AFI's '100 Years...100 Laughs' Ranks 'Some Like It Hot' as Funniest American Film
The American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Laughs," published in 2000, ranked the funniest American movies based on ballots from more than 1,500 leaders of the American film community, including directors, screenwriters, actors, critics and historians. Voters weighed cultural impact, genre influence and laugh strength, producing a list favoring staying power over opening-weekend returns. Billy Wilder's 1959 "Some Like It Hot" tops the ranking, followed by Sydney Pollack's "Tootsie" (1982), Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" (1964), Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" (1977), the Marx Brothers' "Duck Soup" (1933), Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" (1974), Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H" (1970), Frank Capra's "It Happened One Night" (1934), Mike Nichols' "The Graduate" (1967) and "Airplane!" (1980). Three entries predate 1960, two from the 1930s. Nothing released after the vote was eligible, excluding later improv-driven studio comedies. "The Graduate" and "M*A*S*H" earned places on tone and influence as much as laugh count. The list maps American screen comedy from 1930s screwball and Marx Brothers anarchy through disguise plots, late-1960s and 1970s institutional satire, to the gag-stacking of "Airplane!"
Key facts
- AFI's "100 Years...100 Laughs" was published in 2000 and based on ballots from more than 1,500 leaders of the American film community.
- "Some Like It Hot" (1959), directed by Billy Wilder, ranks No. 1; it won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design in black and white and earned five other nominations.
- "Tootsie" (1982) ranks No. 2, with Jessica Lange winning Best Supporting Actress among its 10 nominations.
- "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) ranks No. 3, earning four Academy Award nominations and no wins.
- "Annie Hall" (1977) ranks No. 4 and won four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay.
- "Duck Soup" (1933) ranks No. 5; the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 1990.
- "Blazing Saddles" (1974) ranks No. 6 with three Academy Award nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for Madeline Kahn.
- "Airplane!" (1980) ranks No. 10 and was added to the National Film Registry in 2010.
Entities
Artists
- Billy Wilder
- I.A.L. Diamond
- Tony Curtis
- Marilyn Monroe
- Jack Lemmon
- Joe E. Brown
- Sydney Pollack
- Dustin Hoffman
- Larry Gelbart
- Murray Schisgal
- Jessica Lange
- Teri Garr
- Charles Durning
- Bill Murray
- Geena Davis
- Stanley Kubrick
- Peter Sellers
- George C. Scott
- Peter George
- Terry Southern
- Slim Pickens
- Ken Adam
- Woody Allen
- Diane Keaton
- Marshall Brickman
- Marshall McLuhan
- Christopher Walken
- Paul Simon
- Shelley Duvall
- Carol Kane
- Jeff Goldblum
- Gordon Willis
- Groucho Marx
- Harpo Marx
- Chico Marx
- Zeppo Marx
- Leo McCarey
- Margaret Dumont
- Mel Brooks
- Cleavon Little
- Harvey Korman
- Richard Pryor
- Andrew Bergman
- Norman Steinberg
- Alan Uger
- Gene Wilder
- Madeline Kahn
- Frankie Laine
- Marlene Dietrich
- Robert Altman
- Donald Sutherland
- Elliott Gould
- Sally Kellerman
- Robert Duvall
- Ring Lardner Jr.
- Richard Hooker
- Frank Capra
- Clark Gable
- Claudette Colbert
- Robert Riskin
- Samuel Hopkins Adams
- Mike Nichols
- Anne Bancroft
- Katharine Ross
- Simon and Garfunkel
- Jim Abrahams
- David Zucker
- Jerry Zucker
- Robert Hays
- Julie Hagerty
- Leslie Nielsen
- Robert Stack
- Peter Graves
- Lloyd Bridges
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
- Barbara Billingsley
- Adolf Hitler
Institutions
- American Film Institute
- United Artists
- Motion Picture Production Code
- Library of Congress
- National Film Registry
- Paramount
- MGM
- Warner Bros.
- Columbia Pictures
- CBS
- Academy Awards
- Quartz
- Cosmopolitan
Locations
- Chicago
- Florida
- New York
- Wisconsin
- Los Angeles
- Freedonia
- Sylvania
- Germany
- Hollywood
- United States
- Soviet Union
Sources
- Quartz —