Road to Morocco
Directed by David Butler
1942
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby keep telling the audience it is only a film, and a camel gets a line: the fourth wall came down here long before anyone named it.
★ 1.1
The Movies canon
Sourced and screened.
Every film chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 731 films or filter by genre, director, place, and year.
Browse all 731 films or filter by genre, director, place, and year.
Silver Streak
Directed by Arthur Hiller
1976
Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor met on this and made three more together: a book editor takes a slow train from Los Angeles to Chicago and sees something through a window.
★ 1.9
Smokey and the Bandit
Directed by Hal Needham
1977
It was the second biggest film of 1977 behind Star Wars, which nobody remembers: Burt Reynolds runs beer across state lines in a black Trans Am and grins at the camera throughout.
★ 1.9
Grumpy Old Men
Directed by Donald Petrie
1993
Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon had been perfecting this act for twenty-five years and it still lands: two Minnesota neighbors have hated each other since one married the other's girl.
★ 2.2
Spaceballs
Directed by Mel Brooks
1987
George Lucas allowed it on condition that no merchandise be sold, so Mel Brooks put a merchandising joke in the film: Star Wars parodied by someone who clearly loves it.
★ 3.0
Three Amigos
Directed by John Landis
1986
Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short play silent film stars mistaken for real gunfighters: a Mexican village hires them in earnest, and the singing bush is exactly as stupid as it sounds.
★ 3.0
Rush Hour
Directed by Brett Ratner
1998
Jackie Chan had been a superstar everywhere except America and this finally fixed that: he does all his own stunts, and Chris Tucker talks at a frequency nobody else reaches.
★ 3.1
The Bad News Bears
Directed by Michael Ritchie
1976
The children swear constantly, the coach drinks in the dugout, and nobody learns very much: Walter Matthau took a Little League team and made the least sentimental sports film ever released.
★ 3.3
Zoolander
Directed by Ben Stiller
2001
The World Trade Center had to be digitally erased from the skyline two weeks before release: an idiot male model, and Ben Stiller commits to the stupidity absolutely and without apology.
★ 3.5
Napoleon Dynamite
Directed by Jared Hess
2004
It cost under half a million and grossed a hundred times that: an Idaho teenager, his brother's internet girlfriend, and a deadpan rhythm nobody has successfully copied.
★ 3.5
Team America: World Police
Directed by Trey Parker
2004
The puppetry is entirely straight-faced and never winks: Trey Parker and Matt Stone spent a fortune on marionettes so they could aim a Jerry Bruckheimer parody at absolutely everyone.
★ 3.5
Wayne's World
Directed by Penelope Spheeris
1992
The car scene put Bohemian Rhapsody back in the American top ten seventeen years after its release: two men broadcast a public access show from a basement and address the camera constantly.
★ 3.6
Harvey
Directed by Henry Koster
1950
James Stewart played it on Broadway and returned to the part for decades: an unfailingly pleasant man insists his closest friend is a six-foot-three invisible rabbit, and his family wants him committed.
★ 3.7
The Full Monty
Directed by Peter Cattaneo
1997 · United Kingdom
Made in Sheffield for just over two million pounds and it outgrossed everything in Britain that year: six unemployed steelworkers decide to strip for money, and the comedy comes out of genuine desperation.
★ 3.7
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Directed by Jeremiah Chechik
1989
Written by John Hughes, with Chevy Chase back as the same hapless father a third time: a man books two weeks off to build the perfect family Christmas out of things that break.
★ 3.9
Wedding Crashers
Directed by David Dobkin
2005
Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn talk across each other at speed and the rhythm carries the film: two divorce lawyers crash strangers' weddings as a hobby, with rules they have written down.
★ 3.9
Meet the Parents
Directed by Jay Roach
2000
De Niro spent thirty years teaching audiences to fear him and then rented that out to a comedy: a man meets his girlfriend's father, and every single thing he does makes it worse.
★ 4.0
48 Hrs
Directed by Walter Hill
1982
Eddie Murphy's first film role and he takes the whole thing over: Walter Hill built the interracial buddy-cop formula here, and the bar scene made a twenty-one-year-old a movie star overnight.
★ 4.0
The Jerk
Directed by Carl Reiner
1979
Steve Martin's first starring role opens with him claiming to have been born a poor black child, and never stops that far from the line: pure stupidity performed with total commitment.
★ 4.1