Comedies, Standout Films across the Decades
10 comedies to see and see again
My mother-in-law recently asked her movie maven son-in-law to suggest some films that she should watch. This 89-year-old does not hanker to keep up with the movie scene. She’s not a big movie watcher, but she wishes there were more movies that she would enjoy.
She specifically asked for comedies. She wishes there were more movies that she would have fun watching. Romantic comedies is a natural if not explicit way to shape this request.
The list below is not narrowly targeted at older people or people specifically yearning for an alternative to what seems to be the bombast and other extremes that dominate.
Intentionally, this list leaves out movies that push clearly beyond the (nebulous) realm of “family films.” That said, there is a certain edginess and pitch to each of these movies that helps assure their quality and durability. I confess, most of these tend toward screwball twists and turns without cutting out intelligence from the storytelling.
Also intentional, these ten films fairly evenly span eight decades of movie making.
Top ten lists abound. This lays no claim to being a top ten list, although some on this list belong in such discussions.
- Calendar Girls (‘03, Helen Mirren, Julie Waters)
- Mrs. Doubtfire (‘93, Robin Williams, Sally Field)
- Moonstruck (‘87, Cher, Nicolas Cage)
- Tootsie (‘82, Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange)
- What’s Up Doc (‘72, Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal)
- The Odd Couple (‘68, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau)
- Singing in the Rain (‘52, Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds)
- Arsenic and Old Lace (‘44, Cary Grant, Josephine Hull, Raymond Massey)
- Philadelphia Story (‘40, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart)
- It Happened One Night (‘34, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert)
It’s a good list — yes it is — with no presumption of being a definitive list; but, OK, you tell me a film you think should be on this list and what film should be bumped off.
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