20 Underrated Comedy Movies You Need To Watch

Laughter may be the best medicine, but sometimes it's hard to find something worth chuckling at. These days, that feels especially true. But movies are one of our best ways to escape, and mirth, much like science fiction or fantasy, can be a way to flee from reality for a while. Putting ourselves in someone else's shoes and finding empathy through their own terrible but hilarious issues is a timeless way to bring a little light back into our hearts.

However, sometimes it feels like we've already seen all of the greatest comedies. As legendary as Mel Brooks is, you've gotta take a break before rewatching "Young Frankenstein" yet again. Maybe "Airplane!" isn't doing it for you tonight — that might seem unimaginable, but it's possible! That's when it's time to look for something new, something weird, or something completely unknown. 

As such, we've found 20 underrated comedies to laugh at. Some you may have heard of. Some you might think are a little out of date. Not every recommendation will click with every viewer. But I'm hoping at least a few of these will give you a chuckle when you really need it.

John Carpenter's early movies have a comforting similarity to them. The music is cheesy synth perfection, the special effects are cheap but excellent, and Kurt Russell is probably there. But lots of Carpenter's films hide some smart satire inside their workhorse plots, and "Big Trouble in Little China" is actually a joke on the level of "RoboCop." You might think that the movie is a silly martial arts fantasy featuring Kurt Russell at his manliest. You'd be wrong. Partially.

The movie never stoops to chop suey stereotypes, and the real main character is Wang Chi, played by the criminally underrated Dennis Dun. Kurt, as Jack Burton, is merely a sidekick. He's a white dude severely out of his depth, goggle-eyed at the amount of Chinese stuff going on that he doesn't have the tools to understand. The jokes often center on his confusion, never its Chinese-inspired (if almost totally fictional) roots. Kurt's manliness is consistently deflated, but he keeps on trucking. It's just a perfect, light, funny movie.

Everyone thinks of "Napoleon Dynamite" as the litmus test for a heretofore unknown and almost undefinable type of comedy, but it's "Mouse Hunt" that really tests a chuckler's mettle. It's another purposefully out-of-date movie, a hoary Abbot and Costello skit blended with the trap-based antics of "Home Alone" and given a hearty stir of "Wait, Christopher Walken is in this?" Yes, he is. And it's great.

"Mouse Hunt" will possibly turn you off with its hammy visual comedy and schmaltzy attitude, but if you're the right sort of weird for this movie, it's a charmer. The smartest way to approach it is by recognizing that it's a live-action cartoon. Physics, logic, and animal behavior studies go out the window. What's left is a pair of dorks trying to kill a mouse that's, in proper Tom and Jerry fashion, vastly smarter than either of them. Of course, this movie is better than it has any right to be. It is, after all, the directorial debut of Gore Verbinski, who you probably know better for turning an incoherent theme park ride into a blockbuster franchise.

"Booksmart" is still the best comedy that nobody watched. Released in 2019 to a vague flumphing noise, this box office flop about two friends who stop to party on their way to college deserves your attention, damn it. It doesn't help that it's a critical darling, which might make someone who just wants to hear a good fart joke feel like they're going to be watching some overly cerebral Wes Anderson rip-off. But "Booksmart" is not that movie. It's funny, it's warm, it's gross, and it's real. It also has Billie Lourd living it up and stealing it all as Gigi in a way that her mother, Carrie Fisher, would have approved of.

There's a drug-induced hallucination scene with Barbie dolls that puts "Team America: World Police" to shame for its earthy, genital-obsessed humor. That should have put more butts in seats, right there. In addition, the late emotional beats are so earnest that you can't help but feel the spirit of John Candy in the room. From me to you, please watch this movie.

To call this mockumentary vampire flick underrated may seem like a stretch in the face of Taika Waititi's skyrocketing career, but its theatrical release shows a slim but profitable gross of under 10 million bucks. Although it did well on DVD and streaming, discussing it also proves it's not as well known or understood as we think it is. It's not a Taika Waititi film, as many assume. It's a collaboration with Jemaine Clement, who was at that time better known than Waititi for creating "Flight of the Concords."

The difference between the two directorial styles — Waititi leans more towards humane slapstick, while Clemaine favors Sahara-dry wit — is shown throughout the film, a kind of tonal tango between the pair. The spinoff show of the same name is happy to adapt to its cruder, more diverse cast of weirdos — you can't let Matt Berry show up with a clean mouth — but the original film is slimmer, punchier, and utterly quotable. If you haven't seen it yet, it's time.

"Heathers" is another film comedy fans have probably heard of, but 30 years after its release, it's begun to slide back into the public subconscious. A box office flop turned cult classic, it's often imitated but never replicated. Serious attempts to update this comedy classic are ruined by unfunny realities, with a 2018 reboot quietly pulled after the Parkland massacre.

