The best brilliantly stupid comedy movies

The team of ZAZ (Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker) are the kings of stupid comedy. We’re going to have multiple movies by them on this list and we aren’t budging on that. Sure, there’s something to be said for spreading the wealth, but ZAZ set the standard for dumb comedy. “Airplane!” is their best movie, one of the funniest films ever made. It’s not a joke-a-minute comedy, but a five-jokes-a-minute comedy. Some of them make you groan, but most of them make you laugh.

ZAZ’s TV show “Police Squad!” flopped, but has become a cult classic. Fortunately, the guys took Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin and brought him to the big screen. “The Naked Gun” is sort of a spoof of cop movies, but it’s most interested in being absurd and dropping sight gags and deadpan one-liners galore (some of them, we grant you, lifted from the show). We’ll shout out the first sequel “The Smell of Fear,” but the third movie in the trilogy “The Final Insult” is a little iffy.

If you only know Val Kilmer as a serious actor, check out “Top Secret!” sometime. He’s stellar as Nick Rivers, a heartthrob musician turned spy. It’s both a parody of Elvis movies and spy films, which is to say it’s ambitious. It’s also incredibly dumb. It’s also exceedingly funny.

“Hot Shots!” is largely a parody of “Top Gun,” and it’s pretty good. This is a case where the sequel is better, though. “Part Deux,” in addition to having a funny title, works as a parody of “Rambo”-style movies and all the movies dedicated to the myth of POW-MIA soldiers. It’s the funnier of the two (though both are watchable, of course).

Mel Brooks is also one dumb-comedy royal, and spoof-movie royalty. “Young Frankenstein” is his best movie, but it’s not that dumb, because Gene Wilder refused to let that happen. “Spaceballs” is no-holds-barred Brooks, though. The parody of the Force is called the Schwarz. The parody of Yoda is named Yogurt. It’s immensely silly, but with a litany of laugh-out-loud jokes.

“Wayne’s World” is a better movie, but it doesn’t really cross the threshold into silly and stupid. “Wayne’s World 2” kicks up the silliness, though. There are more parodies, more dumb jokes, less coherence. And yet, it’s still super funny, if less good as a, you know, movie as the original.

There are a lot of dumb Adam Sandler comedies, but most of them are bad. “Billy Madison” may be the stupidest of them all, but it’s also the best of the dumb Sandler flicks. Seriously, it’s so juvenile. Billy Madison is a deranged character. This could have been another “Clifford,” but instead it became a popular comedy.

This is a great example of how dumb comedies can have a lot of smarts behind them. John C. Reilly is a great actor. The music in “Walk Hard” is well-crafted and impressive. It has well-observed commentary on the tropes of biopics, and specifically musician biopics. However, it’s also packed with so many dumb jokes. So many! It’s utterly goofy in execution but quite astute in terms of construction. That made it one of the best comedies of the new millennium.

Leave it to sketch performers to deliver a goofy movie that doesn’t care about plot or internal logic. Several members of MTV’s “The State” were front-and-center in this homage to ‘80s summer camp comedies. This cult classic features a talking can of vegetables and some of the most-nonsensical comedic set pieces of all-time. Plus, they had a real eye for talent. “Wet Hot” features early film performances from the likes of Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, and some guy named Bradley Cooper.

Shockingly, “Weird Al” Yankovic delivered a silly comedy movie. While it flopped, that may just be because it was too, well, weird. The film, which features Yankovic playing a guy who takes over a UHF channel, is rife with his style of humor. That, of course, includes some parodies.

There are a lot of negative things you can say about Woody Allen. Like, a lot . That being said, in terms of his professional output, he delivered some great stuff. His “early funny” stuff is quite funny, and often quite stupid. “Sleeper,” a sci-fi comedy, gets a huge laugh from a guy sneezing into a pile of cocaine. It features Diane Keaton doing a parody of Marlon Brando. It’s so goofy, and so good.

“Barb and Star” came out at just the wrong time. As an early 2021 release, it got dropped directly on VOD, but by Lionsgate. They didn’t have a streaming service to throw it on. If you missed this movie, starring its co-writer Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, absolutely check it out if you like this style of comedy. It is so funny, and it is so dumb. It gave us the most laughs of any 2021 release.

Yes, as an adult, you go back and you watch “Good Burger” and it isn’t as good as it was when you were a kid in the 1990s. That being said, it is better than you might expect. It’s not lazy, even if it is a little cheesy and obvious at times. The film based on an “All That” sketch also leans into silly humor and dumb jokes. Granted, they are largely pitched at kids, but there are some jokes that land for adults as well.

No, we didn’t include “Dumb and Dumber” because of the name. We included it because the humor is both sophomoric and stupid. Also, really funny. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels crush it, helping to elevate the material. Material that is, again, sophomoric and stupid. No wonder Carrey became a movie star.

Pretty much right away “Anchorman” was welcomed into the club of movies that are so stupid and so good. Soon thereafter, though, it started to earn a spot in the conversation about the Mount Rushmore of this specific type of movie. It has a strong case. The movie is incredibly funny. The cast is great, and Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy is an indelible comedic character. It also features four men singing “Afternoon Delight” for no reason. That’s the “Anchorman” magic.

Hey, Will Ferrell again! Also, John C. Reilly again! Oh, and director Adam McKay, who directed “Anchorman,” once more as well. “Step Brothers” is as raunchy as it is dumb, and it is one of those movies where its biggest fans are a little annoying. The people who love the Catalina Wine Mixer are the kind of people that are being lampooned with the Catalina Wine Mixer. “Step Brothers” is also a monument to a better time. `` A time when McKay made funny, joke-rich comedies and not exasperating nonsense like “Don’t Look Up.”

You know, it’s almost like people who come from sketch comedy value jokes and getting laughs over emotional depth, character growth, or storylines that make sense. “Hot Rod” was dropped on us by The Lonely Island crew as they were starting to get big. It’s in the running for the dumbest movie ever made. That is to its credit. The quality here is a little lower than the classics, and some of the bits go on too long or are the wrong kind of dumb. Still, “Hot Rod” has great moments as well, and it’s part of the syllabus when it comes to this kind of movie.

“Barb and Star” took a hit from COVID. “Zoolander” took a hit from coming out on September 28, 2001. You know, a little over two weeks after 9/11. In time, though, “Zoolander” came to be considered a cult classic. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson play models wrapped up in a massive (and massively stupid) conspiracy. Unsurprisingly, Will Ferrell appears again.

“Life of Brian” has plenty of dumb stuff in it, but also has more on its mind. It has a coherent plot and what have you. “Holy Grail” features coconut shells being used to mimic horses galloping and ends with the cast being arrested for killing a historian. Again, here we have acclaimed sketch performers doing a narrative film and just going for it when it comes to the comedy.

We end with a comedy legend in Steve Martin, who co-wrote the movie and handed the directorial reins to comedy legend Carl Reiner. It’s a loose (we stress loose) riff on “The Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but mostly it’s an excuse for a bunch of dumb jokes. That was Martin’s thing. He was a smart guy dissecting comedy through making it as stupid as possible, and “The Jerk” is his magnum opus.