What Comedy Movies to watch on Criterion Channel

On their wedding night Bob informs his new bride Betty that he has bought a chicken farm. An abandoned chicken farm, to be exact, which is obvious when the two move in. Betty endures Bob's enthusiasm for the rural life, rustic inconveniences, and battling nature, but her patience is severely tested when glamorous neighbor Harriet Putnam seems to set her sights on Bob.

A sociopath goes on a crime spree in Miami, hooks up with a trusting hooker and eludes a slow-witted cop.

Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, leads aerobics at a primary school, jokes like a vaudevillian, agrees to waitress at a friend's new restaurant and dotes on Andy, a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, and with a drunken friend, buys a broken down lunch wagon. Natalie, with short neat hair and a snappy, droll manner, is a plumber; she has a holiday planned in America, but little else. Last is Nicola, odd man out: a snarl, big glasses, cigarette, mussed hair, jittery fingers, bulimic, jobless, and unhappy. How they interact and play out family conflict and love is the film's subject.

Four 1950's cultural icons (Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio and Senator Joseph MacCarthy) who conceivably could have met and probably didn't, fictionally do in this modern fable of post-WWII America. Visually intriguing, the film has a fluid progression of flash-backs and flash-forwards centering on the fictional Einstein's current observations, childhood memories and apprehensions for the future.

A regular girl, Veronica, tries to survive the social jungle of high school by sticking with the three most popular girls at school who are all called Heather. As she meets a new kid named JD, her life spirals into a continuous cycle of hate, indifference, and murder as she exacts revenge on her enemies, also known as her best friends.

The dimwitted teen duo of Beavis and Butt-Head travel across America in search of their stolen television set.

Sleaze queen Divine lives in a caravan with her mad hippie son Crackers and her 250-pound mother Mama Edie, trying to rest quietly on their laurels as 'the filthiest people alive'. But competition is brewing in the form of Connie and Raymond Marble, who sell heroin to schoolchildren and kidnap and impregnate female hitchhikers, then sell the babies to lesbian couples. Finally, they challenge Divine directly, and battle commences.

Wong Chi-ming, a cold-blooded Hong-Kong-based assassin, has decided that he wants out. One last job stands in the way of a new life; however, Wong is unaware that his female partner-in-crime is utterly infatuated with him. Then, Wong has a late-night encounter with seductive Blondie in a fast-food restaurant, only to spark his obsessed partner's jealousy. Elsewhere in the city, mute Ho Chi-mo, who has recently escaped from prison, uses unorthodox ways to eke out an existence. During one of his nightly escapades, Ho crosses paths with Charlie, who enlists his help to find her ex-boyfriend's new lover. But, can there be redemption for the fallen angels?

A documentary filmmaker and her fellow Gen X graduates face life after college, looking for work and love in Houston.

US Army war veteran Hazel Motes may not be a believing Christian, somehow observations like the state of a run-down country church, meeting the ridiculous frauds on the streets and memories inspire him to take up, after initially fierce refusal, the part of a traveling preacher when a cab driver insists he looks like one in his new hat. He starts his own new Church of Truth, without the crucified Jesus, his first disciple being an 18-year old simpleton with a 'prophetic gift'...

In this humorous paean to the joys of food, the main story is about trucker Goro, who rides into town like a modern Shane to help Tampopo set up the perfect noodle soup restaurant. Woven into this main story are a number of smaller stories about the importance of food.

A feud between the Owens and the Gillettes ends when the last remaining Gillette is killed, but new trouble erupts for the mountain folk with the arrival of a U.S. revenue agent and his assistant. The revenuers search high and low for the secret hideaway where the mountain people prepare illegal alcohol, but end up in deep trouble that only a little movie magic can save them from.

This modernistic fantasy-drama, is about a New York architect Phillip (John Cassavetes), who is fedup with city living. He takes his wife Antonia (Gena Rowlands), an actress, and their daughter, Miranda (Molly Ringwald in her debut), to Greece to a barren island. There he meets a singer and a hermit and others who land on the island when the boat is shipwrecked.

The snobbish and intellectual Professor of languages, Henry Higgins, makes a bet with his friend that he can pluck a London flower seller, Eliza Doolittle, from the gutters and pass her off as a society lady; however, he discovers that this involves dealing with a human being with ideas of her own.

A down on his luck gambler (George Segal as Bill) links up with free spirit Elliot Gould (Elliott Gould as Charlie) at first to have some fun, but then gets into debt when Gould takes an unscheduled trip to Tijuana. As a final act of desperation, he pawns most of his possessions and goes to Reno for the poker game of a lifetime. A film set mainly in casinos and races, as the two win and lose (but mainly win), get robbed, and get blind drunk.

A wacky comedy about a happily married advertising agent (Jack Lemmon) who helps out his single neighbor (Romy Schneider) by posing as her husband so she can inherit $15 million. The story soon spirals out of control when her greedy in-laws hit the scene.

