Comedy specials you can stream right now

Sheltering in place put all forms of live entertainment on hold indefinitely, but that doesn’t mean you can’t watch stand-up comedy. The rise of streaming services has meant more options than ever for comedy specials, sent straight to your TV, smartphone, laptop, XBox, or whatever you use to access the entertainment superhighway. Netflix has made a huge investment into standup recently, Comedy Central has been putting out specials for nearly three decades, and HBO has been in the game since the 70’s. That means no matter what your taste, there's a standup special waiting for you. After all, you've got the time, and no one will enforce a two-drink minimum if you're staying home.

HBO has three Chris Rock specials available for screaming, though not his mega-hit “Bring The Pain.” “Bigger and Blacker” is Rock’s third HBO special, filmed at the Apollo Theatre in New York, and contains classic Rock bits about how a man is only as faithful as his options, and how as rich as he is, no white man would trade places with him. If you don’t have an HBO login, Netflix has Rock’s 2018 special, “Tamborine,” including Rock's re-edited extended edition with more jokes and fewer closeups.

Taped in his hometown, Dave Chappelle’s “Killin' Them Softly” is simply one of the greatest stand-up special ever. You can see the seeds of “Chappelle’s Show,” which would debut three years later, in its themes (racism, police, white people) and Chappelle’s seamless character work and impressions within this set, particularly in the section where he talks about his white friend “Chip.” Netflix users, check out “”equanimity & the bird revelation” or his newest special recorded in the wake of the George Floyd shooting, "8:46."

“Baby Cobra,” Ali Wong’s breakout Netflix special recorded while she was pregnant, was such a smash that hundreds of women dressed up as her for Halloween – that’s real fame. So she ran it back with “Hard Knock Wife,” another special performed while she was extremely pregnant, but this time she’s talking a lot about motherhood (“Breastfeeding is the savage ritual that reminds you that your body is a cafeteria now”). She’s just as raw and hilarious as in “Baby Cobra,” but the effect is to make the raunchy material both more gleefully disgusting, but also grounded.

“Boyish Girl Interrupted” was recorded after Tig Notaro had endured the sudden death of her mother and a double mastectomy cancer surgery. Yet despite all this, this special really showcases Notaro’s goofy side. She goes into the audience, she analyzes the crowd’s laughter, and she does impressions, ranging from a confused TSA agent, to an applauding pig. It shows that while Tig is able to confront extremely serious issues in her act, what makes her so special is that she can also do the silliest things imaginable. On Netflix, you can also enjoy Notaro’s excellent “Happy To Be Here.”

Beth Stelling is simply one of the sharpest and funniest comedians working today, and "Girl Daddy," recorded just days before COVID-19, is her best special yet. There's great material about her divorced parents, her sister's marriages, dating younger men, and why in the era of the #MeToo movement, men should treat their partners like a cat. There's fantastic jokes all throughout, like when she calls the legal system "the white man's FUBU: For Us, By Us," but she's also very silly and goofy, like when she makes the whole audience chant the name of a man in the front row. Stelling is on her way to becoming a superstar so you can look really cool by making your friends watch this special before she blows all the way up.

“Live In Concert” is the first standup comedy feature films to be released in theaters, and it features one of the greatest stand-ups of all time, performing at his absolute peak. Pryor talks about race, society, and how own traumatic past with insight, wit, explosive energy. He also shows off his incredible talent for mimicry, doing impeccable impressions of so many things: a beaten child, a car tire, even his own first heart attack, and doing them so well the National Society of Film Critics nominated him for Best Actor.

As you can tell from the title, Taylor Tomlinson is still very young – only 27 – but she’s been doing standup for over a decade. She’s not happy about being in her twenties (“Ten years of asking yourself, is this a phase, or is this a problem?”), talks about bad online dating lines, and all of the jokes are perfectly crafted and effortless.

Gary Gulman is a fantastic, legendary performer, who’s been killing it on stage for decades while dispensing valuable stand-up tips on Twitter. But he doesn’t come clean about his lifelong struggles with depression until “The Great Depresh,” which intersperses scenes from Gulman’s personal life, including conversations with friends unaware of Gulman’s struggles and even his hospitalization. The special is not only a valuable lesson about mental health treatment, Gulman is legitimately hilarious talking about such ultra-serious topics as electroshock therapy. You can also check out three other Gulman specials on Amazon Prime, including the excellent “In This Economy.”

