Goodbye, 2023.
Gotta hand it to you, you were a good year for laughs at the cineplex (and Roku Cities).
Case in point: it’s very possible that five of the ten Best Picture nominees in 2024 have comedic elements. Respected auteurs dropped funny, stylish, daring films. R-rated raunchfests made a comeback. Hell, many franchises (probably too many) got sequels and/or reboots.
Plus, the world was gifted Beau Is Afraid. I love that movie.
Overall, there were 196 (!) feature films with “comedy” listed as one of their genres that had some form of theatrical, streaming or online release in the US or internationally over the past 12 months (based on my findings).
In 2022, I counted only 124 feature-length funny flicks.
To be fair, I was way more diligent with my research this time around knowing I’d be making a list and found so, so, so many DIY, micro-budget indies — in fact, some were made years and years ago but didn’t see the light of day until 2023 — that I didn’t even think to track down last January.
What were the takeaways from my research?
Well, to state the obvious, Barbie certainly proved that a capital C, laugh out loud, funny comedy with heart and a message can still drive audiences to theaters in droves. Sure, it doesn’t hurt that Greta Gerwig’s sharp satire’s boffo box office bona fides was packaged as a theatergoing cultural event alongside Oppenheimer. Yet, as a film, GreGer (what I call Greta Gerwig) created something truly special. I’d call this the rare four-quadrant crowd pleaser/accessible for all ages/critical darling/smash hit home run picture. Movies like this are few and far between in a post-streaming world so we need to savor them when we can.
(Full disclosure: I watched Barbie on a plane, heh heh).
Another major lesson I gathered from 2023 was that the trend where comedies are Trojan-horsed into theaters as hybrid films, marched on. I’m talking about your Christmas coms (seven), horror coms (there were 11 by my estimation) and rom coms (a whopping 18), among many, many other crowded subgenres. In fact, my list is made up of 40 different categories.
The way I see it, people want to laugh but crave traditional storytelling, too.
As for box office receipts, while Barbie was an indisputable runaway success story (as were pseudo comedy hybrids like Super Mario Bros., Spider-Man Across The Spiderverse and Guardians of the Galaxy), comedies aren’t really a sure thing financially. They haven’t been for years. Truth be told, no movie is. From my perspective, the best way to look at comedy filmmaking (and all creative pursuits) is this — it’s nice that people are still putting their hearts and souls into making new works. Even if there’s no promise of monetary gain, folks are plugging away for the love of the game. And I respect that.
So, with all that being said, I’d like to pay my respect to all the writers, directors, actors, editors and crew members — yes, even the team behind PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie.
What you’ll find below is all 196 comedy movies released in 2023 separated into subcategories so you can pick and choose the genres within the genre you like.
I hope you discover something you love, fellow comedy film nerds.
I know I did.
Note: my favorite movie of the year, the endlessly inventive 40-minute The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar directed by Wes Anderson isn’t on the list because it wasn’t a feature.
Note pt. 2: Quite a few of these films could (and should) be featured under a handful of subcategories listed below. To keep things simple, I made sure not to double up on movies’ labels (for example, Murder Mystery 2 is a sequel AND a whodunnit but only listed as a sequel) so this list didn’t get too messy.
Note pt. 3: I haven’t seen all these movies (yet). If they’ve been miscategorized, please feel free to let me know.
Also, if I missed a flick, fill me in. I’m always on the lookout for more stuff.
