39 articles
Adam's Rib
Adam's Rib is a 1949 MGM screwball comedy directed by George Cukor, written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as married lawyers on opposite sides of an attempted-murder trial; sixth of their nine MGM pairings, National Film Registry 1992.
Ahí está el Detalle
Ahí está el Detalle (1940), Juan Bustillo Oro's Mexican comedy starring Cantinflas in his first feature, about a confusion between a dog and a gangster both named Bobby, ending in a famous trial scene.
Animal Crackers (1930 film)
Animal Crackers (1930) is the Marx Brothers' second Paramount film, adapted from their 1928 Broadway musical, directed by Victor Heerman, starring Groucho as Captain Spaulding, and entering the US public domain in 2026.
Arsenic and Old Lace (film)
Arsenic and Old Lace: 1944 Frank Capra Warner Bros. black comedy starring Cary Grant, adapted from Joseph Kesselring's Broadway hit; shot in 1941 but held until the play closed in June 1944.
Ball of Fire
Ball of Fire is a 1941 screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, written by Brackett and Wilder from the story "From A to Z", a Snow White-style tale of professors and slang, with four Oscar nominations.
Boudu Saved from Drowning
Boudu Saved from Drowning (Boudu sauvé des eaux) is Jean Renoir's 1932 French comedy starring Michel Simon as a tramp rescued from the Seine by a bourgeois bookseller, whose household he disrupts; adapted from René Fauchois's play, remade as Down and Out in Beverly Hills.
Christmas in Connecticut
Christmas in Connecticut (1945) is a Warner Bros. screwball romantic comedy directed by Peter Godfrey, starring Barbara Stanwyck as columnist Elizabeth Lane, with Dennis Morgan and Sydney Greenstreet; released August 11, 1945, remade for TV in 1991.
Die Feuerzangenbowle
Die Feuerzangenbowle is a 1944 German comedy by Helmut Weiss with Heinz Rühmann as writer Johannes Pfeiffer, who returns to school in disguise; based on Heinrich Spoerl's novel, a Nazi-era production now a student cult Christmas film.
Easy Living
Easy Living (1937) is a Paramount screwball comedy directed by Mitchell Leisen, written by Preston Sturges from Vera Caspary's story, starring Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, and Ray Milland; a $58,000 sable coat falls on a clerk, distinct from the unrelated 1949 Tourneur drama.
El Bolero de Bécalá
El Bolero de Bécalá is a 1957 Mexican comedy directed by Juan Bustillo Oro, starring Fernando Soler as a shoeshine man who learns he is the lost son of a well-off family from Bécal, Campeche.
El Gran Calavera
El gran calavera (The Great Madcap) is a 1949 Mexican comedy by Luis Buñuel, scripted by Janet and Luis Alcoriza from an Adolfo Torrado play, starring Fernando Soler as a rich widower whose family fakes his ruin; its success enabled Los olvidados.
El Rey del Barrio
El rey del barrio (The King of the Neighborhood), 1949 Mexican Golden Age comedy by Gilberto Martínez Solares starring Tin Tan as a Robin Hood-style con man; also the Spanish title of the 2020 Apatow film The King of Staten Island.
Enamorada
Enamorada (1946) is Emilio Fernández's Golden Age Mexican film, a Taming of the Shrew adaptation set in revolutionary Cholula, starring María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz, photographed by Gabriel Figueroa, an Ariel-winning classic restored in 4K in 2018.
Horse Feathers
Horse Feathers is a 1932 Paramount Marx Brothers comedy directed by Norman Z. McLeod, the fourth Marx Brothers film, satirizing college football at Huxley College with the songs "I'm Against It" and "Everyone Says I Love You." Not the Dario Argento film or the Idles album.
I Know Where I'm Going!
I Know Where I'm Going! (IKWIG) is a 1945 British black-and-white romance by Powell and Pressburger, starring Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey, about a woman stranded on Mull en route to her Hebridean wedding.
It's a Wonderful World
It's a Wonderful World is a 1939 MGM screwball comedy directed by W.S. Van Dyke, starring Claudette Colbert and James Stewart, written by Ben Hecht and Herman J. Mankiewicz, unrelated to It's a Wonderful Life.
Jour de fête
Jour de fête (1949) is Jacques Tati's debut feature comedy, starring Tati as village postman François who attempts an American-style mail round by bicycle; shot in 1947 at Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre, with a lost Thomsoncolor version restored in 1995.
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British black comedy directed by Robert Hamer at Ealing Studios, starring Dennis Price, with Alec Guinness playing eight relatives.
Libeled Lady
Libeled Lady is a 1936 MGM screwball comedy directed by Jack Conway, starring Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Spencer Tracy, about a fake marriage scheme to beat a $5 million libel suit; a Best Picture nominee.
Midnight (1939 film)
Midnight (1939) is a Paramount screwball comedy directed by Mitchell Leisen, written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, starring Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, and Mary Astor; a penniless showgirl poses as a Hungarian baroness in Paris.
Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street (1947), a Twentieth Century-Fox Christmas comedy-drama directed and written by George Seaton from Valentine Davies's story, stars Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle; it won three Oscars, was released in May, entered the National Film Registry in 2005, and was remade in 1994.
Monkey Business (1931 film)
Monkey Business (1931) is a Marx Brothers comedy, their first original screenplay, directed by Norman Z. McLeod for Paramount, about stowaways on an ocean liner mixed up with rival gangsters.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941 film)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), Hitchcock's only screwball comedy, an RKO rom-com with Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery whose marriage is voided by a legal technicality.
Passport to Pimlico
Passport to Pimlico is a 1949 Ealing Studios British comedy directed by Henry Cornelius, written by T.E.B. Clarke, starring Stanley Holloway and Margaret Rutherford, in which Pimlico declares independence as Burgundy to escape rationing.
Remember the Night
Remember the Night is a 1940 Paramount Christmas romantic drama directed by Mitchell Leisen, written by Preston Sturges, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in their first pairing, released 19 January 1940.
Sullivan's Travels
Sullivan's Travels (1941) is Preston Sturges's Paramount comedy-drama starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake, in which a comedy director goes undercover as a hobo to research a serious film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and learns the value of laughter; National Film Registry 1990.
The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth (1937) is a Columbia Pictures screwball comedy directed by Leo McCarey, starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne as divorcing spouses Jerry and Lucy Warriner; it won McCarey the Best Director Oscar.
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), RKO romantic comedy directed by Irving Reis, written by Sidney Sheldon, starring Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Shirley Temple; won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.
The Great Dictator
The Great Dictator is a 1940 American political-satire comedy-drama written, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin, who satirizes Adolf Hitler and Nazism in a dual role.
The Great McGinty
The Great McGinty (1940) is Preston Sturges' directorial debut, a Paramount political satire starring Brian Donlevy, Muriel Angelus, and Akim Tamiroff, about a hobo who rises from vote fraud to governor and is ruined by honesty; it won the first Best Original Screenplay Oscar.