The best comedy movies on Prime Video Australia

Subscribe to Prime Video? In the mood for a rib-tickler? Critic Luke Buckmaster has scoured the platform and retrieved the funniest films—from recent hits to decades-old classics.

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21 Jump Street (2012)

This one was a surprise: a remake of an old TV show that felt fresh and zesty. Two cops—played by Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum—return to high school as under cover students, investigating a popular new drug called HFS (aka Holy Fucking Shit). The tone is anarchic, the jokes consistently funny.

Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

Rolf de Heer’s notorious cult classic about a tortured soul (Nicholas Hope) who spent his first 35 years locked in a grubby apartment still, after all these years, almost defies description, laced with boundary-pushing scenes discussed only in hushed tones. Bubby’s venture into wider society provides social critique, an unflinching portrait of mental illness and much more.

The Big Steal (1990)

The beloved films of John Hughes have inspired many similarly toned coming-of-age movies; this one is pretty bloody Australian and very bloody good. In his first big role, Ben Mendelsohn’s Danny extracts revenge on Steve Bisley’s sleazy car salesman after he sells him a lemon. The story is funny, sweet, and smartly told.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020)

The sick shimmer of the original Borat movie lost some of its freakshow appeal, but Sacha Baron Cohen’s grotesquely entertaining Kazakh journalist maintained a higher purpose—exposing American prejudice. Returning to the USA to present a gift to “Premier McDonald Trump,” Borat’s second round of rambunctious misadventures exposes right wing ignorance and bigotry, with characteristically shocking zeal.

Bridemaids (2011)

Who could forget Kristen Wiig on the plane, drunk and high as a kite, giving shtick to a flight attendant she thinks is named Stove (it’s Steve)? This moment is a good example of Wiig’s hilarious talents and director Paul Feig’s wise decision to let scenes breathe, trusting his script and actors. Wiig, playing a skittish maid of honour, emerged as the star, with Melissa McCarthy delivering an irrepressibly funny supporting performance.

Catherine Called Birdy (2022)

Lena Dunham’s high-spirited coming-of-age movie, based in 13th century England, has pace and humour tuned to the peppy personality of its young protagonist. Fourteen-year-old Lady Catherine (a very entertaining Bella Ramsey) knows she’s supposed to be married off—preferably to a wealthy blue blood—but wishes for a different life and rebels against the patriarchy. Dunham never takes the audience’s attention for granted, fussily filling her adaptation of Karen Cushman’s novel with all sorts of stylistic details.

Cosi (1996)

You’ve never seen a film about a theatre production quite like this one, starring Ben Mendelsohn as an unemployed actor hired to direct a community production of Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte. And here comes the twist: all the actors are patients of a Sydney psychiatric facility. The interplay between the characters is sometimes very funny and the cast is great—including Barry Otto, Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Jacki Weaver, Colin Friels, David Wenham and Pamela Rabe.

Fargo (1996)

Frances McDormand…what a performance! She’s unforgettable and oddly funny as a pregnant parka-wearing police detective in an extremely deadpan film revolving around a bungled kidnapping and an extortion attempt. Fargo is a high point in the career of the Coen brothers, who are among cinema’s very best directing duos.

The General (1926)

Nobody who’s watched Buster Keaton balancing precariously on a cowcatcher at the front of a train could ever forget that image; it is an everlasting imprint from one of cinema’s first action-comedy masterpieces. In his magnum opus the brilliant comedian trots off to the Civil War as a train engineer, chasing enemy troops and thwarting their attempts to derail him—while of course performing virtuoso slapstick.

Groundhog Day (1993)

I love the poster tagline for Harold Ramis’ brilliantly innovative comedy: “He’s living life like there’s no tomorrow. Because there isn’t.” High concept movies don’t much shrewder than the story of Bill Murray’s cranky, borderline nihilistic weatherman, forced to live the same day again and again in a crummy snowed in small town. It’s the grand daddy of the time loop movie: often imitated, never matched.

His Girl Friday (1940)

One of the great comedies of the 1940s, Howard Hawks’ classic is remembered less for what it says than how it says it—streams of frantically paced verbal ping pong bouncing between its zinger-delivering characters. Cary Grant’s newspaper editor tries to win back his wife, Rosalind Russell’s hotshot journalist, by forcing her to work with him on a big murder story. Rolled gold repartee ensue.

