There are plenty of great dark comedies which don’t get the love they deserve, but fans of the genre should definitely give them a watch. Dark comedy movies can be quite polarizing, since they deal with subjects that some people aren’t prepared to laugh at, like death, violence and prejudice.

For those who do appreciate dark comedy, it can often be hard to find the hidden gems that the genre has to offer. Comedy is so subjective that a hilarious movie can be buried under a pile of bad reviews, only for it to find its audience later and emerge as a cult classic.

10

Death To Smoochy (2002)

Robin Williams Shines Amid A Strong Ensemble Cast

Danny DeVito is most famous as an actor, but he’s also directed a few underrated movies, with a focus on dark comedy. Death to Smoochy is one of his funniest. As usual, DeVito also gives himself a role in the movie, and he joins a brilliant ensemble cast featuring Ed Norton, Catherine Keener and Jon Stewart.

Although it isn’t as popular as many other Robin Williams movies, Death to Smoochy still offers a lot to love. Williams plays a disgraced children’s TV host who fixates his rage on his replacement when he is fired for corruption. He gives a characteristically expressive, bombastic performance which juxtaposes nicely with Norton’s more reserved character.

9

World’s Greatest Dad (2009)

World’s Greatest Dad Revels In Bad Taste

World’s Greatest Dad never got a wide theatrical release, so it has always remained a hidden gem. Robin Williams plays a struggling writer with a strained relationship with his only son. Not many movies would make jokes about a child dying, but the whole story revolves around this plot point.

Williams brings some of his dramatic heft to World’s Greatest Dad, but not so much that it jars with the irreverent tone of the comedy. World’s Greatest Dad manages to get away with its deliberately bad taste because what it says about society’s response to death is disturbingly true.

8

Sєxy Beast (2000)

Ben Kingsley Plays An Unforgettable Villain

Sєxy Beast isn’t always described as a comedy, which underlines just how ᴅᴇᴀᴅpan and naturalistic its sense of humor is. Indeed, there’s nothing about the story that’s inherently funny, as a violent criminal tries to drag one of his ᴀssociates out of retirement for a big jewel heist. The comedy mostly comes from Ben Kingsley’s performance.

Kingsley delivers an eye-catching performance as one of the funniest comedy movie villains of all. Don Logan is a vile brute, but his short stature and bottomless reservoirs of rage make him hilarious. Kingsley’s manic energy works well opposite Ray Winstone’s calm, unflinching presence.

7

Swiss Army Man (2016)

The Daniels Serve Up A Bizarre Delight

The directing duo known as the Daniels gained plenty of attention for Everything Everywhere All At Once, but the Oscar-winner isn’t their only bizarre treat. Swiss Army Man is just as original and creative, but it has a much bleaker tone. Daniel Radcliffe stars as a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ body, and Paul Dano plays the man lost in the wilderness who forms an unlikely bond with him.

Swiss Army Man is never easy to predict, and this is exactly how it gets so many laughs. It’s also a masterpiece of gross-out humor at times, and it pushes the boundaries of acceptable dark comedy to breaking point. There’s nothing quite like Swiss Army Man, even in the realm of dark comedy.

6

Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

John Cusack Shines In An Offbeat Gangster Comedy

Bullets Over Broadway is a hilarious comedy about the nature of art. John Cusack delivers one of his funniest performances as a struggling playwright who manages to get his Broadway show financed when he agrees to cast a dangerous gangster’s girlfriend in the lead role. From this starting point, Bullets Over Broadway evolves into a wry deconstruction of the entertainment industry.

Bullets Over Broadway draws some scathing parallels between the entertainment industry and the business of organized crime. It’s also a disarming comedy about how artists present themselves to the world, and how society places a certain value on art due to the idenтιтy of the artist. It’s surprising, sarcastic, and punctuated by moments of startling violence.

5

Wild Tales (2014)

The Argentine Anthology Needs A Bigger International Audience

Anthology movies are usually a mixed bag, especially comedy anthologies, but Wild Tales consists of far more hits than misses. The six stories of misbehavior and comedic rage all revolve around the theme of revenge. The тιтle teases a glimpse at people resorting to animalistic violence, but Damián Szifron reminds his audience that revenge is a uniquely human trait.

The stories in Wild Tales all start off in familiar settings – two airline pᴀssengers realize they have something in common, a man’s car is towed, a woman recognizes a man from her past – but they evolve in unpredictable and hilarious ways. While each segment ends with a grim punchline, there are also elements of horror mixed in to Szifron’s bag of delights.

4

The Voices (2014)

Ryan Reynolds Is On Top Form As A Struggling Serial Killer

Although he’s most famous for big-budget movies like ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool and Free Guy, there are a lot of Ryan Reynolds movies which fly under the radar. The Voices makes perfect use of Reynolds’ odd charms. A less charismatic actor might struggle in a comedy about a factory worker whose pet cat tells him to start killing people.

The Voices is as dark as dark comedies come. It takes a wonderfully distasteful premise and pushes it to even stranger places. Reynolds’ performance is key to extracting the humor from a movie that can often veer into pure horror and some truly disturbing territory.

3

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Spike Lee’s Sharp Satire Tells A True Story

It’s rare to see a comedy movie about a historical era that dedicates such time and care to authenticity, but BlacKkKlansman is based on an unbelievable true story, so it’s fully warranted. Spike Lee’s throwback comedy tells the story of Ron Stallworth, a Black detective who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan with the help of a colleague.

John David Washington and Adam Driver make a hilarious buddy-cop duo in BlacKkKlansman, and their scenes together have the same infectious energy of a heist movie, as the two detectives plot their elaborate scheme. Spike Lee is one of very few filmmakers who could make such a riotous comedy about America’s most notorious hate group, but he ends the movie with a reminder of the real-life context and the serious weight of the matter.

2

Happiness (1998)

Todd Solondz’s Tragicomedy Stands Up To Repeat Viewings

Happiness is a peculiar film, and one which invites its audience to mull over its characters and strange stories long after the credits roll. It’s bleakly hilarious, but Todd Solondz also displays a lot of empathy for his emotionally stunted characters, so that they become relatable and deeply human. This is important for the moments that turn unremittingly dark, without a ray of humor.

Happiness tells a few loosely connected stories, each of them about deeply damaged people, both yearning for connection and despising the people around them. It’s easy to get the impression that these characters are merely a random handful of people from Solondz’s strange world, and that there are countless more specimens waiting to be discovered.

1

The Double (2013)

Jesse Eisenberg Pulls A Double Shift In This Dostoyevsky Tale

Richard Ayoade’s second feature-length film was also his second book adaptation. The Double is based on a novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It’s not one of the author’s most popular classics, but Ayoade brings it to life with a grim color palette, an oppressive dystopian atmosphere and a hearty helping of dark comedy.

Jesse Eisenberg plays two characters in The Double: a milquetoast office drone and the self-ᴀssured doppelgänger who tries to usurp his life. Dual roles in movies often explore the different sides of the human psyche, and Eisenberg is hilarious as both id and ego in this strange metaphysical struggle.