The comedy and the war film are two genres that don't automatically lend themselves to one another. We all enjoy a good laugh, but it takes real skill to make us laugh about war. You know - especially given that war is bloody, violent, and often awful. Not exactly ripe material for a giggle. Here's the best and worst war comedies.
The Best!
This 1964 film by Stanley Kubrick stars Peter Sellers and George C. Scott as a satire of the Cold War politics that dominated the second half of American culture in the 20th century. The plot involves General Jack Ripper who decides to launch nuclear weapons at Soviet Russia, while the rest of the U.S. military structure tries (and fails) to stop him.
Knowing that the bombers are on their way to Russia and cannot be recalled, and that upon their arrival they will drop a thermo-nuclear payload that will cause the Russians to retaliate in what will surely be a world ending event, the President calls the Russian premiere, "Dimitri we have a little problem...."
It's absurdist cinema at its best: The U.S. Army attacking one of its own military bases to remove an entrenched deranged general intent on nuclear war, Pentagon planners giddy at the impending strike even knowing it will mean the end of civilization, and fighting breaking out in the War Room ("There's no fighting in the war room!")
Click here for the Top War Satires.
The Best!
This 1970 Robert Altman film is set during the Korean War in an Army field medical hospital where Donald Sutherland and Robert Gould play blood drenched surgeons that casually saw off limbs and sew up decimated bodies as they sarcastically attack one another. MASH is illustrative of the fact that a great comedy can be about any subject matter; even one as grotesque as an Army field hospital where soldiers are dying.
The Best!
This 1970 film, based on the classic book, follows in the vein of MASH and Dr. Strangelove, as an absurdist satire on the nature of warfare. The story involves a pilot in World War II who tries to get himself declared insane so that he can stop flying missions. Of course, you already know the punchline, the harder he tries to act insane, the more sane he's considered to be.
To get a sense of the content, it's perhaps best to read an excerpt from the book on which the film is based:
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
Exactly!
The Best!
This screwball comedy featuring an ad-hoc unit of Army soldiers setting out to rob a bank behind enemy lines is highly entertaining. Starring Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, and Donald Sutherland. Warning: Giggles may erupt without warning.
The Best!
Oh, how I miss the youthful Goldie Hawn! Goldie is in top form as a woman who joins the Army after her husband dies during sex (I don't necessarily see the connection between the two, but I digress.) Goldie is "over-sold" on the Army, like we all were, and tries to quit - she's shocked to find she can't.
Click here for the Best and Worst War Movies about Basic Training.
The Best!
This 1981 film stars Bill Murray as a down on his luck taxi driver that decides to enlist in the U.S. Army to turn his life around. Also starring the late John Candy and Harold Ramis, the film is big, loud, absurd, and hilarious throughout as Murray and Candy struggle through boot camp, and eventually end up in Soviet controlled eastern Europe on an accidental secret mission…as you do!
As an Army veteran, I sort of wish the real Army had been this much fun. (Admit it, seeing John Candy stumble through a Basic Training obstacle course is as endlessly amusing!)
The Best!
This 1987 film stars Robin Williams as a U.S. Army radio DJ for the Armed Forces fighting in Vietnam. Loved by the troops, but hated by the command for his irreverent tendencies, the film is a perfect showcase for the loopy antics of Robin Williams. (As a personal confession, I'm one of those people that rarely finds Robin Williams entertaining, but this is one film where his careening caricatures and voice work - all at the service of the radio - pays off.)
Click here for the Best and Worst Vietnam War Movies.
The Best!
And the top war comedy of all time...Rambo III. What? Rambo III isn't a comedy you say? I beg to differ! Rambo fights alongside Bin Laden and his fellow future Taliban to single-handidly destroy the Soviet military in Afghanistan?
That's funny!
The Worst!
In the vein of Naked Gun and Airplane, comes Hot Shots, one of those ridiculously broad comedies with a never ending series of visual gags that loosely strings together a story borrowed from Top Gun, Rambo, and every other war film of the 1980s.
If MASH and Dr. Strangelove are the sophisticated entries in this list, finding humor in the absurdity of warfare, Hot Shots is the entry where they make funny fart jokes. So if fart jokes are your thing, then have at it.
The Worst!
Pauli Shore (remember him? He briefly had a career in the 1990s doing a headache inducing schtick?) In this film, he joins the Army and acts like an exceptionally poor soldier, which is supposed to be funny. There's a reason Shore doesn't have a career anymore. I can't believe that at one point they tried to charge people money for this stuff.
The Worst!
This 2008 comedy starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. has three prima donna actors dropped into a war zone while thinking they are making a movie. The film offers Ben Stiller and Jack Black in top form and has a hilarious cameo by Tom Cruise as an obnoxiously gross film agent. The film starts off as a hilarious send-up of Hollywood, but gets mired down in its soggy second half.
The Best!
Quentin Tarantino's take on the World War II war film is a cross between Kelly's Heroes, The Dirty Dozen, and Pulp Fiction. Told as a series of sometimes intersecting (and only sometimes interesting stories), it's a bit hit and miss, but there are steady laughs throughout, especially Brad Pitt as the leader of the "Basterds," a secret U.S. commando unit composed of Jewish Americans sent behind enemy lines to kill Nazis.
Click here for the Best and Worst War Movies about Special Forces.
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12. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
The Best!