A group of teenagers try to sort out their lives and emotions while bizarre experiences happen to each one, including alien abductions, bad acid trips, bisexual experiences, suicides, bizarre deaths, and a rape by a TV star. All of this happens before "the greatest party of the year".

Over the course of a single night in pale Memphis--the home of Sam Phillips' legendary Sun Studio--a vivid triptych of romantic Rock n' Roll pilgrimage; sad nostalgia; emotional Americana, and forgotten, decrepit places unfolds. Pivoting around the low-rent and almost dilapidated Arcade Hotel, the strange stories of four visitors unwittingly intertwine, as the aloof couple of Japanese teenagers--Mitsuko, who yearns to visit Graceland, and Jun, a sad-faced die-hard fan of Carl Perkins--arrive in the Tennessee ghost town, in "Far from Yokohama". Likewise, the recently widowed Italian, Luisa, who's come to town from Rome to take her deceased husband's body back to Italy, winds up in the same hotel, sharing a room with the garrulous Dee-Dee, in "Ghost". Then, elsewhere in the city during the same endless night, the neighbourhood's barber, Charlie, reluctantly goes on a boozy binge with the unemployed British immigrant, Johnny, and, eventually, they both end up in the Arcade, in "Lost in Space". Of course, the mystical aura of an eternal, 1956-handsome Elvis Presley haunts everything in this unforgettable night in Memphis. Is the King truly gone?

A day-and-a-half in the life of the Fab Four leading up to a televised concert gig. The lads are constantly on the run, from their crazed fans and from their manager, who is constantly trying to rein them in. However, Ringo is arrested and still isn't in the studio a half-hour before air time. With Paul's grandfather available for additional comical relief, the group performs a dozen or so songs.

34-year-old engineer Jean-Louis has just started a new job in Clermont. He lives a relatively solitary life not knowing anyone in town except his work colleagues, and he has made a conscious decision that they should not become his de facto friends just because they work together. He also chooses not to socialize because of his situation and needing to make the long daily commute to/from Ceyrat, where he currently lives. He has had his fair share of women during his adult life and now chooses to adhere most closely to his Catholic beliefs in approaching romantic and sexual relationships with women with the sole goal of love and marriage. He keeps seeing a pretty blonde at Mass on Sunday mornings and without knowing her or even talking to her, he believes that this woman is destined to be his wife. He has been reading the writings of Blaise Pascal and finding the mixture of mathematics and Catholicism just what he needs to be reading and applying to his life. One day just before Christmas, he runs into Vidal, an old college friend he hasn't seen in 14 years, now a Philosophy professor at the college. In the course of getting reacquainted over the next couple of days, Vidal invites Jean-Louis over to his friend Maud's apartment the day after Christmas. Maud is a recently-divorced pediatrician, the mother of young-adolescent daughter Marie. Much of Jean-Louis, Vidal, and Maud's discussion that evening uses Pascal as a jumping-off point, veering into his philosophies in relation to sex and love; Vidal and Maud, being atheists, have a different view than Jean-Louis. This night, which Jean-Louis learns was not by accident on Vidal's part, has the potential to reshape his life as he would have to admit his attraction to Maud, who is not the theoretical of the perfect mate for him. If he does stay true to his thoughts of the blonde, he could find that a happily-ever-after with her is not a guarantee, and she might have her own baggage.

Cockney cat burglar Harry Dean needs Hong Kong dancer Nicole Chang's help to pull off the perfect heist. With a simple makeover and a new wardrobe, Nicole's resemblance to wealthy recluse Mr. Shahbandar's deceased wife is uncanny. While Shahbandar is distracted by the mesmerizing Nicole, Harry takes steps to swipe a priceless artifact from under the tycoon's nose. But even the most intricate schemes have a way of unraveling.

Juliet lives in a beautiful house by the ocean. Her sisters, and especially her mother, overshadow her with their beauty. She is spiritual, superstitious, and naive. Soon after she visits a psychic seer who tells her that she must follow the sex trade in order to be happy, she meets her eccentric, sexy neighbour Suzy, who appears to be a high-class prostitute and encourages Juliet into sexual acts which make her guilty and nervous. On a rare night that sees her husband at home, she awakens to hear him talking to another woman on the phone. He calls out the name "Gabriella" in his sleep, then lies when she she questions him, but she finds out who Gabriella is and fears her husband will leave her. Then she starts having visions who accuse and terrorize her. The pinnacle of the visions comes at the end where it is implied she realizes she would be better off without her husband and is ultimately emotionally emancipated.

A brightly colored, lighthearted homage to the early 1960s sex comedies that starred Rock Hudson and Doris Day. The story follows a best-selling female advice author who has all the answers until a sly journalist playboy starts asking the questions.

DJ Zack and pimp Jack end up in prison for being too laid-back to avoid being framed for crimes they didn't commit. They end up sharing a cell with eccentric Italian optimist Roberto, whose limited command of the English language is both entertaining and infuriating. More useful to them is the fact that Roberto knows an escape route.