Comedy movies

Comedy is the hardest genre to recommend blind, because humour depends on tone, timing and culture. The films worth your evening usually combine a clear comic premise with a cast that can improvise inside it.

Read the tagline and the cast. Improvisers and stage performers tend to deliver loose, quotable comedies. Tightly scripted farces live or die on pacing, so check the runtime.

Where to start: If you are unsure, pick the shortest film. A comedy that finishes before the joke runs out is almost always the better evening.