Directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau • 1990 • France
Starring Gérard Depardieu, Anne Brochet, Vincent Perez

Gérard Depardieu delivers a towering performance as the immortal hero of hopeless romantics everywhere—he of the legendary long schnoz who selflessly uses his verse to help a friend woo the wom...

Directed by Mike Leigh • 1977 • United Kingdom
Starring Alison Steadman, Tim Stern, Janine Duvitski

Mike Leigh’s filmed version of his acclaimed stage play is a brilliantly biting comedy of manners that lays bare the bourgeois affectations and sexual frustrations of a young suburban couple. Abig...

Directed by Howard Hawks • 1940 • United States
Starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy

One of the fastest, funniest, and most quotable films ever made, HIS GIRL FRIDAY stars Rosalind Russell as reporter Hildy Johnson, a standout among cinema’s powerful women. Hildy is matched in fo...

Directed by Chris Shepherd • 2010 • United Kingdom

It’s a holiday to remember—or not—when a young man joins his dotty elderly aunt for a Christmas party at her local Conservative Club, where the wine is flowing, the bingo is heated, and the cracks in the genteel facade start to show.

Directed by Preston Sturges • 1941 • United States
Starring Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake

Tired of churning out lightweight comedies, Hollywood director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) decides to make O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?—a serious, socially responsible film about human suffering. After his pr...

Directed by Juzo Itami • 1985 • Japan
Starring Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto, Koji Yakusho

The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle-shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous "ramen western" by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an ente...

Directed by Greg Mottola • 1996 • United States
Starring Parker Posey, Hope Davis, Liev Schreiber

With its droll humor and bittersweet emotional heft, the feature debut of writer-director Greg Mottola announced the arrival of an unassumingly sharp-witted new talent on the 1990s indie film scene....

Directed by Federico Fellini • 1973 • France, Italy

This carnivalesque portrait of provincial Italy during the fascist period, the most personal film from Federico Fellini, satirizes the director's youth and turns daily life into a circus of social rituals, adolescent desires, male fantasies, an...

Directed by Richard Lester • 1964 • United Kingdom

Meet the Beatles! Just one month after they exploded onto the U.S. scene with their Ed Sullivan Show appearance, John, Paul, George, and Ringo began working on a project that would bring their revolutionary talent to the big screen. A HARD DAY’S...

Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1959 • Japan
Starring Masahiko Shimazu, Koji Shidara, Kuniko Miyake

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of inter­generational relationships, GOOD MORNING tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after t...

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar • 1990 • Spain
Starring Antonio Banderas, Victoria Abril

Pedro Almodóvar’s colorful and controversial tribute to the pleasures and perils of Stockholm syndrome, TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN! is a rambunctious dark comedy starring Antonio Banderas as an unbalanced but alluri...

Directed by Jacques Tati • 1958 • France, Italy
Starring Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie

Slapstick prevails again when Jacques Tati’s eccentric, old-fashioned hero, Monsieur Hulot, is set loose in Villa Arpel, the geometric, oppressively ultramodern home of his brother-in-law,...

Directed by Bruce Robinson • 1986 • United Kingdom
Starring Paul McGann, Richard E. Grant, Richard Griffiths

The ultimate cult British comedy, Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical cinematic bender is a feast of delectably florid dialogue delivered with deadpan relish by stars Richard E. Grant ...

Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1936 • United States
Starring Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman

MODERN TIMES, Charlie Chaplin’s last outing as the Little Tramp, puts the iconic character to work as a giddily inept factory employee who becomes smitten with a gorgeous gamine (Paulette...

Directed by Ronald Neame • 1980 • United States
Starring Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Sam Waterston

The inimitable comic team of Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson star in this nimble tale of international intrigue from master British filmmaker Ronald Neame. Based on Brian Garfield’s best-sell...

Directed by Peter Medak • 1972 • United Kingdom
Starring Peter O'Toole, Alastair Sim, Arthur Lowe

Peter O’Toole gives a tour-de-force performance as Jack, a man “cured” of believing he’s God—only to become Jack the Ripper incarnate. Based on Peter Barnes's irreverent play, this darkly comic indi...

Directed by Jacques Tati • 1953 • France
Starring Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud

Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort, where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. Tati’s masterpiece of gentle slapstick is a series of effortlessly well...

Directed by Louis Malle • 1960 • France
Starring Catherine Demongeot, Philippe Noiret

A brash and precocious ten-year-old (Catherine Demongeot) comes to Paris for a whirlwind weekend with her rakish uncle (Philippe Noiret); he and the viewer get more than they bargained for, however, in this ana...

Directed by Pietro Germi • 1961 • Italy
Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Stefania Sandrelli, Daniela Rocca

Baron Ferdinando Cefalù (Marcello Mastroianni) longs to marry his nubile young cousin Angela (Stefania Sandrelli), but one obstacle stands in his way: his fatuous and fawning wife, Rosalia (D...

Directed by Juzo Itami • 1987 • Japan
Starring Nobuko Miyamoto, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Masahiko Tsugawa

Certainly the most exuberantly entertaining film ever made about the intricacies of the Japanese tax system, this delightful comedy stars Nobuko Miyamoto as a fiercely dedicated tax collector who g...

Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1963 • Italy, Spain
Starring Nino Manfredi, Emma Penella, José Isbert

This masterpiece of black humor, beloved in Spain but too little seen elsewhere, threads a scathing critique of Franco-era values through a macabre farce about an undertaker who marries an ex...

Directed by Lena Dunham • 2010 • United States
Starring Lena Dunham, Laurie Simmons, Grace Dunham

Lena Dunham got her start making YouTube videos, but she emerged as a major talent thanks to the breakthrough success of this exceptionally sharp comedy, which garnered the twenty-four-year-old writ...

Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1952 • United States
Starring Charles Chaplin, Claire Bloom

Charlie Chaplin’s masterful drama about the twilight of a former vaudeville star is among the writer-director’s most touching films. Chaplin plays Calvero, a once beloved musical-comedy performer, now a was...

Directed by Sammo Hung • 1985 • Hong Kong
Starring Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao

Longtime friends Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao—who had worked together since childhood as part of a Beijing opera troupe—join forces for this rollicking blend of action thrills and lunatic humor, which...