The dark comedy genre of movies is one that has a relatively small fan base, but it’s hard to find a more devout group of movie goers. A good dark comedy movie manages the difficult task of blending the dark and twisted with the hilarious, often delivering both at the same time. If you’re watching a dark comedy and laughing your head off, but feeling horribly guilty about it at the same time, then the film has successfully managed that balance.
One of the most interesting things about dark comedies is that individual preference plays such a huge part in determining which are “best.” Three top ten lists could have thirty different movies on them depending on what worked for each viewer and what didn’t. The challenge of the film makers is to make a funny movie twisted, but not so much that the audience “Gets off the train.”
The following is a list of ten of the best dark comedies out there, including several movies that have been overlooked by even many dark comedy connoisseurs.
This movie definitely had star power with Cameron Diaz, Christian Slater, and Jon Favreau. “Very Bad Things” is a very dark comedy that starts with the accidental death of a prostitute at a Las Vegas bachelor party and quickly spirals into even worse territory. The pacing is well done, as the problem starts “small” and grows in believable increments until everything is completely out of control. This film is often one of the first mentioned when the words “dark comedy” are brought up, but this movie is also highly divisive. Half of dark comedy fans love this movie, and half loathe it. Putting it at #10 seems a fair compromise.
This Wes Anderson film is a funny and unique form of dark comedy. The darkness does not come as a result of a serial killer, a murder, or any of the normal characters or events that usually define dark comedy. This movie takes the dysfunction of a large family filled with adopted children, child prodigies, and an incredibly dysfunctional father played by Gene Hackman, and puts them all together to see what happens. The darkness is in the subtlety, and it’s obvious from early on that this family is full of mal-adjusted people who need to talk openly, and none of whom have that ability. This film is both hilarious and tragic, and really explores how to make a movie that moves based on the undercurrents of its characters.
Most people missed this movie, which is a shame because it is an incredible film. This dark comedy is about Igby, a juvenile intent on rebelling against everything and everyone in his old society rich family. What results is a series of misadventures in which the movie viewers understand right away that Igby’s optimism and hope are badly misplaced. The darkness in this film comes not only from one character, but from almost all of them, and claims hopes, friendship, and lives in the process. Despite this dark backdrop, this is an intensely funny movie that can also be very depressing and features an amazing cast that includes Claire Daines, Kieran Culkin, Jeff Goldblum, Amanda Peet, Bill Pullman, and Susan Sarandon.
Made in 1971, “Harold & Maude” is a classic dark comedy that truly holds up over time. Harold is rich, obsessed with death, and young. Maude is in her seventies, lively, and the two meet at a funeral because both go to funerals as a hobby. That strange set up explodes off the screen in this movie, and maintains it as a classic dark comedy film that is likely to continue to have a cult following for years to come.
The Coen Brothers show up on this list twice, and probably could have twice more. “Barton Fink” is a fantastic dark comedy that spoofs Hollywood and all types of writers alike, from the “Hollywood Hacks” to the “Eastern Intellectuals.” Barton Fink is a successful New York playwright who moves to Hollywood to become a screenwriter, but is hired to write a wrestling movie, which is too “base” for his style.
Along the way he meets a friendly neighbor who turns out to be a serial killing Nazi, two crazed detectives, and falls in love with a woman who meets an unfortunate fate. This is such a delicately scathing film, and often takes more than one viewing to understand just how stunningly wrong and disturbing the final scene (which appears serene) is.
“Four Rooms” is a great study in dark comedy. Few people have ever had as terrible and disturbing a night as the bell hop working the hotel on New Year’s Eve (the night all four scenes of this movie take place), yet the movie remains funny. From a bet with a penalty of a cut off finger, to a dead prostitute, to a crazed gun man, this film is continuously hilarious while the bell hop is surrounded by people and situations that should not be funny at all. This movie is an “anthology movie,” as the four sections are only vaguely connected, but they come together to make a fantastic dark comedy that aspiring writers should study.
