2 Best Stand-up comedy Movies to Watch

Comedy special John Early: Now More Than Ever is shot like a monumental concert documentary: it’s all nostalgic ‘70s cinematography, with intercutting backstage scenes that detail pretentious pre-show prayers and spikes of tension melodramatically flaring up between the performers. All this self-aggrandizement is the special’s overarching joke, though — it literalizes what Early does with his ultra-narcissist onscreen persona, last explored in sketch special Would It Kill You To Laugh? with Kate Berlant.

Early’s decision to blend comedy and musical performance here means you can count the actual stand-up bits on one hand. It’s also true that his observations on subjects like the Access Hollywood tape and app permissions would struggle to carry a conventional special (sharp and heightened by physical comedy though they may be). But the interplay between music, outright jokes, and the tongue-in-cheek framing of the special is what makes Now More Than Ever such a rich and layered show. Early is a master at character-building, and the way he manages to unearth sincerity even amidst all this self-satirization speaks to both his comedic and dramatic genius, making this hourlong show a testament to just how deserving he is of the spotlight.

Genre: Comedy, Music

Actor: Dominique Toney, John Early

Director: Emily Allan, Leah Hennessey

Rating: R

Generation-centric comedy is often of the “kids these days” variety — in which comedians make uninspired jibes about the youth of today while spectacularly lacking self-awareness of their own — but twenty-something stand-up Leo Reich thankfully upends that trend with his self-lampooning debut show. Reich takes a risk by unabashedly casting himself as a self-absorbed nepo baby in the opening — narcissism as a bit can become grating pretty quickly — but his perceptive abilities and readiness to both embody and commentate on Gen Z stereotypes are the saviors of this hour-long comedy special.

Stand-up isn’t the only medium he makes use of: the show is also part-musical, as Reich belts out wry musings on the contradictions of his generation — at once self-loathing but tending towards narcissism, cripplingly self-aware but no more enlightened for it — at intervals throughout. If there’s anything to lament here, it’s that Reich’s main character syndrome is so effectively paired with the doom-and-gloom context he paints (as he puts it, he’s spent way too much of his youth Googling "death toll") that the show’s aftertaste is a little too bitter — but then again, nihilism is another characteristic typically associated with zoomers, so you could argue this is simply supreme commitment to the bit.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Leo Reich

Director: Thomas Hardiman

Rating: R