We can confidently say that “My Favorite Shapes” is the only standup comedy special where the performer wears a silver suit and gives backstories and personalities to objects that come to him on a futuristic conveyer belt. It’s also the only standup special featuring guest stars like Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ryan Gosling delivering inner monologues. It’s delightfully weird and somehow personal and autobiographical, as much as jokes about remaindered Happy Meal toys can be. If you like it, check out “Los Espookys” for more of that Julio Torres flavor.

Nate Bargatze specializes in being the smartest dumb guy in comedy. He’s not stupid by any means, but it’s his ability to break down the logic behind his mistakes is what truly spins gold, like his interaction with an airport employee who can’t reconcile the disparity between the “Nathan” on his ticket and the “Nathaniel” on his drivers license. Also, if you’re a longtime Bargatze fan, you’ll get updates on his professional magician father, which is his father's second career after clowning.

Sometimes the audience makes a huge difference in how a special succeeds. This is very much the case in “the special special special!” where Maria Bamford’s audience consists of two people: her mom and dad. It’s shot in Bamford’s own living room, and it’s a surreal experience as a viewer, the opposite of a bad sitcom laugh track. And the material can be very dark, from the demented impression of Paula Deen the show opens with to the closing story of suicidal depression and mental hospitals – which manages to be very funny! – and the whole time, the only reactions you get are from Mom and Dad. For more Bamford, check out her Netflix show “Lady Dynamite” and her special “Old Baby,” where she performs in places ranging from theaters to bowling alleys to benches in the park.

John Mulaney’s first special is supremely confident, with gems like “In terms of instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin.” It’s full of tales of his accidental prostate exam and the interaction with a homeless man in New York that gave the show its title, but our favorite is the breakdown of Ice-T’s role on “Law & Order: SVU.” And if you like Mulaney, check out “The Sack Lunch Bunch,” also on Netflix, featuring a cast of children, a song about a kid who only wants to eat noodles, and a deranged guest appearance from Jake Gyllenhaal.

Obviously, Rory Scovel has done standup before, but the title – a concept pitched by Jack White in a taped sketch, suggesting a guy who is “completely out of his element, unattractive, probably not that funny” – does reflect Scovel’s commitment to breaking the boundaries of standup, as often seen in his madcap guest appearances on Conan. His attitude is playful, he’s willing to improvise and pull any available comedic thread, and doesn’t hesitate to kick off the special with a very specific question for the crowd about a very specific sexual practice and insisting “This is the show. This is the show.”

Sam Jay is a great performer and joke-writer, but what makes "3 In The Morning" stand out is her absolute fearlessness about any topic. She'll talk about her fear of flying, her concern that Elon Musk's obsession with going to space reflects white people's foreknowledge about the end of the world, and her long-term lesbian relationship. But Jay seems to delight in making audiences uncomfortable with her topics – particularly in the back half of the special – only to leave them laughing hysterically by the end of her bits.

HBO doesn’t have any of the many specials George Carlin recorded for the network over the years, but they live on an Amazon Prime. A good place to start is “Complaints and Grievances,” recorded just after 9/11. There’s some material about the disaster, but it’s primarily about Carlin’s, well, complaints and grievances, including rich guys who ride in hot air balloons and guys named Todd. The best part comes when Carlin takes on the Ten Commandments and convincingly argues that you could get them down to two.

Whitmer Thomas combines music and stand-up in this hour long special that doubles as Whit paying tribute to his late mother. It’s shot at the Flora-Bama in Pensacola, Florida, which is where his mom and her twin sister used to perform as a duo act. The difference in Whit and a lot of musical comedians is that his music is legitimately good and he can really sing. It ends up as a touching, standup comedy musical, and the only special in recent memory to feature a comedian reuniting with his estranged father on a golf course.

Tom Segura is one of the master storytellers in standup comedy, and in his newest Netflix special it’s more of the same. He’s dark but not depressing, with thoughts on who he’d send death squads after (sorry, people who legitimately answer the question “How are you doing?”), dogs attacking his children, and what it was like to have the whole state of Louisiana upset with him. You’ll also never be able to get a certain mental image of your parents out of your head afterward, but it’s worth checking out “Ball Hog” (or Segura’s three previous Netflix specials) anyway.

In her second special shot for HBO, Wanda Sykes delivers a scathing 90-minute set. Between this special and her first one, Sykes came out as a lesbian and married her partner, which inspires some of the best material on this, particularly the riff on coming out as black. Though the material is almost secondary to Sykes' swagger and voice work, especially when she's addressing her belly fat ("Esther Roll") or a memorable sequence where she demonstrates how Kegel exercises gave her a Charley horse.