This is the dark comedy that causes so many fights because a lot of people argue that it isn’t a comedy (or isn’t meant to be). Others indicate that the blend of odd music, juxtaposition of scenes, and odd bits of humor in dark moments make it one of the best dark comedies out there. This is a film that somehow makes cannibalism and murder hilarious. This movie is also has a “love it or hate it” effect. Viewers tend to absolutely adore this movie, or hate it with a fiery passion. There’s not much middle ground on this one, and part of the reason might be that as far as dark comedies go, this one is extremely heavy on the darkness, and the humor in this film is dark and twisted even by dark comedy standards.
This is a movie that definitely flew under the radar. Starring David Schwimmer (and don’t let that scare you off from this movie) this 2006 dark comedy introduces Charlie, a man whose brain is slowly erasing. This will eventually take his memories, personality, and ability to function away, so he memorizes facts and statistics in an attempt to slow the process. When he gets a chance to blackmail a priest with a work buddy and his girlfriend, Charlie agrees, thinking of his wife and daughter.
A couple major mistakes and a few strange discoveries take what should have been a simple blackmail job and spirals the entire situation completely out of control. The incredible pace of this movie keeps viewers engrossed and laughing even as sad and dark moments occur. This is a very intelligent movie and a hidden gem of cinema.
This classic dark comedy by Stanley Kubrick will be at the top of many viewers’ lists. This is a very odd and dark movie famous for the almost “care free” feeling on screen while the nuclear apocalypse is taking place. The scene with a pilot riding the atomic bomb down to Earth is one of the most famous scenes in movie history and is commonly spoofed. “Dr. Strangelove,” is full of weird people, weirder logic, and darkly comedic scenes that make this black and white film one of the all time classic dark comedies.
“Fargo” is not only one of the best dark comedies ever made, but it is widely considered one of the 100 greatest movies ever. Even from the very beginning of “Fargo,” before things get bad, viewers already have the sense that everything is going to go horribly wrong. Two kidnappers, one psychotic, a cruel father in law and a wishy-washy used car salesman in over his head are just a few of the characters who help set the scene. The heroine of this film is a pregnant small town police chief, whose folksy accent and laid back Midwestern manner help highlight the humor in this film, and who herself represents an unlikely hero.
The strange humor from this movie sprouts from all the little things and subtle nuances in this movie. The little actions, the interactions as nice people talk about the weather, joke around, and do nice neighborly things; all these are juxtaposed against the backdrop of psychopaths, kidnapping, and murder. “Fargo” is a one of a kind film, and is one of a kind dark comedy that won multiple awards and made the Coen Brothers household names.
You thought we forgot this one huh? No list of black comedies would be complete without the Big Lebowski. If you haven’t seen it, a piece of your life is missing! Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski is the ultimate LA slacker, until one day his house is broken into and his rug is peed on by two angry gangsters who have mistaken him for Jeffrey Lebowski, the LA millionaire, whose wife owes some bad people some big money. The Dude becomes entangled in the plot when he goes to visit the real Lebowski in order to get some retribution for his soiled rug, and is recruited to be the liason between Lebowski and the captors of his now “kidnapped” wife.
This film really epitomizes the genre and therefore deserves to stand alone on this list. It is a perfect blend of all that makes a comedy dark and it definitely ranks in the top (maybe even equal with Fargo) of the work by the Coen Brothers.
Contributor: Shane Dayton
Two people did a scene from Fargo in my acting class =)
Very bad things is by far the best black comedy ever. I love this movie.
No Almodovar?!
No list of dark comedies is complete without him…
Dark comedies are an awesome genre.
Awesome list.
fully sick black adder
weekend at bernies?
Eating Raoul from 1982 is worth a look if you like black comedies. Good list, glad you had the bonus selection of The Big Lebowski.
Grosse Point Blank doesn’t crack a mention?
The Dude abides….
Great list….
Fargo and Royal Tennenbaums are personal faves. Dr. Strangelove…so much hidden comedy in that film.
I was so glad to see Harold and Maude on this list….one of my all time favorites…
when I read Black Comedy >> I thought of SOUL PLANE
haha
Me too John Soprano, he should’ve named it dark comedies.. black comedies just sounds weird.
