10 Dark Comedies You Cannot Miss

Mary Harron mastered the dark, satirical undertones of Bret Easton Ellis’ superb, scintillating novel when she brought American Psycho to the screen, and the unhinged performance of Christian Bale really made it all possible. As Patrick Bateman, Bale delivers rapid wit and brutal comebacks in abundance, as well as possessing a wild energy that makes his character as entertaining as he is terrifying.

With scenes of an extremely sexual nature and lots and lots of gruesome murders, this is not one for the faint of heart, but it’s so rich in social commentary and has a tantalisingly open-ended conclusion that it’s hard to resist. There’s no way that Bateman trying to feed a cat into an ATM should be funny, but amid all the madness, it really, really is.

Bong Joon Ho’s Academy Award-winning masterpiece is not exactly a hidden gem or anything, but it’s impossible to compile a list of dark comedies and not give Parasite a deserving mention. This twisting tale of class struggles and elitist privilege is not only incredibly pertinent in today’s increasingly lopsided society – it pretty much kickstarted the new wave of “eat the rich” movies – but it’s also deliciously funny at times.

Director Bong has a brilliant knack for knowing when to cut the tension with a sharp line reading or clever visual gag, and Parasite is the ultimate example of this talent. From the elaborate setup of the peach allergy plot or the painfully awkward moment the Kim family are forced to hide under the table while their employers criticise them, there’s never a dull moment in this one.

Speaking of directors who have a penchant for black comedy, Martin McDonagh is one of the very best to do it. While his other films like The Banshees of Inisherin and Seven Psychopaths are brilliant in their own right, it is his earlier work on In Bruges that nails the tone we’re looking for with this list.

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson star as Ray and Ken, a pair of hitmen who wind up laying low in the Belgian city after a job goes awry. While they await their next instructions, we see Ray in particular grapple with his newfound conscience, leading to a lot of soulsearching and a moral reckoning that takes us to some pretty bleak places. Still, the incredible dynamic between Farrell and Gleeson and the sheer disdain Ray holds for Bruges itself make this character study a comical classic.

The Coen Brothers love to play around with noir stories and criminal tales, all while embellishing their work with a delightful splash of comedy. Fargo, directed solely by Joel Coen, is the perfect blend of those vibes. With a death toll rivalling that of No Country For Old Men, and deadpan humour that wouldn’t feel out of place in The Big Lebowski, this caper constantly shifts from bloody murder to sidesplitting laughter, and it’s a formidable ride.

The calamitous attempts of hitmen Carl (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear (Peter Stormare) to blackmail Jerry (William H. Macy) and his father-in-law, all while the bodies continue to pile up, is simply ridiculous, and it’s the kind of silly humour that only the smartest minds could conjure up. Throw in Frances McDormand and her Scandi-Minnesotan accent, and it’s easy to see why she won the Oscar for Best Actress, and the Coen siblings won for Best Original Screenplay.

Of all the creatives on this list, I don’t think anyone can rival Charlie Kaufman when it comes to going balls-to-the-wall with surrealist stories. With Adaptation, he combines forces with Spike Jonze once again (after their acclaimed team-up on Being John Malkovich) to deliver a mind-boggling dramedy that relentlessly digs deeper and deeper into very weird places.

It says it all that Kaufman also gave his fictitious brother, Donald, screenwriting credits on this one, and that ties in perfectly with the story at the heart of Adaptation. Nic Cage stars as Kaufman, a depressed and undervalued writer, as well as playing his brother, a more naive yet somehow more successful writer who steals Charlie’s thunder again and again. It’s messy and madcap, but you just can’t help but laugh at Cage’s frantic energy in the dual roles.

Martin Scorsese is not known for making comedies, though his work is often infused with little hints of humour at inappropriate times (think Joe Pesci’s trigger-happy Tommy in Goodfellas or Jack Nicholson’s commentary on how “funny” his victim falls after she is shot in The Departed). However, the clue is in the title with this one, as The King of Comedy gets our seal of approval for being equal parts hilarious and sinister.

Robert De Niro goes against type as the hapless Rupert Pupkin in this underrated ‘80s classic, a man dreaming of stand-up stardom, who longs to rub shoulders with Jerry Langford and be on television. He will do anything to achieve that dream, including kidnapping Jerry and threatening to kill him if he’s not put on the air. If you like Todd Phillips’ Joker, just wait until you see where he got pretty much all his ideas from.

I don’t know what’s going on in Yorgos Lanthimos’ mind, but I love it. His recent work on Poor Things, Bugonia, and Kinds of Kindness all embrace quirky narratives and the comedic talents of Emma Stone, but we’re going way back to 2015 for his first English-language movie, The Lobster, to see him at his pitch-black best.

This fantastical tale of dystopian romance and animalistic transformation is underpinned by yet another excellent Colin Farrell performance. As the meek, lost soul David, Farrell doubles down on social awkwardness and unusual mannerisms to deliver a character we can root for while also being just a little concerned at the lengths he will go to find love – or this weird world’s version of it.

This year, Olivia Wilde won us all over as a director once more (she is firmly forgiven for the rather disjointed Don’t Worry Darling, now) with her taut, stylish rom-com, The Invite. I say rom-com… there are technically romantic undertones to the narrative, and it’s certainly funny, but this is not your typical love story, by any means.

In fact, The Invite is all about promiscuity, hedonism, voyeurism, and sexual exploration, and it’s all taking place within one very lovely apartment as two couples (Wilde and Seth Rogen, and Penelope Cruz and Ed Norton) gradually let go of all their inhibitions to varying degrees of success. It’s awkward and crude and invasive, but it’s also a wonderful blend of slapstick comedy and subtle dialogue-driven jokes.

I am very much on the Matt Johnson hype train this year. After loving his work on BlackBerry, I stumbled across the crazy ride that is Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, and then took a deep dive into his entire filmography and found his startling feature debut, The Dirties. The handheld, guerilla style cinematography didn’t surprise me. The childish, crass, playful humour didn’t surprise me. But the super bleak final act certainly did.

It’s a film which gradually gets darker and darker without the viewer ever really noticing, until it’s too late. As the plot to get revenge on a gang of high school bullies unfolds, I remember thinking, “Surely it’s not going to go there”, and then it does. The last few lines uttered in The Dirties are still etched into my mind months later, which is testament to the success of that rug-pull moment.

Eva Victor, like Johnson, is another writer-director-actor who has enjoyed a real breakthrough in the last couple of years, and Sorry, Baby is proof enough that she should be allowed to make any movie she wants. It’s such a raw, emotional, powerful story that feels exceptionally personal and sensitive, and yet it welcomes us in with open arms and charming humour from the get-go.

This is such a lovely, easy watch, until it isn’t. But, the big reveal of the film’s very bleak and traumatic inciting incident is not shock value for the sake of it – it’s a narrative choice that enriches everything that came before and after it. Victor herself is a revelation in the lead role and hits so many jokes and line deliveries out of the park, as well as nailing the deeper, darker moments, too.