Sorry to Bother You.
Photo: Paramount Pictures
This list is regularly updated as movies rotate on and off of Prime Video. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk.
Who needs a good laugh? Prime Video has a deep catalog of comedies for every mood from romantic classics to modern blockbusters to the laugh-busters you loved when you were young. However, navigating their interface to find the best comedies can be tough, so we’re here to help Amazon connect with your funny bone with this updated list of the best comedies on Prime Video.
Year: 2005
Runtime: 2h 56m
Director: Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow has made several funny movies and a great TV show (Freaks & Geeks) but this remains his best and funniest movie front to back. Steve Carell can try to go dramatic all he wants, but he will always be remembered for having his chest hair waxed. Carell is great but the supporting cast really makes this one, including Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, and Catherine Keener.
Year: 1960
Runtime: 2h 5m
Director: Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder’s masterpiece is over six decades old, but it still feels as timeless as ever. The template for so many movies to come, The Apartment is a daring dissection of toxicity in the story of an insurance clerk (Jack Lemmon) who lets his coworkers use his apartment to support their infidelity. It’s a perfect movie.
Year: 2017
Runtime: 2h
Director: Michael Showalter
The wonderful screenwriters Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon basically told their own love story in this sweet and funny rom-com that Amazon picked up after audiences fell for it at Sundance. Nanjiani plays a loose variation on himself, a struggling stand-up who falls for a woman (Zoe Kazan) just before she becomes incredibly ill, forcing their relationship to move at an unusual pace. A smart, sweet, genuinely human film, this is one of the best romantic comedies of the 2010s.
Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 45m
Directors: Carey Williams
Carey Williams adapted his short film of the same name into this Sundance hit that Amazon picked up and dropped on Prime in May 2022. It’s the story of Sean and Kunle, two average friends who decide to go on a frat party tour but have their night of debauchery interrupted by an unconscious body on their living room floor. An insightful and hysterical blend of college comedy and racial commentary, it’s a sharp piece of filmmaking.
Year: 1926
Runtime: 1h 15m
Directors: Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton
Truly classic comedies can be hard to find on streaming services, so take this chance to watch an all-timer, one of the best silent movies ever made. The phenomenally talented Buster Keaton stars and co-directs this action-adventure-comedy that has a little bit of something for everyone, and is really a great introduction to people who may not be familiar with Keaton’s remarkable skills.
Year: 1996
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Dennis Dugan
Netflix may have all those new Adam Sandler comedies, but Prime has the classics. Just ignore (most) of the recent stuff and go back to the beginning, watching what is still Sandler’s funniest movie overall. Forever quotable and still funny twenty-five years later, Happy Gilmore now seems to be the comedy landmark of this phase of the Sandman’s career.
Year: 1989
Runtime: 1h 43m
Director: Michael Lehmann
Talk about a movie ahead of its time. Coming-of-age teen comedies were never quite as wonderfully cynical before this movie about four teenage girls whose lives are upended by the arrival of a new kid, played by Christian Slater. More than just seeking to destroy the damaging cliques at his new school, Slater’s character has plans for something a little more permanent in this comedy that really shaped the teen genre for years to come.
Year: 2007
Runtime: 2h 1m
Director: Edgar Wright
The center of Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy (with Shaun of the Dead and The World’s End) remains the best film in the bunch, and they’re all on Prime, by the way. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost play a pair of ordinary police officers who get sucked into a crazy case involving multiple murders in their small England town. Both a parody of action films and a legitimately great action film on its own terms, this is one of the best genre hybrids of the 2000s.
Year: 1963
Runtime: 2h 40m
Director: Stanley Kramer
Imagine a comedy in 2023 that features basically everyone that most people find funny. That’s kind of what this sprawling, massive epic was to audiences in 1963, gathering over a dozen comedians and sending them on a madcap race around the world to find a ton of stolen cash. It’s one of the most beloved comedies of the early ‘60s for a reason.
Year: 2001
Runtime: 1h 36m
Director: Robert Luketic
Long before she won an Oscar or worked magic with Big Little Lies, Reese Witherspoon turned a ditzy blonde into a comedy star in this 2001 romantic comedy from director Robert Luketic. It could be stretching it to call this silly fluff “great” but what elevates the saga of Elle Woods from sorority queen to legal eagle is the total charm and commitment of Witherspoon herself. It’s one of her most likable and memorable performances. (Note: The sequel is also on Prime Video.)