What about M*A*S*H? That’s one of my all time favorites, although it’s a rather red than black comedy …
Wow wow !!!!
Ever heard of a movie called Brazil !!!!
You know… Terry Gilliam, torture, heating engineers, dictatorship, central services, terrorism, cosmetic surgery, necrophilia, insects in typewriters…
==> Hilarity… don’t you think ?
Retired guns on the list, g. At first I thought this would be about comedies with negroes as the main actors lol
Love the list!
This is a really interesting list, but how about these editions?
1. In Bruges starring Colin Farrell and Brendon Gleeson. Despite previous acting, Farrell is brilliant in this and i love the transformation between comedy and sadness
2. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with Elizabeth Taylor. This is the father of Black Comedy, one of the first!
Great list!
Igby Goes Down is a legend movie.
“Happiness.” One messed up black comedy. Brilliant.
“lock stock and 2 smoking barrels” anyone?
Good list! Totally agree with this.
Love the big lebowski..
thought you had forgotten it!
oh the royal tennenbaums is such a brilliant film.
great list
I have never understood why people like The Big Lebowski so much. The movie is terrible and not funny at all. Although I will agree that it is dark; just no humor.
Great list! I’ve just realized that dark comedies are probably my favorite genre. I’ve seen most of these movies and loved them. We watched Harold and Maude in my abnormal psych class. I loved it but it was quite funny to see some of my fellow classmates squirm. Good times.
Personally, I believe the Royal Tennenbaums is one of the worst movies I’ve seen. It is rare that I fall asleep during a movie…twice!
I’m really disappointed that Heathers wasn’t mentioned. Dark? You betcha! Suicide/murder, teenage bullying, date rape etc. Then you throw in the humor…
Veronica Sawyer: I just killed my best friend.
J.D.: And your worst enemy.
Veronica Sawyer: Same difference.
Dennis: I’m not belittleing the foodless fund, Peter, but we’re talking teen suicide, here. I mean ask Alison; the number one song in America today is Teenage Suicide, Don’t Do It by Big Fun. Jesus, man, Westerburg finally got one of these things and I’m not gonna blow it.
Peter: Great, so Heather gets the front page and I get crammed in by the Taco Bell coupon.
what about American psycho, one of the funniest film ever made.
Agreed the imagery of Christian Bale chasing those two Prostitutes with a chainsaw funny alone. Just the look on his face is Priceless
What about Man Bites Dog? That was probably the best dark comedy of all time!
This list is missing American Psycho and Rushmore.
Oh my! Where to begin? Black comedy has always been one of my favorite genres, and the first one I introduced to my kids was Harold & Maude. That got them hooked!
Of course Dr. Strangelove had to be included, as did most of the others.
I, too, Arnaud, was disappointed that Brazil wasn’t on the list but as list writer Shane Dayton noted, the list would have to run to 30 or more movies to include all of the truly “best” ones.
The original Bedazzled should be included, as should a movie no one here has probably ever seen, Hellzapopin (though that is more black-slapstick than black comedy).
This is a genre that one can look at one way one day, and a completely different way the next day.
Shane Dayton, thank you for the perfect morning pick-me-up! I’m sure I’ll be thinking of additional movies that fit the bill all day.
Another one that usually goes missed is the Last Supper. It has Ron Perlman and Cameron Diaz in it. A bunch of college friends decide to invite a guest to dinner once a week…and kill them. Funny stuff!
Heathers?
My God, Dr. Strangelove is such an overrated snob film. It’s supposed to be hilarious, but people can only quote one line (which has worn very thin, and you know which one I’m talking about), and people seem to forget that for the most part it’s incredibly boring.
crap, i thought i was going to get to see a list with Coming to America on it…
Too much focus on the Coen Brothers. They’re okay, but overrated. Fargo was a good film, not a great one, and they haven’t coughed up anything since that matches even that. “Blood Simple,” their first, is still one of their best… but is no comedy.
