The Funniest Films & Performances of the Year
Friday, January 2, 2015 at 6:00PM Two year in review lists per day for a few more days... Here's Michael to look back at the year in laughs
That was a tough year for good comedies that weren’t animated or special effects blockbusters. By my count only 7 of the box office top 50 were live action comedies (depending on whether or not you count Gone Girl) and of those all but Neighbors were immediately disposable. So if you want to find good comedy without animated toys or talking raccoons you had to look to the margins. In fact, the film that sits on the top of my list of list of 2014’s funniest is currently ranked 157th for the box office year.
Also interesting is how few of 2014's funniest came billed as pure comedies. Aside from the animated and sci-fi extravaganzas the laughs arrived smuggled in such genres as horror/thriller (The Guest) mystery (Gone Girl) and drama-fantasy hybrid whatchamatcallits (Birdman).
So here are 2014's funniest movies, keeping in mind that this isn’t based on overall quality, but is ranked solely by which films most tipped the needle on the Laugh-O-Meter:
10. Land Ho!
This modest comedy by Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens, is a lot more perceptive and witty than its “old guys are cute and funny” premise would suggest. Which is not to say Land Ho! doesn’t get a lot of mileage out of the indisputable fact that old guys are cute and funny.
9. We Are the Best!
Lukas Moodysson’s gentle film about adolescence and minor teenage rebellion makes this list not by delivering huge comedic set pieces but by accumulating a steady stream of small laughs of recognition.
8. Force Majeure
Östlund's film dissects the male ego with surgical precision, but it still manages keep us laughing even as we cringe for the poor dope whose image as a manly protector is blown to smithereens in a matter of seconds.
7. Gone Girl
Fincher’s movie is destined to be one of those titles like Goodfellas, a film that appeared at first to be utterly serious, but which upon reflection reveals itself to be primarily a black comedy.
You two are the most fucked-up people I have ever met, and I specialize in fucked-up people.”
6. Guardians of the Galaxy
James Gunn’s film won 2014 by jettisoning the portentous gloom that has settled over comic book films over the last decade and embracing the genre’s essential goofiness.
5. Birdman
Few things are funnier than characters that take themselves very, very seriously, so there is a wealth of laughs in Michael Keaton’s flailing attempts to win artistic respectability.
4. The Guest
Adam Wingard already managed one slyly funny horror comedy with You’re Next but he brought the house down with his follow up movie. The Guest wins explosive laughs not just for going dark but for going dark with such gleeful audacity.
3. Neighbors
Seth Rogen’s amiable riffing got a boost from ditching his usual cohorts in favor winning star turns from Zac Efron and Rose Byrne. The funniest straightforward comedy of the year.
2. The Grand Budapest Hotel
How many other films manage such big laughs with only the precision of its dialogue? Like Willem Dafoe nonchalantly tossing a cat out of a window, Anderson’s film is perpetually doing the most outlandish things while maintaining a wicked deadpan.
01. Obvious Child
Funniest Film of the Year. The down on her luck, unlucky in love heroine is a staple of rom-coms but rarely is it done with a fraction of the heart, truth, and raucous humor of writer/director Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child. And seldom is the leading lady as lively and loveable as Jenny Slate’s Donna Stern. Even as her life is in shambles the funny just pours out of her, scoring big laughs in scene after scene. (Bonus points for being the rare film to portray stand up comedy realistically.)
Runners Up: Pride, Top Five, Big Hero 6, Snowpiercer, Only Lovers Left Alive, The Lego Movie, Dear White People, parts of Inherent Vice
Funniest Leading Man
Ralph Fiennes’ M. Gustave is a comic creation for the ages.
Runners Up: Chris Pratt in Guardians, Dan Stevens in The Guest, Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice, Michael Keaton in Birdman, Earl Lynn Nelson in Land Ho!
Funniest Leading Lady
Jenny Slate, no contest.
Runners Up: Rose Byrne in Neighbors, the girls of We Are The Best!, Keira Knightley has her moments in Laggies
Funniest Supporting Performance
I can’t bring myself to choose between Jillian Bell’s movie-rescuing craziness in 22 Jump Street and Mia Wasikowska’s show-stopping brattiness in Only Lovers Left Alive so I’m declaring a tie.
