5. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
The Python's first original feature (And Now For Something Completely Different was based on a previous sketch) recently celebrated its 40th birthday, but it's still as brilliantly bonkers as ever. Easily the funniest Python film, Holy Grail revels in surrealism. Slapstick, fourth wall✃-breaking, innuendo, and dry-as-a-bone delivery all play a key part in its humor. This isn't just a bunch of chain maille gags.
🌱Still, its deceptively simple premise - King Arthur attempts to recruit Knights for his Round Table - is really just cover for some genuinely smart comedy.
4. Ghostbusters (1984)
Spooky goings-on and things that go bump in the night are usually limited to the horror genre. Ivan Reitman's original supernatural comedy dips its slime-drenched toes into a lot of waters. I mean, how can you say a gang of four guys dressed up in crappy overalls blasting away at ghosts isn't a fantasy?
That's where Reitman and screenwriters Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis clean up. Take things like Zuul, the Gatekeeper, the Keymaster; names and mantles that owe a lot to traditional mythic storytelling. What's clever about Ghostbusters, and a hell of a lot of fun, is how those elements are combinedꦬ with what's essentia▨lly an extermination startup to make a fantastical horror that's funny as hell. Or 55 Central Park West. Whatever your preference.
3. Labyrinth (1986)
Jennifer Connelly's petulant teen. Jim Henson's seamless puppetry. David Bowie's, er, music, Labyrinth takes classical fairytales and has fun spinning them on their heads, whether that's in the form of finger-biting fairies, unhelpful guides (“Hoggle is Hoggles frie♌nd!”), or mind-bending word games (“One of us always lies, one of us always tells the truth.”)
It's remained a classic for a reason. Several, actually. The grand world and its cheeky inhabitants crafted by Henson still inspire awe, an🔴d twinned with Bowie's vocal stylings there's no other movie that🦩 touches it. Yeah, it's a tad creepy at times (the bog lady? Hello insomnia) but there's a greater message buried inside the labyrinth, that's all about friendship. Aww.
