Danny DeVito also directed Death to Smoochy and Throw Momma From the Train, which I guess firmly establishes him as a black-comedy director, though the spectacular box-office failure of Smoochy likely hurt him a lot. His upcoming I Married a Witch (a remake of the 1942 film starring Fredric March and Veronica Lake) might be worth checking out.
And Network is one of my favourite black comedies.
Deathrace 2000 is also a fave of mine, I hasten to add.
The Trouble with Harry
Arsenic and Old Lace
Serial Mom
Little Shop of Horrors
American Werewolf in London
Killing Zoe
Four Rooms
Man Bites Dog
Would True Romance work as a black comedy, maybe unintentionally?
I just picked up a copy of One Night at McCool’s which is a damn funny movie considering how many people get killed in it.
Human Nature was a Michel Gondry film written by Charlie Kaufman. Don’t worry, it was the film’s stupid ad campaign that got you thinking it was a Spike Jonez film.
And I would like to nominate the other Gondry/Kaufman team up **Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind ** as another great dark comedy (though I opened the thread to say Kind Hearts and Coronette’s thinking it was obscure enough not to have been mentioned yet.)
Dude, if you laughed enough times during that movie to consider it a comedy of any sort, you’re a deeply disturbed individual.
I hope this diagram helps:
COMEDY -------------------------------------------------------- TRAGEDY
^ ^
Bananas The Sweet Hereafter
^
Dancer in the Dark
I was the first one to cite True Romance.
In my mind, Barton Fink has just edged out Harold and Maude for the second-place accolade.
Barton Fink combined some of the blackest of black moments with comedy on a conceptual level that was insanely funny in the sense of “I can’t believe they just did that.”
I was gonna suggest “Happiness.”
Same thing?
Sleepy Hollow has to be up there, laughed my head off…
Hell no! Happiness is definitely black comedy – yeah, there are (extremely) disturbing situations, but there’s plenty of deliberately absurd humour in there. “If only I was abused as a child, then I could write authentically.” Hell, the movie even has a punchline.[spoiler]“I came!” – Ha!
…and before that, the dog lapping up the kid’s first ejaculation and then running and licking his mother’s face.[/spoiler]Very dark, but there are many scenes that are clearly played for laughs.
I’m trying to think of something that resembles a joke in Dancer in the Dark…
Dammit, you took the one I was going to mention! That movie is absolutely hilarious.
Now, I have to return some videotapes…
It’s a comedy for the director; the audience is part of the show.
How about “Wag the Dog”? I remember it as being pretty funny and also fairly bleak–I mean, they made up a war to take attention off a possible presidential scandal. People believed it. And then it really happened!
I was going to say Wag the Dog. But ah well.
And perhaps, The 'Burbs? Beetlejuice? Not sure if those are dark or just normal funny films which involve death.
I haven’t seen The 'Burbs, but Beetlejuice has to count. It’s not satirical like many of the movies mentioned in this list, but it does treat death as a subject for comedy.
I nominate All That Jazz. The dance numbers Joe hallucinates while in the hospital for a major heart attack are beyond funny. And the punch line at the very end of the movie is the blackest of black comedy:Joe has died and is zipped up in a body bag. Soundtrack: Ethel Merman singing There’s No Business Like Show Business.
A couple that haven’t been mentioned:
Lord Love a Duck
Pretty Maids All in a Row
I LOVE Lord Love a Duck. I finally tracked down a copy of it.
Brazil
Bliss (80’s Aussie version)
Highway 61
Eat The Rich
Delicatessen
Fargo
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The Trouble With Harry
The Opposite of Sex
MASH
Oh yeah, the surgery dance, heart and liver pirouetting with the spleen and lungs. Quite the production number.