Runners Up: Alison Pill in Snowpiercer, Tyler Perry in Gone Girl, Tyler James Williams in Dear White People, Josh Brolin & Martin Short in Inherent Vice, and Craig “Assjuice” Roberts in Neighbors
The Ed Wood Award for Unintentional Comedy
So few films that come billed as “so bad they’re funny” actually deliver the goods. But Akiva Goldsman’s A Winter’s Tale is a gloriously bonkers exception. It’s story of flying horses, magic wishes, and Will Smith’s sewer dwelling Satan plays as if it was adapted by translating the source novel first into Chinese then back into English by two different teams of translators, none of whom knew the whole story. It deserves, nee demands, to be viewed by enthusiastic groups of intoxicated friends.
The Wheezy Joe Memorial Award for the year’s biggest single laugh
Grand Budapest Hotel’s “Holy Shit, you got him!” is, I think, the clear winner.
Best Comic Timing
From early in Boxtrolls everyone knows where Archibald Snatcher’s self-destructive love of cheese is headed. The filmmakers patiently wait until juuuuuuuust the right moment to spring the punchline and then, well, you just have to see for yourself.
Should’ve Been Funnier
David Wain’s rom-com spoof We Came Together reassembled much of the Wet Hot American Summer crew and starred comedic heavyweights Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd. The result was fitfully amusing but nowhere near what one would hope from the talent assembled.
Diminishing Returns
The teams from The Muppets Most Wanted, The Trip To Italy, and 22 Jump Street couldn’t extend the heat of their previous films in sequels. Elsewhere, the reliably funny Melissa McCarthy found her shtick wearing thin in Tammy, while Woody Allen had one of his offest off years to date with Magic in the Moonlight
Squirmiest laughs
I would’ve laughed more at Nightcrawler’s disturbing weirdness but I was afraid the rest of the audience would think there was something wrong with me
Biggest Waste of a Funny Premise
Let’s Be Cops. It is an unviolable rule of screenwriting that whenever the Russian mob shows up it means the film is totally out of ideas. What could have been an incredibly timely look at the police turned out to be fodder for the bargain bins
Funniest scene in a serious movie
Skeleton Twins turned out to be more sad than funny but there is no denying the brilliance of Wiig and Hader’s Starship lip synch.
Runners up: Uma Thurman and The Whoring Bed in Nymphomaniac and Rosewater’s Gael Garcia Bernal’s turning the tables on his torturer by spinning tales of the mythical massage parlors of Fort Lee, New Jersey
Funniest line reading in an otherwise terrible film
Angelina Jolie’s hilariously clipped “I Hate You.” is a tiny oasis in the CGI wasteland that was Maleficent.
Funniest Animal
It may be cheating to give this one to Rocket Raccoon over other animals who didn’t benefit from Bradley Cooper’s voiceover, but there it is
Funniest Mom Jokes
Everyone talks about how moving Patricia Arquette’s work in Boyhood is, but one of its under-reported strengths is just how funny she can be:
I'm gently pushing you out of the nest and on your way down you may magically find some quarters that you use to do laundry in your own apartment. “
Funniest Imaginary Friend
Couldn’t we all use a Birdman hovering over our shoulder, giving us shit about our job, encouraging our worst instincts? OK, maybe not, but it would be pretty funny.
Funniest Animated Character
The LEGO Movie's emo Batman
So what busted your gut in 2014? Anything hilarious that I overlooked?
Reader Comments (23)
Wonderful choices! I would like to nominate the gooseberry / Ruskin scene from MR. TURNER for most delightfully snarky scene in an otherwise very somber film.
"Mr. Turner" has quite a few laughs, actually. Spall is often very funny, his beautifully timed grunts and growls the source of much humor.
"The Imitation Game" is quite funny, too, despite its tragedy. Lots of fun dialogue and rapport.
My favorite funny scene from "Force Majeure" is the flirtation faux pas, all captured in one shot as the guys drink their beers.
My top three movies of the year had me roaring with laughter: Pride, Birdman and the Lego Movie. Even Boyhood, my #4, is borderline Comedy. Those are the films I'll be rewatching most often from 2014. Come to think of it, those and Begin Again are the only ones I think I've seen multiple times.
Nathaniel R,
I can't believe how highly you think of Wasikowska in "Only Lovers Left Alive." She tipped that character's annoyingness way past anything palatable. That whole character was such a lazy choice on Jarmusch's part to cause trouble for these two brilliant characters. Why couldn't we just have more Swinton and Hiddleston?
Nathaniel R,
And you don't consider Swinton in Snowpiercer a comedic performance?
Still my pick for best supporting actress performance of the year.
