Need a laugh? Peacock is full of stellar sitcoms. But maybe you’re not up for falling into a full-on binge. Maybe you crave the catharsis of a crackling comedy, stuffed with stars, packed with pratfalls, or full of feel-goodiness.
To that end, we’re gifting you 15 different fantastically funny films that are all currently streaming on Peacock. Whether you like your humor boldly broad, deeply dark, or winsomely romantic, we’ve got a little bit of every flavor included to help you get those guffaws out.
Asteroid City
Credit: Focus Features
Writer-director Wes Anderson’s films have become weirdly divisive, with some people finding his whole thing exhausting (the word “twee” is thrown around a lot). But we’re not of that mindset, and we believe that his 2023 feature is Wes at the top of his game. Superficially, Asteroid City is the story of the war photographer and recent widower Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) and his four children getting quarantined by the government in a small Southwestern town after an alien spaceship lands in the middle of the science fair they’re attending.
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But per usual, Anderson endlessly complicates that surface. This comedy welcomes in a sprawling cast of characters, which includes a melancholic Hollywood starlet (Scarlett Johansson), a quirky astronomer (Tilda Swinton), a charming schoolteacher (Maya Hawke) and the singing cowboy (Rupert Friend) she’s got eyes for, plus all the other Junior Stargazers and their parents, all of the government men, and, oh right, the townspeople. But did we mention this is all a play that’s being filmed for a television show? And so every character is also playing the actor behind the scenes? You’d think with all of this going on Asteroid City would be a mess, but Anderson keeps every plate spinning and turns in one of his funniest and most moving films to date instead.
How to watch: Asteroid City is now streaming on Peacock.
Liar Liar
Remember when dumb comedies starring Jim Carrey could make over $300 million at the box office? Go watch 1997’s Liar Liar and revel in the heyday of such nonsense with one of Carrey’s funniest performances.
In director Tom Shadyac’s hit comedy, Carrey plays a slimy lawyer named Fletcher who’s forced to tell the truth — and nothing but the truth — when his alienated son Max (Justin Cooper) makes a birthday wish that makes it so. Carrey’s rubbery physicality is on full display here, as his entire body twists itself into knots trying to stop his tongue from spilling all of his secrets, all to no avail. And bonus points for any movie that has Jennifer Tilly in general, but as a lying, cheating, gold-digging divorcée especially.
How to watch: Liar Liar is now streaming on Peacock.
The Big Lebowski
Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock
Slacker icon Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) is just minding his business at home when two thugs suddenly bust in, and one of them inexplicably pees on his rug. That rug really tied the room together, man. So begins the Coen brothers’ classic 1998 caper, which sees The Dude seeking compensation for his dearly destroyed rug.
This quest saunters through the bowling lanes and back alleys of a deeply surreal Los Angeles as only the Coens could envision it. By the time Julianne Moore is dressed as a Viking and swinging from the ceiling in the middle of a Busby Berkeley-inspired dance number, you’re like, “Sure, of course, why not?” Filled with some of the strangest characters that the Coens have dreamt up — which is saying a lot, but Jesus Quintana (John Turturro) demands such bravado — The Big Lebowski is a beautifully bizarre comic gem.
How to watch: The Big Lebowski is now streaming on Peacock.
Party Girl
There was a terrible, horrible wasteland’s worth of decades where the 1995 Parker Posey comedy Party Girl was hard to find, much less revel in enough to base one’s entire being around. But thankfully those dark clouds parted, and that wasteland is no more; besides getting a fancy Blu-ray release, the film can now be streamed on Peacock.
This East Village indie from writer-director Daisy von Scherler Mayer cemented Posey’s status as the alterna-It Girl of the ’90s. Party Girl sees Posey playing Mary, a fashionable, club-hopping wiseacre who gets a gig at the local library — and even starts to like it. Co-starring Guillermo Diaz (Half Baked, Scandal), Liev Schreiber, and Omar Townsend as the hot falafel guy, with cameos by nightlife luminaries like Lady Bunny, this one is less about the plot than it is about the vibe of downtown NYC in the still-gritty ’90s.
How to watch: Party Girl is now streaming on Peacock.
Support the Girls
Andrew Bujalski’s workplace comedy is still one of the most underrated movies of the past decade, no matter how loudly I keep screaming about it. Set in a Hooters-esque bar and grill, Support The Girls is about a day in the life of the manager (Regina Hall) and a bunch of the waitstaff, and it’s flame-broiled perfection from start to finish. What could’ve easily been a crass and lazy sex comedy is instead deeply humane and riotously funny, making fully rounded characters out of this gang of frazzled and oft-exploited but never victimized women.
Top-notch performances from Hall and co-stars Haley Lu Richardson and Shayna McHayle make this movie endlessly rewatchable. Office Space wishes it had what this movie has.