What about “Eating Raoul”? You missed that one, Shane.
And how about, for an offbeat choice, “Spider Baby”?
And nice to see “Harold and Maude” on here… but what about “MASH” and “Nashville”?
Ok, I’m going to take on the role of ‘snotty snobby film snob’ and put a plug in for ‘Bad Santa.’ IMHO, it’s one of the blackest comedies out there and completely slays everything about the Christmas season. For the uninitiated, Billy Bob Thorton is a petty crook who’s main score is shopping malls at Christmas where he dresses up as Santa along with his elf friend, and they rob the shopping mall blind at the end of the season. He’s drunk all the time even when the kids are on his lap and has a penchant for large women.
Some movies listed have some awesome quotable lines, Bad Santa is chock full of them. And the best part is it makes us examine the silly traditions of consumerism and kicks it in the privates. This movie was definitely worth a mention and I’m happy to do it.
When I saw Simon Pegg’s pic in # 5 I also thought of ‘Shaun of the Dead.’ I think a case could be made for “The Ref” with Denis Leary. And a film like “American Werewolf in London” certainly had all sorts of black comedy elements in it as well several Bruce Campbell movies – Evil Dead 1 & 2, Army of Darkness and my personal favorite, Bubba Ho-Tep.
Lot’s to choose from.
romerozombie, I can quote quite a number of lines from Dr. Strangelove. I’m a little puzzled by the phrase, ‘incredibly boring.’ Don’t you mean ‘incredibly written, shot, directed, acted and very entertaining’ ???
Omg, how did I forget Heathers? That was my favorite movie as a teenager. I used to quote that movie to the point that I even hated myself.
“Don’t be such a girl scout cookie.”
And good to see you posting again Randall. We missed you.
No Bucslim, no. It strikes me as one of those films people say they like just because it makes them look edgy and intellectual.
“No fighting in the war room!”
OH HA-BLOODY-HA.
Fargo has always been one of my all time favs. Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare are two wonderfully undrated actors. In my humble opinion they make the movie. Very bad things I saw on a whim, because there was nothing else at the movie store (that was when you still rented movies/dvds). I was so surprised by how funny and dark it really was. Great List, once again!!!
The Coen brothers are really the masters of the genre… anyone seen In Bruges? Now that is DARK…
“No Bucslim, no. It strikes me as one of those films people say they like just because it makes them look edgy and intellectual.”
I take it you haven’t seen the film then? Wow, your opinion is worth more than everyone else’s.
I’ve seen all of these except Big Nothing, but i’ve already added it to my netflix. I LOVE Four Rooms, and it never gets mentioned in anything.
I’m going to add Death To Smoochy as an honorable mention.
I would hasten to add ‘Swimming with Sharks’ with Kevin Spacey and ‘Trainspotting’. As far as the latter goes, never has the use of heroin and it’s consequences been funnier.
I’m curious though, as subjective as this genre of film is, if the individual watching is twisted to begin with, then ‘The Exorcist’ or ‘Silence of the Lambs’ might be a dark comedy to them. Just an observation.
OK romerozombie, I won’t try to convince you because I believe the very definition of ‘sense of humor’ is just that, a sense of what you find to be funny. It’s kinda involuntary. I’m not going to say my ribs hurt after I watched Strangelove, but I like it and think there are several hilarious moments and, like I said, I can quote several other lines than ‘no fighting in the war room.’
Cheeshygirl:
Thanks much. Just been very busy lately, between grading season, and writing an article for a magazine in collaboration with an ex-girlfriend (now on the back burner so she can focus on her knitting for the holidays… ahem) AND there hasn’t been all that much, lately, to actually comment on.
And Christmas shopping. That wonderous annual activity where I empty my bank account so that my kids can be steeped in materialism. Barnes & Noble alone now has $300 of my hard-earned cash.
Nice list. I hoped for “Lock, Stock, and two smoking barrels” but oh well.