Force Majeure was hilarious. Also, Gone Girl is pretty much a very dark version of America's Sweethearts. lol
I love Emily Watson's line about "joining the church choir" in Theory. It just comes out of no where and yet makes perfect sense for Jane's mother.
This is most definitely the wrong site to state this, but I found a lot of Whiplash hilarious. What spews from J.K. Simmons mouth is wretched but hilarious non-the-less, and the whole film was such an intense ride it had me laughing frequently in terror and exhilaration the same way a roller coaster can.
Nat u gave me comment de jour for the 3rd time in my 12 yrs visiting here,thanks.
Wild Tales should be on the top 10 for sure. Otherwise - great choices.
A great list, Michael. I would add St. Vincent, a dogeared blueprint that worked due to Murray and McCarthy's comedic honesty. And the kid was hilarious.
Happy New Year!
Michael C,
Oops. My comments are directed at you... Didn't quite catch it wasn't Nathaniel R posting.
"This is most definitely the wrong site to state this..." Why? I felt the same way for the most part.
'Agony' from Into the Woods was hilarious. I also laughed really hard at the scene in Guardians of the Galaxy after they rescued Peter from that one blue guy and hatched their plan to steal the MacGuffin whatever before it destroyed the universe or something (don't care). I laughed so hard, and I had just had oral surgery and it hurt when I laughed so I wished I could stop.
What, no love for Mrs. Brown's Boys D'Movie?
Wild Tales' final section led by Erica Rivas is the loudest I laughed at the movies in 2014. Holy crap. Talk about having no foibles in going there.
Of the art house films where I've laughed: Force Majeure and Nymphomaniac. Charlotte and Skarsgard as Joe and Seligman are simultaneously role-shifting as the angel and devil on Lars von Trier's shoulders.
All of the Boyhood scenes that involved Ethan Hawke really maximized on comic effect. Such as the earlier rapport between Mason Sr. and Samantha in the car.
The kindergarten scene in Snowpiercer is a scene for the ages. Holy crap.
Of course I laughed heartily through Gone Girl. Fincher most certainly knew what kind of movie he was making.
Justin - That's a good call about Mr. Turner. Mike Leigh always manages to work in a little humor, even to his most serious films.
Rene - Ha. No worries. Happens all the time.
Couldn't disagree more about Wasikowska (obviously). The film really clicked for me when I realized how much older Swinton was than Hiddleston's character, so each represented a different stage in vampire maturity. Tilda the sensible adult, Tom the moody teen and Mia the bratty child. In that context I thought her performance was perfect.
Also, I loved Tilda in Snowpierecer. She is one of the prime reasons I listed it as a runner up to top 10. But supporting performance category was pretty packed and I couldn't live with myself if I left off Alison Pill. I probably shoulda threw in Tilda too, now that I think about it.
Rebecca - Agony. Yes! Great call. If I had added a funniest musical moment that would have been the clear choice. (I had to force myself to stop adding awards at some point or I could easily make the article 5000 words long)
Brookesboy - Thanks! St. Vincent didn't really do it for me, (see my review) but I get the choice. McCarthy was the one who actually made me laugh the most in that film, more than Murray and the kid. She is a terrific straight person
CMG - Still haven't seen Wild Tales look for it in the 2015 comedy wrap up (along with Julianne Moore in Map to the Stars)
Marcello - I completely get how Simmons gets laughs just from the shock factor of how completely awful he can be. LIke I said on Birdman, whenever characters take themselves too seriously they are on the edge of comedy. Did any two characters in 2014 take themselves more seriously than the two leads of Whiplash?
Reese Witherspoon's early duet with her overstuffed backpack in WILD was by far the funniest couple of minutes on film I saw all year.
Except for nearly everything in OBVIOUS CHILD, of course.
"Did any two characters in 2014 take themselves more seriously than the two leads of Whiplash?"
Well, the three characters played by Jakey in Enemy and Nightcrawler, and the two leads in Foxcatcher. ;-)
"The Wheezy Joe Memorial Award for the year’s biggest single laugh" is the greatest name for an award EVER. Although, much as I LOVE that moment in Grand Budapest, I would have given it to "Where are my lesbians?" from Pride. Or possibly the moment when they blow up Wonder Woman's Invisible Jet in The Lego Movie.
I think I laughed more at Metal Beard breaking into Judy's version of "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm" than anything else in The Lego Movie. Too much.
Neighbours was excellent film