How to watch: Support the Girls is now streaming on Peacock.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Before the Judd Apatow formula got drummed to death, we had this delightful little lark of a film in 2005 that set off the entire shebang. Steve Carell plays Andy, a 40-year-old virgin who works at a big-box electronics store and collects action figures. When his friends (including Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen, who’d go on to become Apatow fixtures) find out that Andy’s never loved to completion, as it were, they all set about making it happen in a teen-sex-comedy mold broken by R-rated gags.
Enter Trish (Catherine Keener), a delightful woman who runs a shop that sells items on eBay — an idea that seemed ridiculous in 2005 but now, with Amazon having physical locations, is perhaps a little less so. The two hit it off, and one full body-waxing later, they eventually also hit it. The 40-Year-Old Virgin remains a deeply sweet and laugh-out-loud romp today, and one with a cast so stacked, from the smallest to the biggest roles, it’ll leave you a little gobsmacked.
How to watch: The 40-Year-Old Virgin is now streaming on Peacock.
Bridesmaids
Credit: Suzanne Hanover / Universal / Kobal / Shutterstock
Paul Feig’s now-classic comedy hardly needs any introduction. But if you can, you really should blast the Wilson Phillips’ classic “Hold On” as you read this to truly get yourself in the mood. Kristen Wiig stars as Annie, best friend forever to Lillian (Maya Rudolph) — or so Annie thought. While Annie’s been moping over the loss of her dream bakery, Lillian’s been off getting engaged and making some new friends, including queen bee Helen, played by a diabolically perfect Rose Byrne.
With Helen angling to be Lillian’s new BFF, Annie finds a way out of her doldrums, namely by making Lillian’s wedding entirely about herself. Featuring one unforgettable set piece after another — The tennis match! The dress shop! The giant cookie! — and the role that made Melissa McCarthy a star, the script from Wiig and Annie Mumolo (who’d team up a decade later to co-write and star in the surreal masterpiece Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar) is one riotous situation and line-reading after another. You’ll never look at a colonial woman churning butter on the wing of an airplane the same way again.
How to watch: Bridesmaids is now streaming on Peacock.
Dark Horse
Writer-director Todd Solondz’s pitch-black brand of humor, seen across films like Welcome to the Dollhouse, Wiener-Dog, and Happiness, can be a tough sell. But if you can get past your initial skepticism toward its cluelessly unlikable leading man Abe (Jordan Gelber), Dark Horse is a rather sweet affair. Well, that is, if you can be generous enough to find suicide and hepatitis sweet, at least.
Abe possesses unrelenting poster-slogan positivity in the face of every degradation, including the woman he’s in love with (a hilariously caustic Selma Blair) settling for him out of sheer inertia. That grating gusto can wear you down, much like Sally Hawkins did in Mike Leigh’s film Happy-Go-Lucky. But unlike Leigh, Solondz prefers to twist the knife while simultaneously patting us on the shoulder. All that plus Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow as Abe’s parents!
How to watch: Dark Horse is now streaming on Peacock.
Bernie
Who could have guessed that Jack Black’s best role would end up being that of a coded gay mortician who murders the elderly town grump (Shirley MacLaine) for her money? (Jack Black and comedic true crime, it’s a thing! A wonderful thing!) With Bernie, writer-director Richard Linklater turns a stranger-than-fiction true crime story out of Texas into a surprising and off-kilter comedy, featuring Black’s best work bar none.
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Amid a sprightly recollection of Bernie’s side of the story, Linklater works in interviews and on-screen commentary from the real townspeople who lived through it — and eventually came to Bernie’s defense. An outrageous tale told with plenty of humor and heart, Bernie keeps bursting with well-observed life lessons precisely because of that.
How to watch: Bernie is now streaming on Peacock.
Clockwatchers
Another criminally underrated comic gem starring Parker Posey in the 1990s! But Posey is hardly the only jewel in this film’s crown. Her co-stars include Toni Collette (fresh off of Muriel’s Wedding) and Lisa Kudrow (who was also starring in some little sitcom in 1997 called Friends) and Alanna Ubach (from Legally Blonde and Meet the Fockers). Together, they play office drones who grow increasingly frustrated with their lowly place amongst the cogs and gears of corporate nothingness. Two years later, Office Space would pick up and take off with a lot of the same themes. However, director Jill Sprecher’s 1997 film is a far stranger beast and has aged all the better for it.
How to watch: Clockwatchers is now streaming on Peacock.
Jeffrey
In 1995, a rom-com about two gay men falling for each other was somewhat ahead of its time. Although there was the New Queer Cinema wave of the ’90s in the indie scene, Jeffrey still felt like a mainstream-ish bolt out of the blue.
