Comedy is defined by its limits: no matter how broad a joke might be, it’ll never land for everyone. Likewise, choosing the best comedies on Netflix presented a challenge: for every Knocked Up fan, someone else will ask, “Where’s You’ve Got Mail?” And that’s the way it should be. After all, I had some of the same questions for Netflix: where are the 1930s screwball comedies? Not a single Mel Brooks film? Why so much Rob Schneider? And then I realized I was talking to my computer, and I felt very silly. So I went back to the task at hand, making this list as thorough and appealing as possible. Which is all to say: This Vogue list of the best comedies currently on Netflix will not be for everyone—much like a joke itself. But no matter who you are or where your tastes lie, if you’re looking for a laugh, there’s bound to be something here just for you.
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
“Slasher flick” was on no one’s bingo card when thinking of best comedies, but Bodies Bodies Bodies is too winning to leave out. The fun begins with a mostly unlikeable group of entitleds who gather for a hurricane party in a mansion, delighting in drugs, dance, and a murder mystery game that becomes all too real. This scary-but-not-too-scary film lavishes in the satire—of youth, privilege and our entire age—which director Halina Reijn draws from the material and her actors. They’re a beautiful and knowing bunch—including a scene-stealing Rachel Sennott, Chase Sui Wonders, Lee Pace, Amandla Stenberg, and Pete Davidson, who take obvious joy in sending up their own generation. Funny, mean, and delightful to the end, it’s a whodunnit in which everyone kills.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
It claimed the Oscar for Best Picture—and, also, the best dildo fight scene of 2022. The action comedy is able to play with such absurdities by having Michelle Yeoh—portraying a laundromat owner struggling with her business, depression, and her family—seek answers through an alternate universe. A fight scene choreographed around a sex toy is just one of many action-and-sci-fi-comedy tangents in which the film relishes as it sways and jolts through universes, relationships, and trials—both real and imagined. But the real journey here is in the performances, from Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan (Yeoh’s husband, who is serving her divorce papers), and Stephanie Hsu (who plays her estranged daughter), who ground this otherworldly familial farce in the bedrock of truth and heart.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)
First off, it’s important to say: this movie is batshit. It probably should not have been made. Will Ferrell as a romantic lead is…strange. It’s too long. It’s too weird. And then oddly self-serious. It’s a mess, but a glorious one. And not only is family-friendly, but well worth your two hours regardless. The tale of best friends Lars Erickssong (Ferrell) and Sigrit Ericksdóttir (Rachel McAdams), who hail from a tiny town in Iceland and dream of winning the Eurovision music competition, has everything you want in a comedy: adventures, Dickensian coincidences, contemporary pop, nods to ABBA, mythology, hope, success in the face of failure, and magical elves who kill a man by stabbing him in the back. Again: it’s a mess. But as far the best comedies on Netflix go, it’s hard to find one that will leave you feeling better. Also, not for nothing, the songs are really fun.
Long Shot (2019)
This film flew under the wire. And it’s too bad, because it’s very good. Journalist Fled Flarksky (Seth Rogen) is hired as a speechwriter by Secretary of State Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron), his former babysitter and crush. As the politician becomes more popular, the two become closer, and the fish-out-of-water story becomes a romance. This would all be par for the course—a ho-hum screwball throwback—if Rogen and Theron were not just so gosh darned charming. Their energy is kinetic and their chemistry a science experiment gone very, very right. The play feels real, the jokes land, and it’s impossible not to get on board as the two fumble, fight, flirt (and another f-word) their way into our hearts. A sleeper candidate, it will earn your vote.
Yesterday (2019)
The pop music version of the game, “What would you do if you had all the money in the world?”, Yesterday tells the story of Jack Malick, a struggling musician, who wakes up to discover that he’s the only person on earth who knew The Beatles existed. His subsequent journey from nobody to megastar—with some artistic grand larceny, well-meaning fraud, and just desserts along the way—is ripe with friendly humor, hapless victories, and all of your favorite songs.