Heathers (1988)

A comedy so dark the prefix “black” barely begins to cut it. Michael Lehmann’s cult movie is up there with Election and Mean Girls as one of the great high school-set comedies—but with a more potent air of irreverence. Winona Ryder joins a clique of students called the Heathers while Christian Slater plays the demon on her shoulder, encouraging her to commit dastardly deeds.

I, Tonya (2017)

Margot Robbie’s celebrity-shedding performance is the centre of this real-or-not? biopic about disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding. Director Craig Gillespie questions who is to blame for the knee-capping incident for which the athlete is best remembered, taking a fourth-wall-breaking approach that crackles and fizzes. The film’s most compelling themes run in contrasts: humour and sadness, reality and artifice.

Kenny (2006)

Packed to the hilt with true blue turns of phrase and centered around Shane Jacobson’s adorably fair dinkum, dunny-cleaning protagonist, this well-loved film is a very bloody ‘strayan mockumentary. Despite the titular character’s profession, which famously involves confronting smells that outlast religion, the film never indulges in gross-out gags—wisely leaving yucky stuff to our imagination.

Kicking and Screaming (1995)

There’s lot of gasbagging in Noah Baumbach’s feature debut, which like much of his work feels at times like a filmed play. The dialogue is very good and naturalistic, delivered by college student characters who seem to think that continuously talking replaces the need for, or is a form of, life progress. It’s well made and enjoyably wordy rather than funny ha-ha.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Bill Murray’s iconically deflated aura is paired with Scarlett Johansson’s vivaciousness in Sofia Coppola’s elegently staged film about strangers connecting in Tokyo. Murray’s character gives it the tang of a mid-life crisis drama, but Johansson pulls it in the other direction, towards spiritual renewal. More a dramedy than a comedy, but it can be very funny in a downbeat and melancholic way.

The Mask (1994)

Produced in the giddy era of 90s Jim Carrey comedies, the star’s rubber-faced antics inform the tone and even the aesthetic of this stupidly enjoyable film about a mild-mannered bank clerk who dons a magical mask and becomes a kind of live action cartoon—as Carrey always was. It’s a Jekyll and Hyde story and, in today’s context, a kind of anti-superhero movie, the protagonist transforming into a human pogo stick wreaking Looney Tunes style carnage.

Palm Springs (2020)

“Today, tomorrow, yesterday—it’s all the same.” So says Andy Samberg’s protagonist Nyles as he floats on an inflatable banana lounge, sounding a lot like Bill Murray from Groundhog Dog. Max Barbakow’s tremendously entertaining time loop movie owes much to the 90s classic, reworking its premise to have the curse of temporal repetition affecting two potential lovers: Nyles and Cristin Milioti’s Sarah. The pace is snappy, the writing shrewd.

The Player (1992)

Rightly regarded as one of the finest Hollywood comedies about Hollywood, Robert Altman’s zippy satire has a punchy script full of industry talk, with writers pitching all sorts of twisted plotlines. The story of the film itself follows film producer Griffin Mill (Robin Williams) as he tries to figure out who is sending him death threats. Altman brings a crisp meta energy and some visual aplomb, including an audacious eight minute opening shot journeying through a studio lot.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

After being caught watching a naughty movie—containing poetic reflections such as “shut your fucking face uncle fucker”—the South Park kids inadvertently summon the devil and damn near cause the apocalypse. Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s big screen spin-of of their weirdly enduring TV show is raucously loud and silly, and also kind of brilliant—with rambunctious wit and stupidly catchy songs.

Step Brothers (2008)

I can’t decide whether this film gets funnier as it goes along, or if I just acclimatise to its stupid rhythms. Comedies don’t get much more lowkey, or as manchild-centric as this story of two warring step-brothers who become besties, played with irrepressible idiocy by Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly.

Superbad (2007)

There’s a dangerous energy in Greg Mottola’s potty-mouthed coming-of-age flick, which gets away with a lot in the name of characterization. Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) talk trash, going to the parties and getting wasted, in a film that balances earnestness and obscenity in surprisingly effective ways. Plus there’s McLovin; long live McLovin!

They’re a Weird Mob (1966)

Two Hands (1999)

Gregor Jordan’s offbeat Australian crime caper casts a then little-known Heath Ledger as a bird-brained wannabe crook, who misplaces a big bag of cash and finds himself tumbling down the “in over your head” crime movie trajectory. It’s not a great performance, but it suits the scratchy, uneven but endearing charm of the film, which mixes Lock Stock-esque crime shenanigans with a quintessentially Aussie sense of humour.