What Comedy Movies to watch on Criterion Channel

Avant-garde poet Charlie hasn't had much luck with women, but then he meets Harriet, the girl of his dreams.. or is it his nightmares? Harriet is wonderful, but Charlie begins to suspect that she is Mrs. X., a woman who marries men, then kills them.

Ronna needs to make some extra cash. Simon wants to escape to Vegas for the weekend. Adam and Zack want to stay out of trouble. But it's not just another night in the life of these unusual characters. They're about to embark on a wild ride that won't end until the sun comes up.

'The Dude', Jeff Lebowski is unemployed and as laid-back as they come. That is until he becomes a victim of mistaken identity, and two thugs break into his apartment with the errant belief that they're strong-arming Jeff Lebowski - the Pasadena millionaire. In the hope of getting a replacement for his soiled carpet, 'the Dude' pays a visit to his wealthy namesake...

The staff of a Korean War field hospital use humor and hijinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war.

The Stepford Wives is a 2004 American sci-fi dramedy film. It was directed by Frank Oz from a screenplay by Paul Rudnick and stars Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Faith Hill and Glenn Close. The film is a remake of the 1975 film of the same name; both films are based on the Ira Levin novel The Stepford Wives.

Noriko is 27 years old and is still living with her father Somiya, a widower. Noriko just recovered from an illness she developed in the war, and now the important question pops up: when will Noriko start thinking about marriage? Everybody who is important in her life tries to talk her into it: her father, her aunt, a girlfriend. But Noriko doesn't want to get married, she seems extremely happy with her life. She wants to stay with her father to take care of him. After all, she knows best of his manners and peculiarities. But Noriko's aunt doesn't want to give up. She arranges a partner for her and thinks of a plan that will convince Noriko her father can be left alone.

A sweet mother takes a little too much at heart for the defence of her family.

A talented New York bartender takes a job at a bar in Jamaica and falls in love.

Three grown prodigies, all with a unique genius of some kind, and their mother are staying at the family household. Their father, Royal had left them long ago, and comes back to make things right with his family.

A recently orphaned young boy is taken to a seaside hotel in England by his grandmother, who is recuperating after an illness.. Also staying at their hotel is a group of witches who have gathered to prepare a plot to rid England of all children.

Sandra Dee stars as everyone's favorite teenager, Gidget. While hitting the beach during summer vacation she falls for two surfers (played by Cliff Robertson and James Darren) at the same time. Though they make fun of her at first, they teach her to surf. Soon she's accepted and given the nickname "Gidget." This wholesome 50's classic spawned several sequels and a television series.

February 26 and 27, 2000, the Original Kings of Comedy play Charlotte, NC. The themes are Blacks and Whites, men and women, old-school and hip-hop. Steve Harvey emcees, celebrates '70s music and lyrics of love, and pokes at folks in the front row. D.L. Hughley mines racial differences and talks about his marriage. Cedric the Entertainer riffs on a Black president and on being grown up. Bernie Mac, who says he expresses what's in the back of our minds, closes with reflections on being 42 (new aspects to his sex life and his attitude toward children). Spike Lee's camera takes us backstage and off-stage with the Kings and into the crowd where everyone's laughing.

Meet Jack Foley (George Clooney), a smooth criminal who bends the law and is determined to make one last heist. Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez) is a Federal Marshal who chooses all the right moves... and all the wrong guys. Now they're willing to risk it all to find out if there's more between them than just the law. Variety hails Out of Sight as "a sly, sexy, vastly entertaining film."

Martin Blank is a freelance hitman who starts to develop a conscience, which causes him to muff a couple of routine assignments. On the advice of his secretary and his psychiatrist, he attends his 10-year high-school reunion in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a Detroit suburb where he's also contracted to kill someone. Hot on his tail are a couple of over-enthusiastic federal agents, another assassin who wants to kill him, and Grocer, an assassin who wants him to join an "Assassins' Union."

In her Academy Award winning role, Cher, while waiting for her timid fiance to decide between her and his mother, falls in love with her fiance's estranged brother (Nicolas Cage), a bakery worker with a love of opera and life. Supporting actress Olympia Dukakis and screenwriter John Patrick Shanley also won Oscars in this comedy classic.

Arthur is a happy drunk with no pretensions at any ambition. He is also the heir to a vast fortune which he is told will only be his if he marries Susan. He does not love Susan, but she will make something of him the family expects. Arthur proposes but then meets a girl with no money, with whom he could easily fall in love.

Johnny Knoxville and his band of maniacs perform a variety of stunts and gross-out gags on the big screen for the first time.

Charlie and Muriel Lang have led simple lives for most of their existence. That's until they win $4 million on the lottery. There is a problem, however. Prior to winning the lottery, Charlie had eaten at a café and hadn't been able to tip the waitress. He had promised her, jokingly, that if he won the lottery he'd give her half of it. This is why his wife, Muriel, decides to leave him. She doesn't want the waitress to get a cent of their money. In fact, she wants all $4 million for herself.

A struggling widow and her daughter take in a black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter; the two women start a successful business, but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.

A seminal Thirty-Something movie in which a group of old college friends who are now older and experienced come together for the funeral of Alex, who was at one time the brightest and the best of them at college and yet who never managed to find his way. The friends use the occasion to reacquaint themselves with each other, discuss where their lives have led and speculate on what happened to their idealism which had been abundant when they were younger.

Kurt Russell stars as Jack Burton, a big-talking, wisecracking truck driver who’s suddenly hurled into a wild adventure even he could never invent. At the root of it all is Lo Pan (James Hong), a 2,000 year old evil magician who rules an empire of spirits beneath San Francisco’s Chinatown. Doomed to a fleshless existence, he can only be saved by a green-eyed Asian beauty.

Baltimore, 1954. With the city's teens split between the refined Squares and the rebellious Drapes, Cry-Baby, an effortlessly cool Greaser, and his Perfecto-clad gang stir up trouble and break hearts. And then, sparks fly when Cry-Baby locks eyes with preppy Allison, enraging her possessive boyfriend. As the Squares conspire to tear them apart, only a few unlikely allies can help Cry-Baby and his misunderstood crew escape a jail sentence. But when young passion is this powerful, not even the law can stand in the way of true love.

The Maysles brothers pay visits to Edith Bouvier Beale, nearing 80, and her daughter Edie. Reclusive, the pair live with cats and raccoons in Grey Gardens, a crumbling mansion in East Hampton. Edith is dry and quick-witted - a singer, married but later separated, a member of high society. Edie is voluble, dresses - as she puts it - for combat in tight ensembles that include scarves wrapped around her head. There are hints that Edie came home 24 years before to be cared for rather than to care for her mother. The women address the camera, talking over each other, moving from the present to events years before. They're odd, with flinty affection for each other.

An insurance salesman/adjuster discovers his entire life is actually a TV show.