Based on the hit play by Paul Rudnick (Sister Act, In & Out), the film stars Steven Weber (who was still on NBC’s hit show Wings at the time) and Michael T. Weiss as dudes who meet at the gym and hit it off. However, real-life complications abound; Jeffrey (Weber) has been traumatized by the AIDS epidemic and so has sworn off sex and dating, whereas Steve (Weiss) is HIV-positive.
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That dark jolt of realism lurking in the film’s background helps to make the sweeter stuff land, and watching the boys get closer and closer despite the world is very sweet indeed. That said, Sigourney Weaver steals the entire movie with her one-scene turn as a truly demented motivational speaker named Debra!, exclamation point emphatically included.
How to watch: Jeffrey is now streaming on Peacock.
Reality Bites
Credit: Jersey / Kobal / Shutterstock
One of the most ’90s movies to ever ’90s, director/actor Ben Stiller’s Reality Bites tells the story of four friends who were picked to live in a house and find out… Okay, well, close enough. Winona Ryder plays Lelaina, an aspiring filmmaker (cue much fuzzy videotape footage) who’s making bank working as a PA for a sleazy TV host. And, yes, the topic of her “selling out” is the subject of much conversation, because this is all about Gen X. Her friends include Troy (Ethan Hawke), Vickie (Janeane Garofalo), and Sammy (Steve Zahn, aka the gay one). Together, they do things like talk about PFLAG and dance to “My Sharona” in a convenience store, and believe me, kiddos, it was A Moment.
The least interesting aspect of the movie – the love triangle between Lelaina and Troy and a monied schmuck named Michael (Stiller) – unfortunately bears the majority of its narrative thrust. We really spend most of the movie hoping Lelaina will just escape both of these dicks and go work at The Gap with Vickie and have some fun before the ’00s steamroll in and kill fun altogether.
How to watch: Reality Bites is now streaming on Peacock.
The ‘Burbs
If you’ve ever wondered what the hell your weirdo neighbors have been getting up to over there, then director Joe Dante has got just the comedy for you.
Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher star as Ray and Carol Peterson – normal folks, leading normal suburban lives — until a family moves in next door that Ray becomes convinced are part of a Satanic cult practicing ritualized human sacrifice.
Spurred on by his pushy best friends, Art (Rick Ducommun) and Mark (Bruce Dern), Ray’s investigation goes off the deep end fast. And Dante, whose oeuvre ranges from Piranha to The Howling and Gremlins, ramps up the outrageousness with wild abandon. The ‘Burbs is a cult classic in the sense that it got bad reviews when it first came out but became beloved over the years, thanks to its endless rewatchability on home video and cable. Treat yourself to the spooky comedy that’s a great watch year-round.
How to watch: The ‘Burbs is now streaming on Peacock.
The Aristocrats
Documentaries aren’t known for being the funniest types of movies — politics and crime and poverty are their bread and butter. So, when one comes along that has people rolling in the aisles, we take notice. Enter Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza’s 2005 doc about a legendarily dirty joke and the endless ways that comedians have been riffing on it among themselves for decades. Over 100 comedians, including Gilbert Gottfried, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, Jon Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, and the king Don Rickles, regale us with variations on this joke. It typically begins with a family member walking into an agent’s office seeking representation for a group act, and it ends with the phrase, “I call it ‘The Aristocrats!'” But the filth that comes in between? That’s where the magic lives.
Be warned: This one is not fit for family movie night.
How to watch: The Aristocrats is now streaming on Peacock.
Girls Trip
Credit: Michele K Short / Universal / Kobal / Shutterstock
From the Golden Girls to the ladies of Sex and the City, the four female friends trope is a cultural touchstone for a reason. And nobody seems to know that better than Queen Latifah, who’s been part of three classics of the genre — first, there was her ’90s sitcom Living Single, then there was her 1996 heist flick Set it Off. And in 2017, she reunited with her Set It Off co-star Jada Pinkett Smith for Girls Trip, a raunchy comedy in the vein of The Hangover and Bridesmaids, which saw Latifah & Jada team up with Regina Hall and Tiffany Haddish to go on, you guessed it, a girls’ trip.
Playing four semi-estranged college friends who want to reconnect, the foursome find themselves heading off to the Essence Festival in New Orleans where Hall’s character, an Oprah-esque lifestyle guru, will be the keynote speaker. Dubbed the “Flossy Posse” the ladies click right back into place, and much in the way of wild and hilarious drunken antics await. Girls Trip was Haddish’s big breakout, where she pretty much steals the entire movie from all the bigger stars in one booty-hole-centric swoop.
How to watch: Girls Trip is now streaming on Peacock.
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Source : The 15 funniest movies streaming on Peacock right now
