Ranked: All Of The 'Saturday Night Live' Movies
Since a new season of Saturday Night Live is kicking off this weekend with host Miley Cyrus on October 3rd, and yours truly will be reviewing every new episode, there's no better time to take a look back at all the movies that have been spawned from the iconic late-night sketch series and rank them from worst to best.
This wasn't too monumental an undertaking since there's only 11 total movies produced that were based on Saturday Night Live sketches, but there's bound to be some dissension when it comes to where they fall on the list. So without further adieu, let's get to ranking Saturday Night Live movies.
#11. Blues Brothers 2000
Why did anyone ever think that making a Blues Brothers sequel without John Belushi would be a good idea? Sure, John Goodman is probably the best possible replacement to take over for the late, great comedian alongside Dan Aykroyd, but this sequel was never going to shake a stick at the original, even if Belushi was back from the dead. While it does offer a fantastic soundtrack, as expected, there's also some smart ass little kid brought into play, and it just doesn't work.
#10. The Ladies Man
One of the easiest criticisms of movies that are adapted from Saturday Night Live sketches is that the characters going to the big screen just don't have enough depth to lead a feature film, and that's very clear with The Ladies Man. But even despite a colorful cavalcade of characters to surround Tim Meadows as Leon Phelps, including Billy Dee Williams and Saturday Night Live star Will Ferrell before he really made it big, this movie is all over the place with musical numbers, an attempt at romance, and some strange and unsatisfying tangents.
#9. It's Pat
Your enjoyment of this movie wholly depends on whether or not you actually like Julia Sweeney as the androgynous misfit who confuses people everywhere the character goes. And since I think she's fantastic as Pat, that's why this film isn't at the bottom. Also helping things is the presence of Kids in the Hall star Dave Foley as Pat's newly found, equally gender-perplexing partner Chris. However, everything about this film is pretty bad, and this truly lives up to the criticism of an SNL movie that feels like a sketch idea being stretched very thin for a feature film. Even the production quality is pretty poor, looking more like a made-for-TV movie than a real studio film.
#8. A Night at the Roxbury
Full disclosure: I actually love A Night at the Roxbury. But at the same time, I also recognize that it's not a very good movie. Much of my enjoyment of this movie comes from my love of this sketch from Saturday Night Live at a time when I truly became obsessed with the late night sketch show, but a quality comedy is not what A Night at the Roxbury delivers. It's downright dumb and never lets up the stupidity, much like the Butabi brothers (Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell) themselves. The movie is so bad that the only celebrity cameo they could get was from Richard Grieco. Yeesh.
#7. Stuart Saves His Family
This is the one Saturday Night Live movie that you've either never heard of or have completely forgotten about. Al Franken, who is now a United States senator, plays self-help TV personality Stuart Smalley, who is good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like him. The movie is much sweeter than you would expect a Saturday Night Live movie to be, even if Smalley is probably the strangest decision for an SNL character to leap to the big screen, but it's not nearly as funny as it should be.
#6. Superstar
Here's where our countdown takes a pretty decent turn towards the good movies that SNL has made over the years. While Molly Shannon's Sister Mary Katherine Gallagher feels like the kind of character that couldn't sustain a feature film, she actually ends up being up weirdly fascinating, and when we start to learn about her childhood and life outside of smelling her armpits by way of her hands, she turns out to be rather charming too. She's almost like a Napoleon Dynamite companion. It also helps that we get Will Ferrell in two roles, including a very cool Jesus Christ.
#5. Coneheads
Perhaps one of the most heartwarming Saturday Night Live movies every made, Coneheads is a movie about family through and through. It truly has a lot of heart among the alien family played by Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin and Michelle Burke, but making this movie even more of a delight is the cavalcade of SNL stars and other comedians who pop up. Sinbad, Phil Hartman, David Spade, Michael McKean, Dave Thomas, Eddie Griffin, Drew Carey, Adam Sandler, Kevin Nealon, Jason Alexander, Chris Farley, Jan Hooks, Julia Sweeney, Garret Morris, Laraine Newman, Tim Meadows, Tom Arnold and Ellen DeGeneres all pop up. It might be worth a rewatch, right?
#4. Wayne's World 2
In some ways, this comedy sequel starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey is superior to the original. It relies less on the gags that made the sketch characters famous and features some extremely memorable spoofs of The Graduate and Jurassic Park. However, it also treads the exact same territory storywise as another scheming executive comes along to take Wayne's girlfriend Cassandra away. It helps that it's Christopher Walken as the bad guy this time, but it just can't top the original, which is coming later.
#3. MacGruber
This movie may have bombed hard when it hit theaters in 2010, earning just over $8 million at the domestic box office in its entire theatrical run, but it has found quite a sizable audience since hitting home video, rightly taking it to cult comedy status. Will Forte is a comedy tour de force as the title character, a less-skilled MacGyver knock-off with a serious attitude problem, but everyone makes this movie far better than it had any business being. It's absolutely hilarious, and it even looks good. Plus, Val Kilmer as the villain? If you haven't seen this movie, remedy that immediately. KFBR392.
#2. The Blues Brothers
Easily one of the best and most iconic comedies ever made, this one is a real classic. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd are one of the best duos to ever grace the big screen, and what's even more impressive is that their musical antics aren't just funny, but also worthy of busting some moves on the dance floor. The Blues Brothers is a road trip and chase movie with plenty of musical interludes, and while it feels a little dated, you can't help but get caught up in the wackiness and pumping soundtrack. It's a timeless slice of Hollywood and comedy history.
#1. Wayne's World
I've loved Wayne's World since an age when I probably shouldn't have enjoyed a movie like this and should have been watching a Disney movie or something instead of developing my first big screen crush on Tia Carrere. And in rewatching it several times each year, it still holds up magnificently. Surely there will be many who don't think it tops The Blues Brothers, but we can chalk that up to a generational thing if necessary. Plus, if it makes anyone feel better, I could probably flip-flip the top two movies on this list and still not feel like I was betraying myself.
But Wayne's World defines a generation, perfectly skewering the pop culture of the decade (including a phenomenal Terminator 2: Judgment Day joke that never gets old) but without feeling overly dated. If anything, the film almost feels like it was created intentionally as a time capsule of the 90s with the bits still working 23 years later. It even has fun with the medium by endlessly breaking the fourth wall and delivering so many classic meta bits.
Fun Fact: A trailer for the movie was created just for audiences seeing The Addams Family, and you can watch it right here:
What's your favorite of the Saturday Night Live movies?