"Heathers" isn't actually about teenage suicide, a fact that goes often ignored in discussions about the film. It's about peer pressure and murder, a satirical pantomime about the changing social landscape that Gen X kids struggled through. It simply can't be repeated. It's too much a product of its time. Not a few critics think it needs to stay there, in the bleak new era of too-common school shootings. Yet, new viewers should still find moments to relate to, from parents who still cling to masculine stereotypes to the allure of feeling like you belong. "Heathers" is harder for audiences to handle now, but it's worth trying, because when it lands, it's a razor blade of a film.

"Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" is completely approachable if you don't know anything about biopics and only a little about the era of music involved, but the more you do know, the funnier it gets. The biopics released shortly before this film began production, "Walk the Line" and "Ray," fuel the parody, but the movie still works if you skip them. That's due, in no small part, to the affable charm of John C. Reilly.

Reilly is often overshadowed by frequent partner Will Ferrell. Well, no shade to Will, but Reilly long ago stole the honor of being today's Leslie Nielsen. Reilly is funny in ways both humble and sharp, but the dude can also act. He also sings, personally busting out the bulk of the film's Grammy-nominated soundtrack. Dewey himself is a turd for most of his career, but he's also remarkably human. His later life could be weighed down by pure schmaltz, but Reilly, as Dewey, approaches his scenes with such earnest humanity that we buy it. It's a sometimes clever film, built on a sturdy platform of solid jokes.

Mention the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams and you'll find enthusiastic comedy fans blurting out their favorite gags from "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun." That's fair. They're classics for good reason. But the filmmaking trio have a few lesser-known treats hidden in between their headlining joke-a-thons, and one of the best is "Top Secret!" It's also the film that introduced us to Val Kilmer, who should have been allowed to do more comedy.

"Top Secret!" is joyously, knowingly stupid. What decade is all this taking place? Is it World War II? Why is '60s surf rock on the rise? What's the obsession with cows? Why is the French Resistance in East Germany? It doesn't matter. Buckle in with some snacks and enjoy the absurdity. Nothing makes sense, and the visual jokes are slap happy silliness — there's a gag about "little Germans" that makes me laugh every time — and yes, that's Val Kilmer singing. Need another reason to give "Top Secret!" a chance? It's Weird Al Yankovic's favorite movie.

It's weird how this is the third Val Kilmer movie on the list. It's a coincidence, I assure you. But it goes to the fact that the industry railroaded Val into being a leading man when he could have simply been the funniest good-looking guy on Earth. "Real Genius" is Kilmer's second film, his last hour of irreverence before "Top Gun" made him into its hot dude heavy, Iceman. "Real Genius" is about nerds doing nerd things, and it's curiously accurate to the prank-heavy culture of CalTech at the time.

"Real Genius" has classic character actor William Atherton as its bad guy. He's not a supervillain. He's a showboating scientist who's willing to sell out not only himself but his students' work for extra spending cash. Little too real, there. But the plot, while central, doesn't dwell on its down notes. It's quick and chipper, with characters who feel real, not like dork stereotypes. It's one of my favorite flicks, an easy way for me to feel a little better on gloomy days.

Almost anything with Alan Tudyk in it is going to be worth your time. We're going to rely on that fact, because the best way to approach the 2010 cult comedy horror flick "Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil" is to treat it like "The Cabin in the Woods." If you can watch the movie without having anything at all spoiled for you, do it. Stop at this paragraph and go load it up.

If you need a little more to be sold, well, "Tucker & Dale" is a movie that's built on some of the creakiest old horror stereotypes. The broken-down cabin. The suspicious hillbillies. An old, horrific murder that's since become an urban legend used to scare teens. The pack of kids of varying levels of intelligence and horniness. Chainsaws. Woodchippers. Improbably gory death scenes. But "Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil" makes it all fresh and fun again, if impeccably warped. It's a movie that rises or falls on its timing. An indie cheapie, it offers good performances, and not just from Tudyk. But he helps the knowing laughs land, imbuing his easily misinterpreted hillbilly persona with daft charm and honesty.

Like "Walk Hard," Weird Al's sole movie, "UHF," works even better the more movies you've seen. But, like Al's music, that background isn't necessary to enjoy the absurdist show we're being offered. Being a fan of the classic satire "Network" makes Stanley Spadowski's breakdown a little funnier, sure, and a fan of '80s action movies gets more to love once the Conan the Librarian skit runs. But Weird Al has a gift for pop culture osmosis, and unerringly knew we'd still get his "Rambo" jokes years later, even if we've never watched a single entry in that franchise.

"UHF" shows its age in a lot of places. Not to be all "oh, Zoomers!" because that sucks, but the era of foil bunny ears on the TV and the '80s wasteland of public access television is harder to relate to now. Some of the jokes are products of their time, and some, like the kung fu skits, would be rightfully replaced in a modern reboot. So, bear that in mind and know that, of all the comedians in the world, Weird Al is the least likely to draw humor from being mean. The happy weirdness that "UHF" exudes is pure delight, a throwback to a time when a community really believed it could change the world. We still can, of course. But these cheesy little reminders help.