Likely Oscar contenders
Barbie
May December
The Holdovers
American Fiction
Poor Things
Prestige-y, artsy “indie” comedy
Blackberry
Asteroid City
Dad and Step Dad
The Adults
They Cloned Tyrone
Rye Lane
The rise of smart Gen Z comedy
Theater Camp
Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain
Bottoms
Joy Ride
The Sweet East
Ambitious A24 comedies
Dicks: The Musical
You Hurt My Feelings
Beau Is Afraid
Dream Scenario
When You Finish Saving The World
Showing Up
R-rated raunchy comedy
No Hard Feelings
Cocaine Bear
Dumb Money
Strays
Anyone But You
Mafia Mamma
Back On The Strip
The Re-education of Molly Singer
Totally cool animated superhero pictures with laughs
Spider Man: Across The Universe
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Nimona
Under the radar bangers that don’t really fit in anywhere else
I Like Movies
Sick Girl
Polite Society
Go West
The Persian Version
What Doesn’t Float
Big-time stand ups taking a stab at writing and directing
Somewhere In Queens (dir. Ray Romano)
Old Dads (dir. Bill Burr)
About My Father (dir. Sebastian Maniscalco)
The Machine (dir. Bert Kreischer)
Road Dog (dir. Doug Stanhope)
Sitcom and film stars taking a stab at writing and directing
Fool’s Paradise (dir. Charlie Day)
Shortcomings (dir. Randall Park)
Good Grief (dir. Dan Levy)
What Happens Later (dir. Meg Ryan)
Action comedy with unlikely heroes
Dungeons and Dragons
Wingwomen
The Retirement Plan
Head to Head
Sports comedy
Air
Next Goal Wins
Champions
Chang Can Dunk
The last gasp of funny superhero movies (maybe)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Shazam Fury of the Gods
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Mid comedies that landed on streamers but likely would have done decent business theatrically 10 years ago
The Beanie Bubble
Shotgun Wedding
Flamin’ Hot
Genie
Maggie Moore(s)
Miguel Wants To Fight
Quasi
You People
Quiz Lady
The Out-Laws
Ghosted
The Drop
Corner Office
Freelance
Smart, solid flicks for tweens that have long titles
Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret
You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah
Landscape with Invisible Hand
Documentaries about famous comics
Defending My Life
Headliners Only
Jackie Martling: Joke Man
Clever, inventive documentaries
Pinball: The Man Who Saved The Game
My Friend Tommy
Gentle on scares horror comedy
The Blackening
MEGAN
Totally Killer
Bad CGI Gator
The Kill Room
Don’t Suck
It’s A Wonderful Knife
We Have A Ghost
Renfield
Helen’s Dead
Project Z
Rom coms
Your Place Or Mine
Somebody I Used To Know
Fallen Leaves
Red White And Royal Blue
Beautiful Disaster
The List
Choose Love
Hashtag Proposal
Love Virtually
Chick Flick
Prom Pact
Puppy Love
The Other Zoey
Asian Persuasion
The Marry Me Pact
Match Me If You Can
Maybe I Do
Zoe’s Having A Baby
Queasy thrillers with comedic elements
Saltburn
Cat Person
Give Me Pity
Rotting In The Sun
Down Low
Sci-Fi yuks
Share?
Biosphere
Relax, I’m From The Future
The Pod Generation
Jules
Robots
Wacked out, balls to the wall crazy comedy
Adventures of the Naked Umbrella
Showdown at the Grand
Sequels and reboots
Chicken Run 2
Murder Mystery 2
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
Scream VI
Wonka
Mr. Monk’s Last Case
House Party
Good Burger 2
Book Club: The Next Chapter
Vacation Friends 2
White Men Can’t Jump
Haunted Mansion
Buddy Games: Spring Awakening
For the kiddies
The Super Mario Bros Movie
Elemental
Leo
Under The Boardwalk
Trolls
Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever
Paw Patrol: Unleash The Powers
Feel good Christmas pictures
Candy Cane Lane
How The Gringo Stole Christmas
Merry Little Batman
The Naughty Nine
Christmas with Jerks
Best Christmas Ever
Merry Good Enough
Underseen ensemble pictures featuring familiar character actors
Maximum Truth (featuring Ike Barinhotlz, Mark Proksch, Kiernan Shipka, Dylan O’Brien)
She Came To Me (featuring Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman, Marisa Tomei)
The Donor Party (featuring Malin Akerman, Erinn Hayes, Rob Corddry, Jerry O’Connell)
Linoleum (featuring Jim Gaffigan, Rhea Seehorn, Tony Shalhoub, Michael Ian Black)
Fourth Grade (featuring Mena Suvari, William Baldwin, Teri Polo)
The Plus One (featuring Ashanti, Cedric The Entertainer)
Dramedies that are pretty close to dramas but their synopses say otherwise
Wildflower
Relative
Sitting In Bars With Cake
Flora and Son
Stylish, smart quirkfests
Amanda
The Year Between
Little Jar
Throwback to a different time period pix
Stony Island
Millennium Bugs
Family comedies with the world “Family” in the title
The Family Plan
The Family Switch
For the older crowd
iMordecai
My Happy Ending
80 For Brady
Moving On
Two Tickets to Greece
Daughter of the Bride
Pandemic period pieces
Who Invited Charlie
Life Upside Down
Intimate character study
Paint
Better Days
Based on a true story
Bank Of Dave
Radical
Adopting a baby story
Unexpected
Boisterous whodunnits
The Sixth Reel
Hayseed
Movies about stand-up
That’s Funny
Camp comedy that takes place at camp
Camp Hideout
Shaggy dog comedies
Dogleg
Vegan propaganda disguised as a comedy film
Coffee Wars
Time travel
One More Time
Still here? I knew it. I always stay for the end of the credits, too.
Anyway, If you’ve stuck around this long, I wanted to let you know that the best part of this list is that each and every one of these movies has a trailer available to watch on YouTube.
If you’re curious about any of these flicks, you can get a taste right now.
OK, that’s everything. Keep it real, cinephiles.
