Chewer's 100 Funniest Films of the 80's

"We all know most marriages depend on a firm grasp of football trivia."

Gloriously goofy and immature, bittersweet, and cool. A brilliant screenplay brought to life by a quirky ensemble that delivered on the most important aspect for the film's success: we buy into the friendships up on the screen. This is a hang out film that I still love hanging out with.

Pretty much a perfect film.

One of the most eminently quotable movies of all time. And a cast that is absolutely on fire, shooting off non sequiturs and ad libbing their way through a film that, apparently, had a 200-page script when shooting began.

Arguably the funniest film ever made. It serves as the original blueprint & gold standard for the Modern American Comedy while influencing seminal works from The Simpsons to Anchorman.

"It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black."

Alonzo: you're gonna spend ten years for impersonating a federal agent.
Jack Walsh: 10 years for impersonating a fed, uh? How comes no one's after you?

The action-comedy that inspired Pineapple Express, Midnight Run is better (and I loved Pineapple Express).

"Say it! Say it! Say "I lost the nest-egg." Go on, say it!"


A brilliant skewering of Boomer sensibilities in the Reagen era, this hilarious road movie ("just like EASY RIDER") is is pretty much the ultimate Brooks.

"I'll be taking these Huggies, and whatever cash ya got."

Every single character in this film has his or her own iconic moment where they take center stage and elevate the film to a classic.


"Inconceivable!"


"Hello My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die."

A non-stop explosion of one-liners that actually work to drive a narrative further. Chevy Chase's best film AND best role. Completely quotable from beginning to end.

because it just keeps getting funnier as I get older. This might be, pound-for-pound, the best comedy I have ever seen.

"Listen to me Hillary. I'm not the first guy who fell in love with a woman that he met at a restaurant who turned out to be the daughter of a kidnapped scientist only to lose her to her childhood lover who she last saw on a deserted island who then turned out fifteen years later to be the leader of the French underground."

"I want my two dollars!"

Its the only musical I'll never tire of.

Michael Keaton turns in one of the best comedic performances ever. "Nice fucking model!"

Simply one of the funniest films ever.

Martin and Candy are a pitch perfect odd couple, and John Hughes is at the multitasking top of his game. Prickly but full of heart,

William Atherton's finest hour. Well paced with great characters who have some genuinely funny and clever lines to deliver.

Generation X's Easy Rider. Hilarious, poignant, lightning fast, & infinitely rewatchable. This is the godlike genius of John Hughes in full bloom.

The triple lindy; Rodney in his prime; RDJ verbally eviscerating football jocks; Burt Fucking Young; Sam Kinison and Adrienne Barbeau as a bonus; Oingo Boingo; Zabka!; "Girls, this is Lou. Lou, these are girls."; not to mention the greatest Kurt Vonnegut joke ever committed to film (with an assist from Kurt himself). What's not to love?

Sometimes I need reminding how much a tour-de-force Steve Martin was, this is the movie I go to.

"I hate Illinois Nazis."


THE great SNL movie and Landis' best film. Belushi and Aykroyd are hilarious, and the music is amazing. The third act is just bananas. (The tone is an interesting mash up: movie feels like the 70's, but has that 80's sense of fun)

One of the most consistent titty comedies of the decade. Perfect casting from the top to the bottom. Lots of memorable scenes throughout.

"In a way, all of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be the actual El Guapo! "

Critically drubbed & more or less ignored at the box office during it's initial run, Three Amigos! has gained increasing recognition as a classic over the years. The film is a daisy chain of hilarious moments brilliantly executed by the comedic supergroup of Martin, Chase, & Short.

A film that still represents (invented?) the the height of splatstick. A close second would be Braindead/Dead Alive but that wasn't in the 80s.

Funny scene followed by funny scene. Consistently funny and consistently charming. One of my absolute favorite performances from Michael Caine.

"In Southeast Asia we'd call this kind of thing bad karma."


"I've never seen that. I've never seen anybody drive their garbage down to the street and bang the hell out of it with a stick. I've never seen that."

"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit."

"Oh fudge! (Only I didn't say "Fudge." I said THE word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the "F-dash-dash-dash" word!)"

"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine. Ovaltine? A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!"

I used this film to remind me that yes, Chevy Chase was extremely funny while living during the lean (to be charitable) 90s and 00s (thank you Community for restoring some luster!).