Year: 2021
Runtime: 2h 13m
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
A controversial nominee for Best Picture at the beginning of 2022, P.T. Anderson’s latest is already on Prime Video for subscribers to screen for no extra cost. And they should. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman are transcendent in this story of a teenager who falls for a twentysomething woman, and the odd adventures that somehow keep falling into their lives. It’s a lyrical, gorgeously shot period comedy about those hazy days when anything seems possible.
Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 51m
Directors: Adam Nee, Aaron Nee
With echoes of beloved rom-coms like African Queen and Romancing the Stone, this film truly felt like an anomaly in 2022, and yet it turned into a pretty big hit at the theater. It’s already on streaming services, and it’s a great choice if you’re looking for some escapism tonight. Travel to the middle of nowhere with a romance novel writer (Sandra Bullock) and the cover model (Channing Tatum) who tries to save the day.
Year: 2006
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Jared Hess
Jared Hess and Jack Black’s goofy senses of humor meshed well in this 2006 comedy hit. Black plays a cook at a Oaxacan monastery who unexpectedly becomes a famous luchador, but that’s just the skeleton of a plot on which to hang physical humor and silly behavior. It’s the kind of comedy that’s easy to put on in the background while you’re doing other things. Sometimes that’s all you want from Amazon Prime.
Year: 2010
Runtime: 1h 47m
Director: Adam McKay
One of the final films of the McKay/Ferrell partnership is also maybe the most underrated. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg star in this buddy comedy about the two cops who almost never get to the save the day, but they’re forced into action when the legends at the precinct make a fatal mistake. The comedy timing between Wahlberg and Ferrell is some of the best of its era and this movie is much sharper than people remember.
Year: 2012
Runtime: 2h 2m
Director: David O. Russell
Sometimes a director finds a cast at just the right time and that’s exactly what happened when David O. Russell tapped Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Jacki Weaver in this romantic dramedy. They’re all perfect, making this one of the more likable and easy-to-watch movies you could possibly bring up on Amazon.
Year: 2018
Runtime: 1h 50m
Director: Boots Riley
Lakeith Stanfield stars in the directorial debut of the leader of The Coup, a film that shook audiences at Sundance but still feels a bit underrated. With a style that blends hip-hop culture with the surrealism of satirists like Terry Gilliam and Michel Gondry, this comedy takes no prisoners. Stanfield plays a telemarketer who works his way up the corporate ladder to discover the truly dark secrets that live on the higher rungs. It feels like a movie that more people will find on services like Prime Video and could shape future comedies to come.
Year: 2002
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Walt Becker
Listen, there’s nothing particularly great about this National Lampoon, but what’s interesting is to see the early days of the career of Ryan Reynolds, an actor who is still opening movies successfully over two decades later. Playing a college student who has been there for seven years and counting, Reynolds is charming and very funny. Some interesting trivia: This film is loosely based on the real life of comedian and podcast co-host Bert Kreischer.
Year: 2008
Runtime: 1h 36m
Director: Woody Allen
One of the last major critical and commercial hits of Woody Allen’s career, this charmer won Penelope Cruz the well-deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The film stars Scarlett Johannson and Rebecca Hall as two American women who spend a summer in Barcelona and get sucked into the romantic sphere of an artist named Juan Antonio, played perfectly by Javier Bardem. It’s a smart, sexy, funny film.
Year: 1989
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: Rob Reiner
Any list of the best romantic comedies of all time that doesn’t include Rob Reiner’s classic is simply incomplete. Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal give their most charming film performances as the title characters, a pair who decide to test the theory that men and women can’t be friends without romance getting in the way. The real star here is Nora Ephron’s sharp and ultimately moving screenplay, one of the best in the history of the rom-com.
Year: 2013
Runtime: 3h
Director: Martin Scorsese
Leonardo DiCaprio should have won the Oscar for his amazing performance as Jordan Belfort, the financial criminal that rocked Wall Street and shocked audiences in one of Scorsese’s best late films. Arguments over whether or not this film glorifies a “bad guy” have become prominent — and could only really be made by people who haven’t actually watched it. Most of all, it’s a shockingly robust film, filmed with more energy in a few minutes than most flicks have in their entire runtime.
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