Yummy (2019)
Sinister Hospital Black Comedy/Zombie Oubreak
Belgian film that starts out as a blackly funny work about a cut-price East European hospital before seguing into a zombie film
Black Comedy
Black Humour is a special type of comedy. While most mainstream Comedy derives its laughs from plays on words, incongruities, embarrassments and absurdities, black comedy is that which laughs at matters that people usually take seriously. Typical subjects in black comedy are matters like death and murder, war, illness, suffering and the general miseries of life.
A protagonist in a black comedy may be akin to a character in a Franz Kafka novel, finding the world and society around them seemingly run by madmen or to operate on insane principles that frequently seem to be conspiring against them. In the horror genre, Black Comedy will also laugh at murder, dismemberment, bloodshed and cruelties inflicted on people – there is a strong vein of Black Comedy in Horror Comedy.
Black Comedy also frequently maps over onto absurdist humour. This derives from the popular Theatre of the Absurd movement and involves characters caught in frequently surreal and nonsensical situations. The mix of absurdism and black comedy is frequently prevalent in British humour. Many of the entries here are listed under Gonzo Cinema.
White Noise (2022)
Satire/Toxic Cloud
Noah Baumbach makes a bitingly satiric adaptation of a Don DeLillo novel about the panic caused by a toxic cloud
The Voices (2014)
Inside a Mentally Ill Man's Mind/Black Comedy
On the scale of weird movies, this is about as out there as it gets – Ryan Reynolds has conversations with his cat and dog who urge him to cut people’s heads off, which continue to talk as he keeps them in his refrigerator. A mind-bogglingly warped film and quite brilliant in its dark funniness when you work out what is going on
Visitor Q (2001)
Catalogue of Perversions/Mysterious Visitor/Black Comedy
One of the key films in the cult of Takashi Miike that has been frequently banned for its taboo-defying outrages in which a mysterious visitor causes a family household to descend into perverse extremes
Tragedy Girls (2017)
Teen Girls on a Killing Spree/Black Comedy
Darkly funny comedy where two girls in high school conduct a series of murders to create publicity for their true crime blog
Tone-Deaf (2019)
Wannabe Serial Killer Black Comedy
Dark, sardonic comedy where Amanda Crew rents a house to get away for a weekend only to face a murderous Robert Patrick. The humour is barbed and quite hilarious
There’s Something About Mary (1998)
Stalker Black Comedy
The Farrelly Brothers have become known for their crude and rude humour but this stalker comedy is one they hit with all barrels firing and has become regarded as a modern comedy classuc
Theater of Blood (1973)
Mad Shakespearean Actor's Revenge
Following on from the success of the Dr Phibes films, Vincent Price is cast as a mad Shakespearean actor who employs comically grotesque deaths from Shakespeare’s plays to kill his critics
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Backwoods Brutality
The first sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre where Tobe Hooper returns and pushes the series into an outrageously black sense of humour
The Suicide Shop (2012)
Animation/Black Comedy
French animated film that is about as far from children’s entertainment as it is possible to get – a mordantly dark comedy that operates in similar territory to The Addams Family in its tale of a family that operates a shop selling items of despatch to the suicidally minded
Suburban Gothic (2014)
Middle-Class Satire/Haunting
From the director of Excision, another film that satirically digs its claws into middle-class values but there is the feeling we have seen all of this before and the film fails to provide anything funny. Added to this is a barely scary ghost plot the film occasionally remembers to get back to
Stuff (1999)
Resurrection Ring/Black Comedy
Canadian-made black comedy about a ring that can revive the dead
Speak No Evil (2022)
Sinister Hosts/Black Comedy
A darkly funny Danish film about a couple who accept an invite to visit another couple who seem to have no boundaries, before everything gets nasty
Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
Surreal Vignettes
From Swedish director Roy Andersson, a series of plotless, surreal vignettes pitched with black humour
Snowflake (2017)
Meta-Fiction/Hitmen Discover They Are Characters in a Screenplay
A insanely madcap work of meta-fiction. Imagine stupider versions of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson from Pulp Fiction mixed with Stranger Than Fiction as they discover they are fictional characters
Smoking Causes Coughing (2022)
Gonzo Deadpan Vignettes
Another of Quentin Dupieux’s hilariously gonzo comedies made up a series of deadpan surreal vignettes, including a witty parody of the modern superhero film
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980)
Surrealism
Surreal and plotless British film based on a radio show about the happenings around a country mansion
Silence, Ça Tue (2008)
Murderous Filmmakers Mockumentary
Belgian-made black comedy where a filmmaker frustrated with trying to raise funding starts shooting producers and filming the result
Sightseers (2012)
Tourists on a Killing Spree/Black Comedy
The third film from Ben Wheatley who here makes a black comedy about two tourists on a murder spree, eliminating those they don’t like. A film that digs into British class and provincial small-mindedness with scabrous regard
Severance (2006)
Backwoods Brutality Comedy
Rather funny British-made parody on Backwoods Brutality cliches where a work group of a team-building exercise ending up hunted by East European locals
Serial Mom (1994)
Murderous Housewife Black Comedy
One of John Waters’ more mainstream films with Kathleen Turner as a gleefully murderous housewife
A Serial Killer’s Guide to Life (2019)
Murderous Life Coach/Black Comedy
Essentially a women’s version of Fight Club, a black comedy about a girl being dragged on a killing spree by a murderous life coach
Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Zombies/Black Comedy
Spinoff of Night of the Living Dead that emerged from a complicated copyright split with George Romero. Director Dan O’Bannon substitutes black humour to deliver an hilariously different take
Repo Men (2010)
Future Organ Repossession
SF film set in a future where agents are sent to repossess artificial organs when the owner’s fall behind on payments. Sort of Sicko by way of Logan’s Run but lacking the necessary sense of black humour to work
Ready or Not: Here I Come (2026)
Human Hunting Game
Ready or Not was a reasonable hit with audiences. Now Samara Weaving and the same creative team are back with a sequel that expands the game and polishes the black humour to a point of perfection
Re-Animator (1985)
Resurrection of the Dead/Splatter Black Comedy/H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation
This was one of the classic 1980s splatter films. Stuart Gordon throws most of H.P. Lovecraft’s tone out the window and goes for hilariously black comedy served up with outrageously over-the-top effects
Prevenge (2016)
Psychopathic Pregnant Woman
Directed by and starring actress Alice Lowe, this comes in a blackly funny vein. Lowe plays a pregnant woman driven by the voice of her baby as she starts dispatching everything from sleazy men to those who annoy her
Postal (2007)
Videogame Adaptation/Bad Taste Satire
Another Uwe Boll videogame adaptation, a satire where Zack Ward sets out on a shooting spree. Boll sets out to offend as many people as possible but somehow forgets to make any of it funny
Parents (1989)
Paranoia Comedy/Boy Thinks His Parents Are Cannibals
Bizarre black comedy directed by actor Bob Balaban that takes place in a paranoid parody of 1950s normalcy about a boy who believes his parents are cannibals
O Lucky Man! (1973)
Social Satire
The second of Lindsay Anderson and Malcolm’s McDowell’s social satires with coffee salesman McDowell passing through increasingly more surreal adventures
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Depression-Era Version of The Odyssey
The Coen Brothers hilariously adapt The Odyssey into the Depression Era with George Clooney leading a trio of escaped convicts as he tries to return to his wife
Nr. 10 (2021)
Surrealist Black Comedy
Alex van Warmerdam makes a very strange black comedy, so deadpan you are not sure if you are meant to be laughing or not
No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)
Psycho Actor/Comedy Thriller
Amid the host of Psycho copies that came out during the 1960s, this was one that played everything as a comedy. A wildly overacting Rod Steiger is a psycho actor who adopts a different disguises every time he goes out to kill
The Ninth Configuration (1979)
Military Asylum Black Comedy
The directorial debut of William Peter Blatty, the writer of The Exorcist, a strange and unclassifiable black comedy set in a military asylum. Imagine One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest directed by Robert Altman
Motel Hell (1980)
Backwoods Brutality Comedy
Studio-backed attempt to enter the Backwoods Brutality genre ends up as an uncertain black comedy that fails to push the envelope anywhere near what its models do
Mortuary Academy (1988)
Bad Taste Mortuary Comedy
Intended as a horror riff on the phenomenally popular Police Academy series, this sets a series of gags in as bad a taste as possible around the locale of a mortuary
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983)
Absurdist Comedy Skits
The third and last of the Monty Python films, a variety of skits that are variously outrageous and frequently leave behind all good taste
Monty Python’s The Life of Brian (1979)
Accidental Messiah Absurdist Comedy
The Monty Python team’s finest hour, a wickedly irreverent spoof on Christianity that contains some of their most side-splitting gags
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Absurdist Parody of the Arthurian Legends
The first of the Monty Python films, a wickedly funny, willfully nonsensical take on King Arthur and the knightly quest. Contains many classic Python gags
The Menu (2022)
Fine Dining and Horror
Hilariously black horror comedy that works as a sublime satire of fine dining – with a nasty sting underneath
Men & Chicken (2015)
Black Comedy/Human-Animal Hybrids
A Danish black comedy where the humour is delivered in perfect pitch deadpan. Imagine a version of The Island of Dr Moreau as directed by Giorgos Lanthimos of Dogtooth and The Lobster fame
Meet the Applegates (1991)
Family of Insects/Black Comedy
Rather funny satiric comedy about a family of insects who set up house in suburbia posing as humans
Matador (1986)
Sex and Death/Serial Killers/Black Comedy
Cheerfully outrageous early Pedro Almodovar black comedy where virginal Antonio Banderas confesses to a series of murders conducted by his death obsessed lawyer
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Brainwashed Assassin/Political Satire
John Frankenheimer film. concerning a Communist plot for creating a brainwashed assassin, Frankenheimer shoots with stark and blackly funny effect and this has duly become a cult classic
The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
Film Noir Thriller/UFOs
Coen Brothers black comedy with Billy Bob Thornton as an anonymous barber in the 1940s on the receiving end of life’s cruelties as he becomes involved in a blackmail scheme and murder
Man Bites Dog (1992)
Serial Killer Mockumentary/Black Comedy
One of the very first Found Footage films, an hilarious Belgian-made black comedy with Benoit Poelvoorde as a cheerful serial killer who demonstrates his techniques to a film crew
Mad Bomber in Love (1992)
Psycho Roommate Black Comedy
A rather amusing Australian black comedy made very low key starring Craig Pearce as a mad bomber who makes all of his flatmates prisoner
The Loved Ones (2009)
Australian Psycho Prom Date Black Comedy
Australian black comedy about a guy imprisoned to be a girl’s perfect prom date. The film takes to horror with enthusiasm and is owned by two fantastic performances from the women of the show
The Lobster (2015)
Future Where Everyone Must Be in a Relationship/Black Comedy
Yorgos Lanthimos makes a deadpan black humour SF film set in a future where one is forced to find their perfect romantic partner or else be turned into an animal
Liza, The Fox-Fairy (2015)
Hungarian Black Comedy/Woman and Her Jealous Ghost Companion
A head-scratchingly odd effort – a woman who stayed inside all her life goes in search of love only for the jealous ghost of a 1950s pop singer to kill every man who looks at her
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Killer Plant Musical
Roger Corman’s no-budget comedy about a killer plant is remade as a multi-million dollar musical with top-drawer effects. Missing is the original’s black comedy but this has many appealingly eccentric delights of its own
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
Killer Plant Black Comedy
The original, Roger Corman’s zero budget film about a killer plant is an hilarious black comedy that has become a cult favourite and remains his most well remembered film
A Little Bit of Soul (1997)
Longevity Drug and Satanism Black Comedy
Australian black comedy about research into longevity and Satanism. The film has a great cast but hits a shrilly hysteric pitch without ever being funny
Life Among the Cannibals (1996)
Black Comedy/Psycho Next-Door Neighbour
A black comedy that feels like a wannabe Coen Brothers film. Set among various Hollywood hangers-on, this starts with a surreal bizarreness that collapses into raucous farce
The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse (2005)
TV Characters Enter the Real World
Film spinoff from the popular British comedy series sees the familiar characters entering the real world to meet their creators and deal with the cancellation of the show
The Kingdom: Exodus (2022)
Haunted Hospital/Black Comedy
Lars von Trier returns to finish off his haunted hospital saga The Kingdom after a 25 years absence, despite the death of several principals, and again milks the same darkly hilarious vein
The Kingdom II (1997)
Haunted Hospital/Black Comedy
Follow-up to Lars von Trier’s haunted hospital mini-series The Kingdom. The story is continued, although the plot seems rickety and either drops elements or veers off on other tangents as though it is being made up as people go along
The Kingdom (1994)
Haunted Hospital/Black Comedy
Danish tv mini-series co-directed by Lars von Trier set in a haunted hospital. This comes with a blacker-than-black sense of humour in its interwoven character strands plus moments that are genuinely eerie
Kinds of Kindness (2024)
Black Comedy Anthology
Yorgos Lanthimos has become a critically celebrated name in recent years. Here he has made an anthology of three surreal tales that come in his customary black deadpan
Keeping Mum (2005)
Murderous Old Dear Black Comedy
Comedy in which reverend Rowan Atkinson’s home is invaded by murderous nanny Maggie Smith. A promisingly black idea ends up being delivered as a quaintly mumsy British rural comedy
Jennifer’s Body (2009)
Possessed Cheerleader
Karyn Kusama directs a black comedy from a wryly funny Diablo Cody script in which Megan Fox is a cheerleader who becomes possessed after a devil worship ceremony gone wrong
Jabberwocky (1977)
Mediaeval Quest Black Comedy
This was the first solo directorial outing from Terry Gilliam outside of Monty Python, a fantasy film that is a dark and frenetic skewering of the cinematic portrayal of the Middle Ages
I Sell the Dead (2008)
Grave Robbers Encounters Monsters
Odd film about 19th Century body snatchers that is like a low-budget version of a Burke and Hare story. This develops a sense of humour and starts to go in some very strange directions
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Black Comedy/Divine Intervention
One of the Coen Brothers’ strangest films – imagine a homage to a 1940s Howard Hawks film conducted on giant oversized sets like something out of Brazil with a blacker-than-black sense of humour and angels in the mix
How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989)
Talking Boil/Black Comedy
An hilarious black comedy written with a biting savagery where advertising executive Richard E. Grant has his life taken over by a ruthless boil on his shoulder
How I Won the War (1967)
WWII Absurdist Black Comedy
A World War II comedy from Richard Lester that heads into a wild absurdism, a film that is both brilliant and numbingly noisy. Most did not get the surreal blacker-than-black tone and the film was not a success
The House That Jack Built (2018)
Serial Killer
Lars von Trier, who I would argue is the best director at work in the world, makes a film about a serial killer. The results, as you might expect from von Trier, are outrageous, blackly funny and challengingly provocative
Horns (2013)
Man Grows a Set of Devil Horns
An Alexandra Aja adaptation of a Joe Hill novel that comes with a diabolical glee as Daniel Radcliffe develops a set of devil horns and finds everyone confessing their deepest secrets to him
The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)
Gonzo Black Comedy
Completely madcap film from Takashi Miike, a black comedy about a family who run a guesthouse where the guests keep dying. This comes replete with musical numbers and Claymation sequences
Guilty as Charged (1991)
Vigilante Executioner Black Comedy
Black comedy in which Rod Steiger sets up a private prison to execute the guilty that get away. Halfway between a vigilante film and a gonzo comedy, this never settles on what it wants to be and only comes out a frenetic farce
Gravy (2015)
Psychos Imprison Staff of a Restaurant to Kill and Eat Them/Black Comedy
Three psychos who imprison the employees of a restaurant announcing they are going to kill and then cook all of them as a gourmet meal. A film made with a devastatingly black sense of humour
Fresh Meat (2012)
Maori Cannibals Comedy
New Zealand comedy in which a teenage daughter discovers that her father Temuera Morrison is a modern-day Maori cannibal cultist. Everything is given a very broad playing
Four Rooms (1995)
Black Comedy Portmanteau
An anthology of blackly funny tales, including episodes directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, all centred around Tim Roth as a long-suffering hotel bellboy
Ferpect Crime (2004)
Murderous Black Comedy
A black comedy from Alex de la Iglesia about murder and rivalry in a department store, where the killer becomes advised by the ghost of those he has killed
A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012)
Writer's Paranoia/Black Comedy
Featuring Simon Pegg as a paranoid writer seeing sinister happenings everywhere. This should have been a darkly funny comedy but the film winds everything up to a shrilly hysteric fever pitch
End of Days, Inc. (2015)
Office Workers Prepare for the End of the World
A comedy in which office staff working overtime gradually realise their efforts are in preparation for the end of the world. This needed more of a dark bite to fully work but has occasional amusement
Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal (2012)
Sleepwalking Cannibalism/Black Comedy
Rather peculiar film about a man who becomes a cannibal whenever he sleepwalks and an artist who finds inspiration at the sight of the dead bodies. This taps a rich vein of black comedy
Eating Raoul (1982)
Killing Kinksters Black Comedy
Paul Bartel’s black comedy where he and Mary Woronov play a snobby couple who pose as kinksters to lure swingers and then kill them off. all to fund setting up an exclusive restaurant
Dogtooth (2009)
Family Who Have Never Been Outside
The film that announced Yorgos Lanthimos to the world, a black deadpan comedy about a father who has prevents his family from going into the world outside and their bizarre ways of interpreting everything that happens
Dr Strangelove or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Nuclear War Black Comedy
Stanley Kubrick decided the only way to make a film about nuclear war was to resort to black comedy. Aided by three sidesplitting performances from Peter Sellers, the result are mercilessly funny
Destroy All Neighbors (2024)
Black Comedy/People Won’t Stay Dead
A black comedy that comes in a very broad tone concerning an ordinary man trying to record an album who accidentally kills people around him only for them to refuse to stay dead
Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)
Cemetery Keeper vs the Undead/Gonzo Comedy
Cult Italian film with Rupert Everett as a cemetery keeper facing the resurrected dead. This has an hilariously off-the-wall mix of black, deadpan humour and artiness, plus Everett at his laconic best
Death Race 2000 (1975)
Future Road Race/Black Comedy
Satiric hit produced by Roger Corman, a spoof of Rollerball, with David Carradine as a driver in a futuristic road race where points are won by running down pedestrians. Also featuring a young unknown Sylvester Stallone
Death Becomes Her (1992)
Youth Serum Black Comedy
Robert Zemeckis film about an immortality treatment that digs a knife into Hollywood beauty treatments with a blackly funny knife. Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn have huge fun playing to the gallery and upstaging one another
Deal of the Century (1983)
Arms Trading Black Comedy
The great William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist and other works, had a flop with this unfunny Chevy Chase and Sigourney Weaver comedy about arms dealing and the efforts to obtain a robot plane
Deadly Advice (1994)
Advice from Ghosts of Famous Murderers/Black Comedy
Droll British comedy where Jane Horrocks gets the advice from the ghosts of famous murders about disposing of her controlling mother
Dead Hooker in a Trunk (2010)
Twisted Road Movie
The debut film from the Soska Sisters – a demented road movie – is scrappy, all over the place and highly uneven but shows the two are definitely going places
The Day of the Beast (1995)
Biblical End Times Prophecies Comedy
The second film from Spain’s Alex de la Iglesia, a comedy poking fun at Biblical End Times prophecies. Quite a promising idea that eventually dissolves into a caper comedy
The Dark Backward (1991)
Gonzo Comedy/Man Grows a Third Arm
A really strange comedy with Judd Nelson as a socially inept man who tries to make it as a stand-up comedy act after growing a third arm out of his back. Audiences scratched their heads and the film bombed
Curdled (1996)
Forensic Cleaner Meets Serial Killer/Black Comedy
A Quentin Tarantino produced black comedy about a forensic cleaner that is charmed by a serial killer who has returned to the crime scene. An indie film that not many people saw at the time.
Creepshow (1982)
Horror Anthology
Stephen King and George Romero collaborate on a horror anthology made as homage to the EC Comics, telling five tales that replicate the blacker-than-black sense of humour (and even the visual look) of the comic-book with hilarious results
The Cottage (2008)
Kidnapping Comedy/Backwoods Brutality
Andy Serkis and Reece Shearsmith are inept kidnappers in this black caper/horror comedy – imagine something like A Life Less Ordinary peopled with characters from a Guy Ritchie crime drama
The Comedy of Terrors (1963)
Murderous Morticians Comedy
Droll black comedy with Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone as morticians who decide to drum up business by murdering people. This assembles much of the team behind the Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe films
Cold Fish (2010)
Serial Killer Black Comedy
From cult director Shion Sono, a typically bizarre and gore-drenched Japanese black comedy about tropical fish salesmen, serial killings and the reclamation of traditional male pride
Cocaine Bear (2023)
Rampaging Drug-Addicted Bear
Very loosely based on a real-life incident, this is an Animals Attack film about a rampaging bear wired on cocaine. Director Elizabeth Banks makes a play for darkly funny humour
Clay Pigeons (1998)
Smalltown Psycho Black Comedy
Small town murder/psycho film where an initially promising black sense of humour soon loses its head of steam. On the other hand, a talented cast keeps the fiim going
The Cable Guy (1996)
Over-Friendly Stalker Black Comedy
Ben Stiller directed comedy with Jim Carrey playing a stalkerish cable installer who makes Matthew Broderick’s life a misery. Carrey’s fans didn’t seem to want to see him play psycho and this was his only flop of this period
Cabin Boy (1994)
Idiot's Absurdist Adventures
A conte cruel that delights in piling humiliations onto obnoxious rich kid Chris Elliott who is shanghaied aboard a ship. This comes in an absurdist vein not dissimilar to the works of producer Tim Burton
The ‘Burbs (1989)
Suburban Paranoia Black Comedy
Joe Dante black comedy about a neighbourhood where everybody becomes paranoid about the weird new people moved in. The film’s bite gets lots amid everything being pitched at a clumsily shrill level of hysteria
A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Murderous Beatnik Artist/Black Comedy
A quirky low-budget black comedy from cult B movie director Roger Corman with Dick Miller as a wannabe who suddenly receives artistic acclaim when he exhibits dead bodies in plaster as works of art