From the zany, to the slapstick, to the great comic actors here, and in rememberance of Collen Camp's brighter days. I picked it up for less than 5 the other day, and have watched it twice. I love it.

One of the best and most consistent romantic comedies that I've ever seen. There's so much truth to the film that it's scary.

Eddie Murphy's sweetest performance, Soul Glo, Randy Watson & Sexual Chocolate, quotables galore...

Tim Burton's first movie, a script that is filled to the brim with great lines and gags, and that bike chase thru the Warner Brothers studio feels like it came out of an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Judd Apatow produced sequel does happen. I want to see Paul Ruebens break out the bow tie and suit one more time.


Pee Wee: Go ahead and scream your head off! We're miles from where anyone can hear you!

"Six years from now, I'll be back here with my wife and two kids. And I'll see you, and one of my kids will say, 'Daddy, who is that?' And I'll say it's not nice to point at single fat women." - Aaron Altman


A media critique in the same league as "Network". The film is funny and insightful. Albert Brooks is comedically delightful.

"Fifty bucks never killed anybody."


Kurt Russell is great, but it's the double shot of Jack Warden that makes the movie. Zemeckis' and Gale's sensibilities used to be gloriously anarchistic, a kind of amalgam of their two mentors Spielberg and Milius.

Bill doing a comedy routine in a brown suit. It's just him on a stage with a chair, riffing on shit, for 90 minutes. HILARIOUS from beginning to end. Want to see a real pro at work? Here you go.

Henry Silva, host of Bullshit Or Not?: "Using undiscovered evidence, we ask the question: Was Jack the Ripper in fact a sixty-foot sea serpent from Scotland? Did I take this job to make a quick buck? We may never know the answers to these questions. "

A bomb upon release (it only grossed about 1/2 a million), this skit anthology send-up of 2am TV programming stands as one the great cult classics of the 80s. Sporting an impressively large roster of (then) huge names like Steve Guttenberg, Michelle Pfeiffer, & Carrie Fisher, the film is a rich buffet of absurdist comedy, bridging the gap between Airplane! & The Simpsons.

Yeah, another Christmas movie. Bill Murray is awesome as usual and there's also a great supporting cast. A yearly tradition around the holidays for me.

High concept comedy executed to perfection by the sure-handed Abrahams / Zucker alliance and a none-more-80s cast. DeVito at his most gleefully underhanded; Midler intentionally irritating; Reinhold at his big-eared, everyman best.

Aside from one the the best performances of a man in drag put to film, this film sends up Dustin Hoffman's reputation, woman's lib and the (mostly) unemployed new york acting community, yet it still maintains heart at all times.

"When that fire hit your ass, it will sober your ass up *quick*! I saw something, I went, "Well, that's a pretty blue. You know what? That looks like *fire*!" Fire is inspirational. They should use it in the Olympics, because I ran the 100 in 4.3."


Rising from the ashes of almost being burned alive like a phoenix, Pryor delivers the funniest -and most personal - concert film of the decade

"Geez, you're real nice. If I didn't have puke breath, I'd kiss you."

It's not the best Python film by a longshot, and many of the bits fall completely flat, but there are many moments of absolutely gut-busting genius in here.

- Mr. Creosote.
- Death visiting a dinner party
- This man is about to die
- The Crimson Permanent Assurance
- Organ donation


The good outweighs the bad, and the final third of the film is almost flawless.

This film is comic adventure fantasy at it's best. I'd even place it up there with the Princess Bride, though I think the more Iconic characters keeps Bride in first place.

Frank: It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.
Jane: Goodyear?
Frank: No, the worst.

The third film in ZAZ's "80s Holy Trinity" (following Airplane! & Top Secret!). Resurrected from a long dead, failed TV show, the world bears witness to the comic genius of a longtime straight player, Leslie Nielsen.

Townsend directed the same year's Raw, but with this supremely silly Tinseltown satire he reminded the world that not every black actor could be Eddie Murphy - however hard they rehearsed his trademark laugh. Helped put co-writer (and fellow Raw contributor) Keenen Ivory Wayans on the map, too.

"When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?" "Yessir, the check is in the mail." "

The great thing about this ahead of its time movie is Kurt Russell's riffing on HONDO performance as an over-his-head would-be-hero. The joke is he's the only one who doesn't realize he's a dork. (kind of the anti-Action Hero)

"Like I told my last wife, I says, "Honey, I never drive faster than I can see. Besides that, it's all in the reflexes." "