Image via A24
Published Jul 29, 2026, 8:20 AM EDT
Writing from the Chicagoland area in Illinois, Robert is an avid movie watcher and will take just about any excuse to find time to go to his local movie theaters. Robert graduated from Bradley University with degrees in Journalism and Game Design with a minor in Film Studies. Robert tries his best to keep up with all the latest movie releases, from those released in theaters to those released on streaming. While he doesn't always keep up with the latest TV shows, he makes it a goal to watch nearly every major new release possible. He has been honing his craft and following any and all movie news all his life, leading up to now, where he has a vast knowledge of film and film history. He also logs every movie that he watches on his Letterboxd page, and has hosted a weekly online movie night with his closest friends for over 6 years.
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No matter what changes and trends arise in the filmmaking business, the inherent joy and laughter of comedy filmmaking will always make it one of the most versatile and impactful genres. Each era of filmmaking has its own standout examples of amazing comedy experiences, and the 2020s have been no different, with great films like Barbie and Everything Everywhere All at Once. Even with the year not being over, 2026 has largely continued this trend of great comedy filmmaking, ranging from personality-fueled low-budget indies to massive blockbusters.
What should be stated is that this list largely focuses on films that are squarely comedy experiences above all else, as opposed to a film like Project Hail Mary that, while undeniably great and hilarious, is a sci-fi adventure film first and a comedy second. Still, 2026 has a great selection of comedy offerings even beyond what is listed here, as what makes for a hilarious fun time at the movies varies greatly from person to person. Especially with more great comedy offerings on the horizon, this is only the beginning of great comedy films from this year.
8 'Pizza Movie'
Image via HuluActing as a glorious over-the-top love letter to stoner movies and college coming-of-age movies of yesteryear, Pizza Movie is a surprisingly endearing and hilarious comedy experience. It speaks to the manic absurdity and chaos of Gen Z humor better than many other modern comedies could hope to achieve, with the raw unpredictability and chaos of its premise and jokes making it an absolute blast tailored to watch with a group of friends.
The film follows a duo of college students (Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone) who, after accidentally getting insanely high on a homemade drug, must go on a journey to the bottom floor of their dorm to collect pizza so that the high doesn't destroy their minds. It's exceptionally self-aware of just how absurd and idiotic its central premise is, leaning into the chaos of it all to create a highly memorable experience and something that will easily be considered a cult classic of the future.
7 'Hoppers'
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion PicturesPixar has a deeper history of creating some of the absolute best animated comedy movies ever made, yet Hoppers, even among Pixar's legendary catalog, proves to be their funniest movie in years. This goofy movie about interacting with the animal kingdom through the body of a robotic beaver soars thanks to its overwhelming sense of charm and nonsensical comedy. A lot of the charm can be traced back to the style of director Daniel Chong (previously known for his work as the creator of We Bare Bears) and writer Jesse Andrews (previously co-wrote Pixar's Luca).
The duo employs a style of wild, high-energy comedy that feels distinctly different from every other Pixar movie yet still overwhelming with the studio's signature finesse and animation quality. The film goes to absolute extremes with its premise and is a genuine delight from beginning to end, easily standing as one of Pixar's best modern films thanks greatly to its charm and comedic wit.
6 'Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass'
Image via Sundance Film FestivalDavid Wain is a comedy director whose signature manic absurdist comedy has given him a cult following over the years, as films like Wet Hot American Summer and They Came Together grow more appreciated and celebrated with each passing year. Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass follows a similar level of chaos, as Wain's first movie in 8 years, as a hilarious riff on The Wizard of Oz. The film sees the titular Gail Daughtry on a journey across LA after her fiancé used his 'celebrity sex pass' to cheat on her, forcing her to have sex with her own 'celebrity sex pass', Jon Hamm, to even the score and save her marriage.
The film proves to be just as absurd as its premise makes it out to be, constantly one-upping itself in terms of strange bits with a joke-per-minute ratio that rivals even the very best parody movies out there. While the film had a severely limited box-office run, it's the type of film that seems destined to have a dominant presence in the world of streaming, destined to have its best moments shared on social media as one of Wain's best movies.