By the way, if a list mentions an item as the best, it should be #1, not ‘bonus’! Isn’t that the whole point of a TOP 10?
romerozombie: I can relate a bit to your views of ‘Dr. Strangelove’. I remember years back, I had just seen a’A Clockwork Orange’ and went to a party afterwards. There were two guys there with a radio that had a picture of Alex and his droogs on it. Upon seeing it I mentioned offhand that I had just seen the movie and said simply, “Yeah, it was a good flick.”
They looked at me with a smirk and started ranting, saying crap like: “A good flick? Clockwork Orange ISN’T a flick. It’s an incredibly important piece of work that can only be appreciated because of it’s not so subtle nuances pointing to…. blah, blah, blah, and it makes an important statement about the evils of society, blah, blah, blah.”
Evantually, I walked away from these two pretentious *****s and got myself a drink…
It doesn't make any statements. It asks questions. There is no moral in Kubrick movies. There are just moral dilemmas that the audience decides for themselves. I think that you are giving it too little credit calling it "a good flick", but I think that they are giving it too much credit talking about the "statements" it makes, because it doesn't make statements, but instead holds up the mirror on a subject and lets you make the statement for it.
Gee, a pregnant police officer. I wonder what could go wrong?
Wonderful list! I’ve seen a few of these, now I have a new bunch to watch…
And I have to say, I did think you forgot The Big Lebowski! That movie rocks. My husband isn’t a fan of dark comedies, but he really liked that one.
gee no american psycho?! what a jip
randall: i had noticed your absence lately also. welcome back, friend.
but i have to disagree with you over the coen brothers. fargo, the big lebowski, raising arizona, o brother where art thou and no country for old men. while the last one doesnt fit this category, these are all examples of excellent movie making. one can disagree about how dark or comedic they are but to say that these aren’t good movies is quite the stretch.
especially since one of them one best picture.
oh yeah, i’ll join the crowd that was expecting to see soul plane, barber shop, friday and coming to america.
crap, *won best picture.
romerozombie & damien_karras:
While I have a higher opinion of “Dr. Strangelove” than romero, both of you make a good point.
There are a lot of people in this world who take film awfully seriously, intellectually embalming certain films as “important works of art” that should be treated with hushed reverance and spoken about only in the most rarified, artsy-vague terms to suggest to all within hearing range that A) they know all about “great art” and can recognize it better than you, and B) the more difficult to comprehend a film is, the less understandable for the masses, then the more it is surely a Great Work of Art.
Sure.
I met dozens of such pretentious lil’ pricks in film classes back in college (of course, they’re in literature classes as well, and art classes—but you expect them there). The funny thing is, film is nothing but ephemeral. It’s flickering images on celluloid. And while it can be beautiful and moving and all that, as an art form it’s at best severely hampered by the fact that no matter how intellectual, it’s still just commercial product. It’s almost never the vision of a single “artist” but is by its nature a media product designed and executed by committee (or a crowd). And we pay ten buck to go see it in a dark room in uncomfortable seats, munching popcorn. And no matter how artsy it is, right next to it as its bastard brothers are every cheesy old piece of trash flick ever made, or the latest dumb blockbuster or moronic action film. You can’t EVER forget that when you’re watching something that’s supposed to be “arty,” because either in the theater next door, or next on the bill, or in your DVD collection next to it at home is “Saw IV” or “Ernest Saves Christmas” or “Billy Madison.”
The entire film medium is like the middle class kid who grows up in a trailer park and thinks because he has a little schooling that he’s suddenly Noam Chomsky or Jorge Luis Borges and his ***** don’t stink. Meanwhile, back home he’s got a dozen brothers, some of whom are decent, hard working, halfway smart guys–but nothing special–and then some of whom are also lowlife morons without a job.
The oldest movie on the list is Dr. Strangelove. My personal favorite preceded Strangelove by about 20 years. Anyone out there remember Cary Grant and Raymond Massey in Arsenic and Old Lace? Brilliant!!
I love Choen’s movies, but I don’t like Lebowsky at all. Maybe it’s too american or I am too young to appreciate it, but aside some nice moments, the rest of the movie didn’t appeal me at all