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.
Go back far enough and you find films that had no idea they'd become classics. The 80s and 90s produced more of them than any other era.
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.
Raj is a rich, carefree, happy-go-lucky second generation NRI. Simran is the daughter of Chaudhary Baldev Singh, who in spite of being an NRI is very strict about adherence to Indian values. Simran has left for India to be married to her childhood fiancé. Raj leaves for India with a mission at his hands, to claim his lady love under the noses of her whole family. Thus begins a saga.
A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.
A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events-in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.
A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.
Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents' romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985.
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.
In a picture-perfect seaside town, an insurance salesman begins to realize that his entire existence may be staged and observed by a vast unseen audience as part of a long-running real-time reality TV show.
A card shark and his unwillingly-enlisted friends need to make a lot of cash quick after losing a sketchy poker match. To do this they decide to pull a heist on a small-time gang who happen to be operating out of the flat next door.
Led by Woody, Andy's toys live happily in his room until Andy's birthday brings Buzz Lightyear onto the scene. Afraid of losing his place in Andy's heart, Woody plots against Buzz. But when circumstances separate Buzz and Woody from their owner, the duo eventually learns to put aside their differences.
Two melancholic Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal server at a late-night restaurant.
Friends Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo cross Italy from north to south for Giacomo's wedding: the father of the bride, a despotic magnate who is both their boss and father-in-law-since Aldo and Giovanni have also married into the family not for love but for money, a fate now awaiting Giacomo-has entrusted them with a priceless piece of modern art, one that looks just like a rather unremarkable wooden leg.
The best measure of whether a film is worth watching is whether you'd recommend it to someone you respect. These all qualify.
A great comedy earns its place in memory not through jokes but through character. The funniest moments are the ones that are also somehow true.