5 'The Drama'
Image via A24Easily the year's most prominent example of a raw, awkward comedy that proves so uncomfortable it forces the audience to laugh, The Drama revels in the shocking nature of its concepts and the painful reactions of its characters. The film sees Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a happily engaged couple whose relationship is caught in a rift after some shocking truths from the past are revealed, putting everything into worry and creating a spiral of madness and chaos.
The Drama is certainly not a comedy experience for everyone, as it's rather unrestrained in terms of how much it commits to its distinct style of cringe comedy. However, when the comedy does land, The Drama proves to have some of the absolute best comedic beats of the year so far, which, when combined with a memorable central story and some standout performances, makes for easily one of the year's standout indie experiences so far.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?
Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
FIND YOUR FILM →
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.
ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?
AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.
AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.
REVEAL MY FILM →
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
4 'I Love Boosters'
Image via NEONThe colorful filmmaking style and striking political messaging of Boots Riley's feature debut, Sorry to Bother You, easily made him one of the biggest must-watch filmmakers of the modern era, with many people waiting for what type of wild, unrestrained madness he would create next. His newest film, I Love Boosters, employs a similar mixture of flying colors and dynamic class consciousness that makes his style of comedy so effective for the modern age.
What starts as a story of inventive shoplifting with the goal of reintroducing fashion to the community at a lower price quickly spirals into a story of corruption and aggressive defiance against the institutional figureheads that continuously tear down the common worker. Riley's infectious style of filmmaking is on full display in the film, with it constantly making memorable creative choices with beautiful visuals, top-notch costumes, and hilarious comedy throughout. The film absolutely has what it takes to become a modern-day classic and is easily the type of film that will garner a dedicated cult following, much like Sorry to Bother You before it.
3 'The Sheep Detectives'
Image via Amazon MGM StudiosThe Sheep Detectives is a goofy little family whodunnit movie about a group of sheep working together to solve a murder mystery written by the creator of HBO's Chernobyl, Craig Mazin. While this type of family movie could easily be mistaken for middling bottom-of-the-barrel slop, The Sheep Detectives is overwhelming with charm and whimsy that makes it what could easily be considered one of the best family movies of the 2020s.
Through its effective comedy, surprisingly poignant reflections upon mature topics like death and memory, and an array of incredibly cute sheep, the film is easily one of the year's biggest surprises and a joyous romp from beginning to end. It's easy to see the film amassing a legacy and reputation similar to that of the Paddington films, with their emphasis on kindness and sickly sweet charm making them some of the most beautifully crafted family comedies of the 21st century.
2 'Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie'
Image via NEONNirvanna the Band the Show the Movie seamlessly brings all the charm and craft of the cult classic television series to the big screen, making for a hilarious, unrestrained comedy experience that can still be massively enjoyed even by those not familiar with the series. The film sees the titular band duo Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol on yet another wild plan to book a show at the Rivoli, with their plan going so haywire that they end up accidentally traveling back in time to the year 2008.
This goofy Back to the Future parody has all the hallmarks of a modern-day cult classic, with its greatest strength easily being just how exceptionally impressive its execution and comedic timing are. Not only is the dialogue on point and always landing with the audience, but so many sequences prove to be so impressive in their stature that it baffles the mind exactly how they accomplished it. Scenes like Matt and Jay jumping off the CN Tower or stretching a cable across the entire city are at the heart of exactly why comedy movies are so beautiful to experience.
1 'The Invite'
Image via SundanceOlivia Wilde's standout Sundance smash hit The Invite harkens back to a more seamless, classic era of comedy filmmaking, easily finding inspiration from the works of Mike Nichols and Woody Allen but with its own distinct modern-day charms. With its single location and four distinct characters, The Invite becomes a sprawling, interconnected web of comedic misunderstandings, wild plot reveals, and masterful performances that easily make it the comedy tour de force of 2026.
It does just about everything one wants out of a relationship-based comedy, with Wilde's glorious filmmaking style further amplifying the brilliance inherent to the story being told. More than any other comedy film released in the year so far, The Invite has such a timeless execution to its craft that it's easy to see it continuing to have a legacy and stature not just as the defining comedy of 2026, but one of the standout comedy experiences of the decade.
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