4 Best Funny Movies On Showtime

A hilarious and smart comedy that is almost impossible to hate. It doesn’t matter if you liked The Room or not; or if you’ve even heard of it, you will find The Disaster Artist extremely enjoyable. Same applies for James Franco, it’s irrelevant if you think he’s the hottest man walking or a complete waste of screen-time - this movie is better approached without any preconceived ideas. It follows the true events surrounding Tommy Wiseau’s making of The Room, a movie so bad it actually became a worldwide hit. Tommy’s character, played by Franco, is 100% mystery. He pops out of nowhere and does and says things that contain little to no logic. Capitalizing on this, the movie is both absolutely hilarious and intriguing from beginning to end.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Adam Scott, Adwin Brown, Alison Brie, Amechi Okocha, Andrew Santino, Ari Graynor, Bob Odenkirk, Brett Gelman, Brian Huskey, Bryan Cranston, Cameron Brinkman, Casey Wilson, Cate Freedman, Charlyne Yi, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Corey Weber, Danny McBride, Dave Franco, David DeCoteau, Dree Hemingway, Dylan Minnette, Eliza Coupe, Erin Cummings, Frankie Ponce, Frederick Keeve, Greg Sestero, Hannibal Buress, Ike Barinholtz, J.J. Abrams, Jacki Weaver, James Franco, Jason Mantzoukas, Jason Mitchell, Javi Sánchez-Blanco Boyer, Jenna Curtis, Jerrod Carmichael, Jessie Ennis, Joe Mande, John Early, Jolie Mitnick Salter, Josh Hutcherson, Judd Apatow, June Diane Raphael, Kara Gibson, Kate Upton, Katherine Neff, Keegan-Michael Key, Kelly Oxford, Kether Donohue, Kevin Smith, Kristen Bell, Lauren Ash, Lizzy Caplan, Megan Ferguson, Megan Mullally, Melanie Griffith, Nathan Fielder, Nicole Gordon-Levitt, Paul Scheer, Peter Gilroy, Ramona Tibrin, Randall Park, Ricky Mabe, Seth Rogen, Shane Ryan-Reid, Sharon Stone, Slim Khezri, Steven Liu, Sugar Lyn Beard, Tamzin Brown, Taylor DeVoe, Tom Franco, Tommy Wiseau, Tudor Munteanu, Vincent Marinelli, Xosha Roquemore, Zac Efron, Zach Braff, Zhubin Rahbar, Zoey Deutch

Director: James Franco

Rating: R

This drama was the first feature written and directed by an out Black lesbian, Cheryl Dunye, and it is an absolute joy: a cheeky faux-documentary that ingeniously blends lesbian dating life with a historical dive into Black actors in 30s Hollywood.

Dunye plays Cheryl, a self-effacing version of herself, an aspiring director working at a video store who begins to research an actress known as the Watermelon Woman for a documentary. The more Cheryl dives into her research, the more she sees parallels between her subject and her own relationship. 

As incisive as it is funny, The Watermelon Woman shares some common ground with other major indie debuts of the era like Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It and funnily enough Kevin Smith’s Clerks, but Dunye’s style is wholly her own and a dazzling treat to experience.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Brian Freeman, Camille Paglia, Cheryl Clarke, Cheryl Dunye, David Rakoff, Guinevere Turner, Irene Dunye, Lisa Marie Bronson, Sarah Schulman

Director: Cheryl Dunye

One woman’s main character syndrome reaches shocking lows in this vicious Norwegian satire of social-media-era narcissists. Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) and her artist boyfriend Thomas (Eirik Sæther) are a deeply toxic couple who torture everyone around them with their constant, petty one-upmanship. When he lands a flashy magazine spread, though, Signe’s usual tactics for slyly redirecting attention her way don’t cut it anymore, and so this compulsive liar takes drastic action and begins overdosing on pills banned for their serious dermatological side effects.

Signe's Munchausen-esque actions have their desired effect: the physically dramatic results instantly make her the center of attention — but not indefinitely. As she craves increasingly bigger spotlights, the film toggles between reality and scenes from her imagination, including a morbid sexual fantasy in which her funeral proves so popular the priest becomes a bouncer, turning away sobbing mourners whom Signe noticed hadn’t visited her in hospital. The rampant narcissism on display here is at turns hilarious and excruciating: Sick of Myself’s sharp social observation skills make it feel, in places, like a movie by cringe-master Ruben Östlund. That stomach-turning effect carries through to the ending, which darkly suggests that, for someone like Signe, even narcissism itself is a condition that can be weaponized for attention.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Anders Danielsen Lie, Andrea Bræin Hovig, Fredrik Stenberg Ditlev-Simonsen, Henrik Mestad, Kristine Kujath Thorp, Robert Skjærstad

Director: Kristoffer Borgli

In this office comedy of errors, Javier Bardem plays Blanco, the titular boss, but whether he is actually good is what the movie wryly examines.

As head of a small manufacturing company, Blanco treats his employees intimately, going so far as make their problems his own. He believes this is why his company is nominated for an excellence certification, but as he waits for the possible award, cracks start to appear in his “work is family” facade as everything that could go wrong, starts going wrong. The Good Boss is an anxiety fest for Blanco to be sure, but a winning tragicomedy for us all.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Almudena Amor, Celso Bugallo, Daniel Chamorro, Fernando Albizu, Francesc Orella, Javier Bardem, Manolo Solo, Mara Guil, María de Nati, Nao Albet, Óscar de la Fuente, Rafa Castejón, Sonia Almarcha, Tarik Rmili, Yaël Belicha

Director: Fernando León de Aranoa

Rating: Not Rated