2025's Funniest Movie Is Finding A New Audience On Paramount+

Finding great studio comedies over the past five years have become something of an anomaly. It's not exactly a mark on the films themselves. Theatrically released comedies aren't prioritized as much as they once were, with most of the genre's fare going straight to streaming. The landscape is a much different place than it once was, so it only made me even more excited when Paramount Pictures seemed committed to not only giving "The Naked Gun" a big theatrical run but also a hilarious marketing campaign to go along with it. It paid off, too; in addition to raking in over $100 million at the global box office, Akiva Schaffer's legacy sequel to the 1988 comedy of the same name is arguably the funniest movie of 2025 so far.

/Film's Ethan Anderton praised "The Naked Gun" for giving him the biggest, hardest, and silliest laughs in years in his review. It's truly a relentlessly funny comedy, with wall to wall gags that never seem to give you a moment to breathe before moving onto the next one. There's an actual framework to build the jokes upon as well, with Liam Neeson's Frank Drebin Jr. tasked with investigating a murder linked to a bigger conspiracy concerning a sneakingly evil tech company. But even when it settles into laying the literal P.L.O.T. foundation, "The Naked Gun" will launch hilarious lines of dialogue in the vein of "like an idiot's Finnish jigsaw puzzle, I was being framed." It's a great movie to watch at home and laugh your butt off with a group of friends — and now you can. According to the streaming data site FlixPatrol, "The Naked Gun" is currently the number #1 most popular movie on Paramount+, having dropped on the service just a few days ago on September 30.

Like most movies that go to theaters first and receive a streaming release later, "The Naked Gun" will thrive based on the positive word of mouth. It's an extremely easy comedy to recommend to just anybody. If someone is a fan of Neeson's late stage turn as the older action star, then this is the natural culmination of it. He's thankfully not trying to come across the same way Leslie Nielsen did with the original films and plays upon the tropes of his own cinematic image instead. Not to mention, the film also features a hilarious performance from Pamela Anderson as Beth Davenport, the femme fatale type that Drebin Jr. understandably starts to fall for. Their eventual getaway at a snowy cabin is one of those jokes where it just keeps getting funnier with every new bizarre development. Even Danny Huston is memorable as the evil CEO who wields an extra special appreciation for the early days of the Black Eyed Peas.

It's all so knowingly silly, and we need more comedies like it. While I've been into the David Zucker, Jerry Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (otherwise known as ZAZ) brand of spoof comedy for most of my life, it's heartening to know that someone who's never even heard of "The Naked Gun" will stumble upon it with no prior knowledge. What's even better is that if you're still riding on the high of the joke-laden end credits and want to keep the good times rolling, then you're in luck. Paramount+ has you covered, as it's also streaming the original "Naked Gun" along with its two sequels ("The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear" and "The Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult").