Comedy is subjective, and it’s nearly impossible to categorically gainsay anyone else’s taste. Unintentional comedy, though? That’s universal. Let’s face it: From the crudest of us to the most outwardly noble, we all love a fiasco, as long as we’re on the proper end of things.
Jokes that are meant to be jokes flop at least as often as they succeed, but nothing generates laughs as consistently as a failed attempt at being serious. That’s because we are, all of us, awful humans who delight in the failures of people who aren’t us. Might as well accept it, and enjoy a series of movies that each tried their best, god bless ’em. In failing, they all succeeded in ways their creators never imagined. Here are 20 of the most unintentionally funny movies you should definitely watch, but only in the right mindset.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
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Director Roger Christian has an Oscar thanks to his art direction work on the original Star Wars, but he only took home a Golden Raspberry for his work directing John Travolta’s $50 million Church of Scientology fundraiser. In the year 3000, Earth is ruled over by the Psychlos, aliens who look humans but for their very tall heads. It’s badly acted, cheap-looking, and ugly, with a color palette that ranges from dirt brown to urine yellow. But hey, at least the plot’s incoherent! All that having been said, if you can’t laugh at John Travolta and Forest Whittaker arguing over the fate of humanity in giant drag queen wigs, you have no sense of fun.
Where to stream: Vix
Wild Mountain Thyme (2020)
Christopher Walken’s abysmal Irish accent alone would earn this movie a spot, with Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan likewise trying hard and achieving very little by way of authenticity. The rom-com plot is mostly unexceptional, dealing with two people on adjacent farms who stick around for no particularly good reason until they get together…also for no particularly good reason. It’s all pretty bland, but you definitely have a reason to stay, and it’s for the completely out-of-nowhere, utterly ludicrous, twist magical ending.
Where to stream: Hulu
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
Speaking of Jamie Dornan! The weird, BDSM-lite (very lite) cultural phenomenon that was 50 Shades came to the screen with Dornan and Dakota Johnson, exploring a pairing intended to scandalous and titillating, even though it never feels like they’re in entirely the same movie. He’s glowering and self-serious every moment, while she’s mousy and quirky, looking at all times as if she was supposed to be in the rom-com filming next door. Except that movie wouldn’t give her dialogue like “What are butt plugs?” As if the definition isn’t right there in the name!
Where to stream: Max
Batman & Robin (1997)
Joel Schumacher was certainly aware of the kind of campy, queer, and idiosyncratic movie he was making here, but the intent was to blend superhero thrills with comedy. Instead it’s pretty much all funny, except for when it’s trying to be. The actual “jokes” about chicks digging the car and the Bat credit card don’t land at all, but the prominently nippled batsuits and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s groaners elicit plenty of derisive laughs.
Where to stream: Max, Prime Video
The Happening (2008)
There’s an intentional B-movie charm to this M. Night Shyamalan film, even though the twist reveal is the lamest of the writer/director’s career, but I also don’t believe it’s nearly as intentional as some of its defenders have argued. Certainly the movie’s excessive seriousness with regard to its premise (a mysterious suicide epidemic) makes it, at least occasionally, a real howler. A scene, for example, of “terrorist” lions slowly eating a zoo worker is meant to be shocking, but mostly just feels silly. And based on his other movies, Shyamalan doesn’t exactly strike me as a hilarious dude.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Troll 2 (1990)
Start with the fact it isn’t actually a sequel and includes no actual trolls, and we’re already in unintentionally funny territory. Director and writer Claudio Fragasso’s film adapts a story from his wife, Rosella Drudi, who wanted to make a serious artistic statement about how obnoxious vegetarians are—the goblins here force their victims to eat food that turns them into a kind of vegetable paste, which is totally something a vegetarian would do. During filming, the cast spoke mostly English while the crew mostly only spoke Italian, complicating production of what was apparently intended to be a serious horror movie. One that involves a scene of a kid saving the day by pissing all over the dinner table.
Where to stream: Tubi, Hoopla, Kanopy
Roadhouse (1989)
Roadhouse lands right in between Dirty Dancing and Ghost in Patrick Swayze’s career, which makes the gloriously low-rent blend of action and romantic drama even more fascinating. When he’s not involved in smoldering love scenes with Kelly Lynch, bouncer Swayze is battling Ben Gazzara for control of the titlular dive bar…for some reason. With incoherently macho dialogue to spare (what does “dig a hole” even mean? How about “pain don’t hurt”?), but the coup de grace involves our hero ripping the trachea out of another dude’s throat. Funnier than it sounds.
Where to stream: Max
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Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)
The first 40 minutes or so of director James Nguyen’s film are spent introducing a couple of characters who don’t have nearly enough depth nor backstory to justify that time. Rod is a business-type guy who’s a whiz at PowerPoint presentations. Nathalie is a successful fashion model doing high-end photoshoots in what appear to be converted closets. When we finally get some bird action going, we’re treated to scenes of flying predators who kill by aimlessly floating in front of their victims while we’re encouraged to imagine ripping and slashing. That’s all before we learn that they’re doing it because fossil fuels kinda suck. Which is true. It might all sound like intentional comedy, but Nguyen had serious goals, and was inspired by both Hitchcock’s The Birds, and Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth…the mash-up you never knew you needed. His intentionally satirical sequel isn’t nearly as funny as this one.
Where to stream: Peacock, Tubi, Freevee, Redbox, Plex
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)
Hayden Christensen, a reasonably talented actor in pretty much anything else, is brought low by the second Star Wars prequel. We’re meant to find Anakin Skywalker’s tragic course heartbreaking, but instead find ourselves hoping for James Earl Jones to show up so we can move past the future Darth Vader’s whiny, petulant phase. If there’s anything funnier in the saga than the young Jedi’s pointless and uninvited discourse about sand, I haven’t found it.
Where to stream: Disney+
Mommie Dearest (1981)
Look, I know that it’s the movie that opened up a national discussion about child abuse…but there’s no universe in which a woman in a collagen mask having that big of a freakout over metal hangers won’t be a hoot. Faye Dunaway hams it up to delicious effect.
Where to stream: Max
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
The title here is all over the place, with an abbreviation usually reserved for court cases and a colon leading into an allusion to the next movie in the series. Highlights include a dramatic moment that turns on Lex Luthor’s peepee, Batman suddenly developing dream powers that allow him to glimpse scenes from upcoming sequels, and the movie’s titular conflict resolving itself when the heroes remember that their moms have the same name.
Where to stream: Max, Prime Video
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)
As dramatized in Tim Burton’s Oscar-winning biopic, B-movie director Ed Wood possessed tremendous energy, confidence, and precious little self-awareness—a winning combo, in this case. There’s just the hint of a plot in this legedarily bad sci-fi yarn about aliens invading earth by resurrecting the dead, but we’re not here for the plot. Wrestler Tor Johnson appears, as does horror host Vampira and the legendary Bela Lugosi…sort of. Lugosi died during production, so we’re treated to Wood’s chiropractor filling in, waving a cape around for no good reason and in scenes that might be happening in broad daylight, the middle of the night, or both at once. A treasure, the whole thing.
Where to stream: Tubi, Freevee, Plex, Pluto, Mubi, Hoopla, The Roku Channel
Mac and Me (1988)
The plot here is pretty much just E.T., (“MAC,” in the film, referring to the “Mysterious Alien Creature”), but with a much lower budget and more finely honed commercial instincts. Because Mac is also a reference to the Big Mac, as in the hamburger from primary sponsor McDonald’s, a fact we are never allowed to forget. The movie’s worst/best scene involves and elaborate, impromptu dance number inside a McDonald’s that includes a cameo from Ronald himself. As Paul Rudd taught us by sneaking the clip repeatedly onto Conan O’Brien’s talk show, there’s even some unexpected comedy in the form of an out-of-control wheelchair.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi
The Wicker Man (2006)
The sheer outlandishness of much of what goes on in this movie has sparked a lot of discussion over the extent to which its comedy is intentional. Years after the fact, Nicholas Cage, who plays Edward Malus, said it was, but I’m not entirely convinced. “No, not the bees! Not the bees!” (in a scene during which Cage’s character is being tortured with bees, natch) is Nicholas Cage par excellence, and still has life as a meme, but my personal favorite moment is when Malus, disguised in a bear suit, sucker-punches a cultist leading a ritual. The movie is also dedicated to Johnny Ramone, for some reason. (I’ll say this: if the comedy was intentional, then director Neil LaBute wildly miscalculated the public’s interest in a folk horror human sacrifice satire.)
Where to stream: Digital rental
Pompeii (2014)
Paul W. S. Anderson (director of approximately 80 Resident Evil movies) heads into historical epic territory with mixed results (to be charitable). Kit Harrington is fine in the lead, while Keifer Sutherland is far less convincing as a Roman Senator; the mix of accents is frankly a little distracting. The movie has a very Michael Bay-lite style in its uneasy blend of CG action set pieces and very serious historical romance, summed up best during the fiery conclusion (spoiler: the town doesn’t make it) when a two lovers are dramatically encased in lava and immediately turn into statues as the music swells. Which is not how that works, but OK. Sure.
Where to stream: Netflix
Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
A triumph of Michael Caine’s glorious “anything for a paycheck” era, the actor famously quipped of this movie: “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific!” The briefly venerable Jaws franchise reached its nadir here, for sure, with the story of a shark coming to Amity for revenge against the widow and son of Roy Scheider’s character from the first two movies (Martin Brody having died offscreen). Ellen Brody decides to move to the Bahamas, because she clearly hasn’t had enough of the ocean by this point. No matter: the shark follows her and has even learned to roar like a lion for some reason. Don’t be too sad about characters who get eaten, because there’s a good chance they’ll pop up again before the end. If you can forget it’s a sad end to the Jaws series, this one is a delightful shark-themed comedy.
Where to stream: Netflix
Serenity (2019)
Matthew McConaughey plays Baker Dill, a fishing boat captain on a very on-the-nose quest for a giant yellowfin tune he has dubbed “Justice.” Anne Hathaway plays his scheming femme fatale of an ex-wife, who hires Dill to throw her current husband off of his ship. It’s all very noir-lite, and pretty retrograde in its treatment of its women characters, particularly Diane Lane’s Constance, who does nothing all movie but lay in her bungalow waiting for Dill to come over so she can pay him for sexr. But! That’s all before we realize we’re not in a noir movie, we’re in a science-fiction movie! Kinda! Or maybe it’s just a straight-up murder thriller? I love a good plot twist or two, but Serenity has so many of them it quickly steers the boat into batshit-infested waters. It’s supremely entertaining trash.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
John Huston directs Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor in an adaptation of a Carson McCullers book. A prestige-y no-brainer, right? Instead, this is high-end melodrama all the way, with a blend of good performances and way over-the-top ones that make the whole thing feel like some sort of fever dream. The above video of the film’s final scene is a spoiler, of course, but watch it and try not to laugh; it captures the movie’s tonal misfires flawlessly. Major points for injecting queer themes into a Hollywood movie of the 1960s, but this was not the way.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Staying Alive (1983)
Saturday Night Fever is remembered for its memorable disco dance sequences, but the film outside those moments had gritty 1970s realism—though it has come to signify disco’s garish ’70s heyday, it also tells a fairly down-to-earth story about a young man’s coming-of-age. Its sequel replaces all of that with a series of musical numbers with minimal connective tissue, none of which are superior to anything in the original, and all of which are pretty amusing. This ill-advised sequel is shot through with a very ’80s lack of irony or any modicum of self-awareness, and all the better for it. It’s like that friend you know who desperately wants to make it in theatre, even though they’re terrible. You feel a little bad about it, but sometimes you can’t help but laugh.
Where to stream: Paramount+
The Room (2003)
All unintentionally funny roads lead here, to Tommy Wiseau’s plot-impaired masterpiece of incoherent dialogue, indecipherable accents, and love scenes that will make you reconsider all ideas you’ve ever had about sex being in any way appealing. If you can figure out why it’s called “The Room,” other than the fact that several scenes are, indeed, set in rooms, please chime in.
Where to stream: I couldn’t not include it, but The Room is tragically not streaming anywhere. Grab a highlight reel from YouTube and you’ll get the idea.