More one-man show than comedy special, Hasan Minhaj’s inventive “Homecoming King” weaves stories about growing up with Indian parents, Pizza Hut commercials, and auditioning for the Daily Show into a narrative about a heartbreaking romantic trauma from high school. Minhaj’s physicality is showcased by the creative direction of the show, with unconventional camera angles and absolutely the best use of a Facebook profile as a visual aid as any special in memory. If you like this, you can also watch Minhaj’s gone-too-soon Netflix series “Patriot Act.”

In some ways, Bill Hicks is the Tupac of comedy, because the vast majority of his published material came out after his death. “Relentless” is the last album released by Hicks in his brief 32 years, and this very special is similar, though from a different recording made at the Just For Laughs Festival. The standout when Hicks convincingly argues that drugs are good, because they’re responsible for all your favorite music. “The Beatles were so high, they even let Ringo sing a couple of tunes, man. Tell me they weren’t partying.”

Kathleen Madigan is an all-time great standup, with four excellent specials. Two are on Amazon Prime, including "Gone Madigan" ("Bothering Jesus" is on Netflix) which captures the Madigan magic. The standout bits in this one are her analysis of the saddest Oprah Winfrey shows, entertaining the troops alongside Kellie Pickler, and as always, stories about her Midwest family. There's a reason she's been touring for three decades and Lewis Black thinks she's the best comedian in the world.

The least family-friendly special on this list, Lawrence’s “You So Crazy” was so raunchy that it earned an NC-17 when it first came out, and had to be released unrated. So consider this a warning that the special is decidedly not safe for work. Lawrence’s energy and delivery are incredible, and even with jokes about Jeffrey Dahmer and Rodney King, the material still feels compelling today.

Sam Morril is the only comedian in 2019 who appeared in a Best Picture nominee (Morril performs before Joaquin Phoenix in “Joker”) and shot and produced his own comedy special. It’s so good, Comedy Central bought it and made it available on their YouTube channel. Watch it if you’re interested in Morril meeting a vigilante from Cleveland named “The White Knight,” but maybe skip it if you live in Naples, Florida. And if you like it, check out "Up On The Roof," a special Morril filmed outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emily Heller opens her Comedy Central special explaining – and then backing off – her plan to tape her special in front of an all-female audience. She proceeds to show off the stellar writing skills that won her an Emmy as a staff member on "Barry" (she was also on the TBS sitcom "Ground Floor"), including a joke where she compares Donald Trump to Air Bud, and also an enchanted toilet that's also a train conductor. Heller also talks about the absurd hypotheticals that vegetarians have to endure, a delightful mashup of the theme song from Friends, and a memorable (and true!) bit about dating a mime college student.

A lot of the subject material hasn’t aged well and would get Eddie cancelled in 2020, but “Delirious” is still a tour de force performance. It’s easy to see how Eddie became the biggest movie star in the world after this, because the whole performance is like a series of sketches, featuring pitch-perfect impressions. There’s even a moment where Eddie gets heckled by a woman imploring him to “Do Gumby!” and a different heckler’s reply cracks him up to the point he drops the mic.

This special, a mockumentary look at Larry David’s ostensible return to the world of stand-up, wasn’t originally intended to be the pilot for the show of the same name, but it has many of the same elements; namely, Larry David driving everyone crazy while nitpicking the world around him. And the limited amount of David’s standup that we see is very good, which makes you wish Larry’s imaginary stepfather hadn’t suffered his imaginary illness that cancelled the taping.

100% Fresh is Adam Sandler’s triumphant return to standup (“Funny People” doesn’t count), but specifically the albums he released in the 90’s - “They’re All Gonna Laugh At You” and “What The Hell Happened To Me?” There’s a lot of songs, including a tribute to Chris Farley, an absolute banger called “Phone Wallet Keys,” and a song about how we all “Know A Guy.” But there’s also a sweetness to the whole thing, especially the story about Sandler finding platonic love with a stranger at an amusement park.

Bill Burr seems like the angriest man in comedy, but it’s his ability to dissect exactly what and why people are infuriating him that makes him so magical. He loves to take an outlandish position and slowly win a reluctant audience over to his side, like his denial that moms have the hardest job in the world. But the most delightful part of “Let It Go” is about Burr rescuing a dog (“It’s not a shelter! It’s Shawshank for dogs! Why don’t we go down to a prison and rescue an inmate?”) and falling in love with it. If this one grabs you, you’re in luck: there’s four other Bill Burr specials on Netflix.