Always Be My Maybe (2019)
Don’t you hate it when the girl you might like shows up with her new boyfriend, and it’s Keanu Reeves? This will-they-or-won’t-they reaches new heights of discomfort and deep belly laughs as Randall Park’s musician and Ali Wong’s celebrity chef negotiate what could have been. It’s one of the best comedies to deal with the bridges we build—and tear down—between our past lives and future loves. Oh, and there’s a song that goes “I punched Keanu Reeves in the face,” that is worth the price of admission itself.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Teen comedies have a special place, not just in the pop canon, but in all of our trapped, suffering, adolescent hearts—no matter our age. When the secret letters Lara has written to her high-school crushes are mistakenly sent out, she goes on a very PG journey to navigate the romantic waves she’s stirred up. Through the strengths of its performances, this movie—based on Jenny Han’s bestselling book—manages to key into the big feelings of lust, longing, loss, and self awareness that make the adolescent years so perpetually high-stakes and unforgettable.
Paddington (2014)
Let me get this straight: you don’t absolutely love a charming, polite, hapless bear from Darkest Peru who finds adventures and family in London? And, did I mention that he’s adorable, well intended, has great manners, an excellent work ethic, a yen for marmalade, and impeccable fashion sense? Are you a monster? What are you even doing here? Maybe rethink some things. And yes, we all know, Paddington 2 is superior. But Netflix doesn’t have it. When life gives you lemons, you make marmalade. And this marmalade is delicious.
Frances Ha (2012)
“I like things that look like mistakes,” says Frances. Does she ever—and we’re happy to come along. The collaboration that brought us Barbie—Greta Gerwig and her partner Noah Baumbach—first raised its critically lauded head with this movie about a 27-year-old dancer (Gerwig) experiencing a full-on quarter life crisis. The laughs arrive with Frances’ flailing—her sharp yet blasé reactions to a best friend moving out and on; her fledgling dance career; and her increasingly precarious finances that impart 20-something anxieties—with honesty, relatable humor, and the occasional good natured groan.
Knocked Up (2007)
Director Judd Apatow and actor Seth Rogen have been having their own bromance since Freaks and Geeks in the late 1990s, and Knocked Up—which lands somewhere between a romcom and a coming of age film—epitomizes their Hollywood union. While the film centers around a schlumpy, unemployed stoner (Rogen)—who mistakenly impregnates a gorgeous, together, TV producer (Katherine Heigl)—the biggest laughs come from the supporting cast. Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd are especially on fire with their respective disapproving snide and glorious slacker affect—both of which hit the mark perfectly.
Happy Gilmore (1996)
Adam Sandler is at his absolute best as an overly aggressive and unskilled hockey player who discovers a talent for golf and joins the PGA in hopes of saving his grandmother’s home. There are countless quotable lines and moments in Happy Gilmore, but they all come back to the likeability and warmth Sandler injects into his character–so much so that you almost feel badly when Bob Barker is beating him to a pulp. But not quite–it’s one the more hilarious savagings in Hollywood history.
She’s Gotta Have It (2017)
Spike Lee’s take on a romcom came about about a decade before Sex and the City (the series) and delivered a far more mature, thoughtful, and empowered take on the modern experience of a single woman. Nola, an attractive Brooklyn artist, is dating three men who eventually begin to pressure her to make a choice between them. When that choice arrives, and how Lee depicts it, makes this comedy as startlingly original as it is progressive.
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
The 1980s saw a burst of action comedy films, and Beverly Hills Cop outdoes them all, due to Eddy Murphy’s ability to absolutely deliver. It’s first solo lead role: Axel Foley, a Detroit cop who doesn’t play by the rules and follows the case of his friend’s murder to the gilded boulevards of Beverly Hills. It is difficult to explain to younger generations just how big a star Eddie Murphy was in the early 1980s; the math is funky, but multiply Timothée Chalamet by Donald Glover and John Mulaney and you are not even close. This film shows us why, as Murphy’s charm, wit, and delivery not only keep you enthralled, but prove that he’s one of the best to ever do it.
Annie
A good, clean, old-fashioned, Depression-era orphan comedy. Based on the Broadway musical of the same name (where Sarah Jessica Parker got her start), which was in turn based on the Little Orphan Annie comic strip, this film is an absolute classic for a reason. First, there are the performances—from Carol Burnett, Tim Curry, Albert Finney, Bernadette Peters—corralled by legendary director John Huston into one of the great ensembles. And then there is the plot, about a plucky orphan who charms, outfoxes, and outdoes the adults whose world she occupies. And finally, the songs: the unforgettable, inspiring, numbers by Charles Strouse and by Martin Charnin that have helped shape pop culture (and one memorable Jay-Z track) for generations. If all of this isn’t getting you excited to watch, I’m really not sure what else to say. Maybe just, “The sun will come out tomorrow!”