laughter

There is a recurring question among those who take cinema’s most undervalued genre seriously: which movie leaves your jaw aching from laughing so much? The answer, after forum discussions, is not a single title. It is a canon. And like any canon, it has its factions, heresies, and unforgivable oversights.

The most repeated consensus points to a handful of titles that appear again and again: Airplane!, Top Secret!, The Party, Monty Python's Life of Brian and Some Like It Hot. Absurd comedy and parody fare well, with an explicit defense of the genre: “absurdity and parody are very underrated. You laugh and that’s it, without having an ending that leaves you thinking.” Against this, the classics by Billy Wilder and the Marx Brothers claim their throne with strong arguments.

Billy Wilder, the most represented director

One conclusion drawn from the conversation is the hegemony of Billy Wilder, attributed as the director most represented with four films in the recommendations. Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, The Front Page and What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? are cited by different participants. Of the first, its status as an absolute masterpiece is highlighted; of the second, that “ties come out, it’s black and white, and the director’s name sounds cool.”

The Front Page receives an enthusiastic description: a newspaper editor, journalists, and a death row inmate in the United States, starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. The Wilder-Lemmon-Matthau combination works as a guarantee seal for several contributors.

The Marx Brothers and humor that doesn’t age

If there is one name repeated with reverence, it is the Marx Brothers. Duck Soup receives a recommendation worth reproducing: “It lasts 66 minutes and I’ve never seen a better comedy. A gem by the Marx Brothers that few people have seen.” Brevity as a virtue, gag density as an argument. It is also insisted that, having seen them all more than once, they still elicit smiles.

Classic humor has other proper names in the conversation: Young Frankenstein, Arsenic and Old Lace, Bringing Up Baby and the cinema of Harold Lloyd, recalling a cycle broadcast on La 2 (Spanish public channel). Louis de Funès and Jacques Tati appear as oversights that someone takes care to rectify.

The Spanish school: from Ozores to Torrente

Spanish cinema has its place with unsurprising names: Esteso, Una manola and Ozores. Los Bingueros, Yo hice a Roque III and Los energéticos are cited as examples of a humor that, according to the argument, fits current reality. The sauna scene in Los energéticos is mentioned as a peak moment. Also Torrente 1 and 2, with the warning that they are “very crude” but work as a mirror of current affairs.

French comedy has its defenders: Le Dîner de Cons (The Dinner Game), in its original version and remake, receives praise. And Amici miei appears in a personal list traversing life stages: The Gods Must Be Crazy in elementary school, Back to School in high school, Lock & Stock in university, and Amici miei afterwards.

The age factor and the original version

One of the most interesting contributions is the age window theory: “The key is being between 12 and 14 years old. You get most of the jokes but at the same time they surprise you.” At that age, seeing Airplane! or Animal House for the first time is unbeatable. Nostalgia as an explanatory variable of humor.

Added to this is a technical recommendation that generates agreement: watch them in original language. Dubbing, it is argued, destroys the jokes. Anyone who has tried to trinc the slang of Lock & Stock or Snatch in a dubbed version knows what is meant.

The Party and laughter from start to finish

If there is one title that takes the crown for intensity, it is The Party. One participant describes it without nuances: “the only time in my life I’ve been busting up from when a movie starts until the end credits roll.” Stomach ache, sore jaw, guffaws. The experience is also attributed to company, but the merit of the film remains beyond doubt.

Life of Brian appears as a masterpiece and There’s Something About Mary as a recent reference comedy. Superbad, Borat and Todd Solondz’s dark humor complete a panorama ranging from the thirties to the present.

The exact point where analysis gets stuck is the same where it began: there is no single movie, there is an age, a company, and an original version. And about that, there is no data.