Most people–myself included–prejudicially think of foreign films as nearly synonymous with ponderous and difficult. Most of them seem to be Russian or Swedish.
But what are the great foreign comedies? Foreign language, that is; UK or Australian films don’t count for the sake of this discussion.
Here’s mine:
La cage aux folles
Trois hommes et un couffin
. . . and then I’m pretty well stumped. (I know, I know; it’s a gap. Hence this thread.)
Yours?
The Tall Blonde Man with One Black Shoe
Maybe Amelie. Not a knee-slapper, but still a comedy.
Damnit, I came in here to post La Cage aux Folles.
Another good French film is Tanguy, about a PhD student still living with his parents who do all they can to try and get rid of him. It’s more dark comedy, but very enjoyable.
And a third French language film is Gazon Maudit (French Twist), about a womanizing man whose wife takes up with a butch lesbian. Again, it’s not typically American humor, but very funny.
Trois hommes et un coussin was good. La Chevre (sorry - can’t do accented letters) is another one (remade for the US market as Pure Luck, starring Martin Short and Danny Glover).
Le Diner de Cons, aka The Dinner Game, is one of the funniest films I have ever seen.
I remember really liking Delicatessen, but I don’t remember if that was because I thought it was funny or I just liked it. Its tone is lighter than might be expected.
M Hulot’s Holiday
Jacky Chan et al.
Stephen Chow.
I happen to love “Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios”
Yes, Kung Fu Hustle is one of the funniest movees I’ve ever seen. Another of his flicks, Shaolin Soccer is also pretty great but not in my list of greatest comedies ever.
Tampopo is also very funny. The tagline is The first Japanese noodle western!
I agree - I expected it to be a bit of a horror, when it’s actually a dark comedy, but it’s so weird and quirky that it almost defines a different category of ‘funny’ all by itself.
Yeah. It’s not one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen, but it’s pretty funny.
I’d love to see a good American script done with the same idea.
I thought Goodbye Lenin! was hilarious!
**Johnny Stecchino **['93, It.] is an early slapstick vehicle for Roberto Benigni and is truly LOL-funny. Benigni plays a double role as a ruthless mafioso and the good-hearted, simpleton school bus driver who’s mistaken for him. Many satirical points are scored against police officials, politicians, etc., and there’s a very sweet (and silly) romance for the chump hero, as well.
I thought Pedro Almodovar’s **Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown ** was very funny in a slapstick way (and poignant, by turns).
And fans of Juzo Itami’s Tampopo should also check out his A Taxing Woman, a dark comedy about an efficient female tax investigator and her complicated relationship with a criminal overlord (and tax cheat). The comic highlight is definitely the scene in which a tax scofflaw begs our heroine for mercy, in an extremely undignified, shameless way.
Life of Brian.
Anything with Yahoo Serious .
Lynch me now.
Here to second The Dinner Game and Delicatessen
Also Jamon, Jamon Jamón, Jamón (1992) - IMDb
The original The Ladykillers The Ladykillers (1955) - IMDb is pure comedy gold in its own dark weird way.
I am not sure if The Party The Party (1968) - IMDb is foreign. It has Peter Sellers, but it is about Hollywood, so I am not sure.
I don’t really feel that Mr Serious is foreign – though I do like his movies, especially Young Einstein. But if Australian counts as foreign, there are a lot of other very funny ones.
Les Visiteurs (The Visitors), with Jean Reno as a knight transported to the present and Christian Clavier as his incredibly vulgar servant.
An Italian movie called Volere, Volare is great. It’s a sex comedy about a guy who dubs/does foley effects for cartoons - the scene where he helps out with a porn-movie dubbing is roll-around funny…