This 1964 film by Stanley Kubrick stars Peter Sellers and George C. Scott as a satire of the Cold War politics that dominated the second half of American culture in the 20th century. The plot involves General Jack Ripper who decides to launch nuclear weapons at Soviet Russia, while the rest of the U.S. military structure tries (and fails) to stop him.
Knowing that the bombers are on their way to Russia and cannot be recalled, and that upon their arrival they will drop a thermo-nuclear payload that will cause the Russians to retaliate in what will surely be a world ending event, the President calls the Russian premiere, "Dimitri we have a little problem...."
It's absurdist cinema at its best: The U.S. Army attacking one of its own military bases to remove an entrenched deranged general intent on nuclear war, Pentagon planners giddy at the impending strike even knowing it will mean the end of civilization, and fighting breaking out in the War Room ("There's no fighting in the war room!")
Click here for the Top War Satires.
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11. MASH (1970)
The Best!
This 1970 Robert Altman film is set during the Korean War in an Army field medical hospital where Donald Sutherland and Robert Gould play blood drenched surgeons that casually saw off limbs and sew up decimated bodies as they sarcastically attack one another. MASH is illustrative of the fact that a great comedy can be about any subject matter; even one as grotesque as an Army field hospital where soldiers are dying.
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10. Catch-22 (1970)
The Best!
This 1970 film, based on the classic book, follows in the vein of MASH and Dr. Strangelove, as an absurdist satire on the nature of warfare. The story involves a pilot in World War II who tries to get himself declared insane so that he can stop flying missions. Of course, you already know the punchline, the harder he tries to act insane, the more sane he's considered to be.
To get a sense of the content, it's perhaps best to read an excerpt from the book on which the film is based:
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
Exactly!
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9. Kelly's Heroes (1970)
The Best!
This screwball comedy featuring an ad-hoc unit of Army soldiers setting out to rob a bank behind enemy lines is highly entertaining. Starring Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, and Donald Sutherland. Warning: Giggles may erupt without warning.
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8. Private Benjamin (1980)
The Best!
Oh, how I miss the youthful Goldie Hawn! Goldie is in top form as a woman who joins the Army after her husband dies during sex (I don't necessarily see the connection between the two, but I digress.) Goldie is "over-sold" on the Army, like we all were, and tries to quit - she's shocked to find she can't.
Click here for the Best and Worst War Movies about Basic Training.
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7. Stripes (1981)
The Best!
This 1981 film stars Bill Murray as a down on his luck taxi driver that decides to enlist in the U.S. Army to turn his life around. Also starring the late John Candy and Harold Ramis, the film is big, loud, absurd, and hilarious throughout as Murray and Candy struggle through boot camp, and eventually end up in Soviet controlled eastern Europe on an accidental secret mission…as you do!
As an Army veteran, I sort of wish the real Army had been this much fun. (Admit it, seeing John Candy stumble through a Basic Training obstacle course is as endlessly amusing!)
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6. Good Morning Vietnam (1987)
The Best!
This 1987 film stars Robin Williams as a U.S. Army radio DJ for the Armed Forces fighting in Vietnam. Loved by the troops, but hated by the command for his irreverent tendencies, the film is a perfect showcase for the loopy antics of Robin Williams. (As a personal confession, I'm one of those people that rarely finds Robin Williams entertaining, but this is one film where his careening caricatures and voice work - all at the service of the radio - pays off.)
Click here for the Best and Worst Vietnam War Movies.
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5. Rambo III (1988)
The Best!
And the top war comedy of all time...Rambo III. What? Rambo III isn't a comedy you say? I beg to differ! Rambo fights alongside Bin Laden and his fellow future Taliban to single-handidly destroy the Soviet military in Afghanistan?
That's funny!
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4. Hot Shots (1991)
The Worst!
In the vein of Naked Gun and Airplane, comes Hot Shots, one of those ridiculously broad comedies with a never ending series of visual gags that loosely strings together a story borrowed from Top Gun, Rambo, and every other war film of the 1980s.
If MASH and Dr. Strangelove are the sophisticated entries in this list, finding humor in the absurdity of warfare, Hot Shots is the entry where they make funny fart jokes. So if fart jokes are your thing, then have at it.
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3. In the Army Now (1994)
The Worst!
Pauli Shore (remember him? He briefly had a career in the 1990s doing a headache inducing schtick?) In this film, he joins the Army and acts like an exceptionally poor soldier, which is supposed to be funny. There's a reason Shore doesn't have a career anymore. I can't believe that at one point they tried to charge people money for this stuff.
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2. Tropic Thunder (2008)
The Worst!
This 2008 comedy starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. has three prima donna actors dropped into a war zone while thinking they are making a movie. The film offers Ben Stiller and Jack Black in top form and has a hilarious cameo by Tom Cruise as an obnoxiously gross film agent. The film starts off as a hilarious send-up of Hollywood, but gets mired down in its soggy second half.
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1. Inglorious Basterds (2009)
The Best!
Quentin Tarantino's take on the World War II war film is a cross between Kelly's Heroes, The Dirty Dozen, and Pulp Fiction. Told as a series of sometimes intersecting (and only sometimes interesting stories), it's a bit hit and miss, but there are steady laughs throughout, especially Brad Pitt as the leader of the "Basterds," a secret U.S. commando unit composed of Jewish Americans sent behind enemy lines to kill Nazis.
Click here for the Best and Worst War Movies about Special Forces.