For a Friday with friends, you need a film that doesn't require perfect silence to work. Something engaging enough that it holds attention even in a room with people in it.
Despite everything, the 2020s have produced some genuinely remarkable cinema. Films made under pressure that somehow carry none of it.
Great comedy is harder than drama. The timing has to be precise, the characters have to be real, and the laughs have to be earned rather than demanded.
Washed-up revolutionary Bob exists in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited, self-reliant daughter, Willa. When his evil nemesis resurfaces after 16 years and she goes missing, the former radical scrambles to find her, father and daughter both battling the consequences of his past.
A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.
Two conspiracy obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.
A gorilla named Ivan who's living in a suburban shopping mall tries to piece together his past, with the help of other animals, as they hatch a plan to escape from captivity.
After a migrating duck family alights on their pond with thrilling tales of far-flung places, the Mallard family embarks on a family road trip, from New England, to New York City, to tropical Jamaica.
These films earn their laughs honestly. Nothing is cheap, nothing is mean-spirited, nothing is there just to get a reaction. It's all earned.
Raquel's longtime crush on her next-door neighbor turns into something more when he starts developing feelings for her, despite his family's objections.
When carefree Nyles and reluctant maid of honor Sarah have a chance encounter at a Palm Springs wedding, things get complicated when they find themselves unable to escape the venue, themselves, or each other.
A 1950s London cleaning lady falls in love with an haute couture dress by Christian Dior and decides to gamble everything for the sake of this folly.
The Templeton brothers - Tim and his Boss Baby little bro Ted - have become adults and drifted away from each other. But a new boss baby with a cutting-edge approach and a can-do attitude is about to bring them together again ... and inspire a new family business.
A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people.
A twist only works if the film has earned it. These films plant their revelations early, play fair, and still manage to blindside you.
These films hold up because they were never just funny. They were precise, human, and true. The laughter was always a byproduct of that.