What movie "broke the 4th wall" the best?
 

If you don't know what that means, look it up.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

High Fidelity worked for me.

http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.ya...cusack/hf2.jpg

American Splendor for me

Blazing Saddles and Space balls. Good ol' watching the future during the present via VHS.

Funny Games

That was my first thought as well.

Another:

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
http://www.impawards.com/1986/poster...rs_day_off.jpg



Edit: Sorry the picture is ridiculously big. It's not like MB is a hot chick, so it's totally unwarranted.

I'll be the only one to say it...

Austin Powers 2-

There's a great moment where Michael Anderson is explaining something to Austin about Time Travel and he just glances up to tell us not to think too hard about it.

Eddie Murphy in Trading Places

Ray Liotta at the end of GoodFellas

George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Waynes World with the direct addresses to the camera and the product shilling.

24 Hour Party People

Fight Club.

I just love the bit where Norton's character takes a moment to dab something off his chin while he explains to the audience what Tyler's hotel job was.

My favorite moment in any movie when somebody breaks the fourth wall comes in A Shot in the Dark:

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Ok, not the best, but I enjoyed the gag.

Kuffs

Although I ultimately didn't care for the film very much, I liked Kurt Russell's grin at the camera in DEATH PROOF.

:up:

Ferris Bueller was my first thought as well.

There was some of that in Good Fellas. It might have seemed like an odd idea on paper, but somehow Sorcese managed to pull it off. [EDIT: Oh crap! Someone already mentioned that one also!]

I'm also reminded of the TV series Moonlighting. They seemed to do it all the time on that show and, unless it was during an intro before the episode began, I usually hated it. It just seemed like whenever the writers ran out of clever things to do, they used that tired gimmick.

I hope I'm not remembering this wrong, but isn't there a scene in Harold and Maude where Harold looks at the camera and grins?

Annie Hall (the scene with Marshall McLuhan especially)
Return of the Killer Tomatoes (great product shilling scene, years before Wayne's World did it)

Superman: The Movie

Superman saved the day, Lois is alive and well, and Superman flies off into the upper atmosphere. Just as John William's brilliant score is crescendoing and Superman flies up to the left and out of frame, he throws a smile to the audience.


-Doc

Are we just naming movies that break the 4th wall, or are we naming the movies that did it the best?

Addressing the audience verbally seems to trump a mere smile, in my opinion.

And, of course, my opinion is always correct. So, there you go.

History of the World: Part I..."It's good to be the king."

The smile, though, was more than just a wink to the audience. In almost any other movie (especially a comic book one) I would have hated it. But from the moment the first teaser/poster came out with the tagline, "You Will Believe a Man Can Fly", people were hyped (and nervous) about the movie.

What followed was a long wait, followed by a two hour movie-going experience that people who saw it in the theater liken to Star Wars and ET. It was 2 hours of Joy, crescendoing in a symphonic flying montage that left one elated, and by the time the smile/glance came, it wasn't Christopher Reeve winking at you from a harness rig, it was SUPERMAN, flying off into the sunset, throwing you a nod.

It gave me chills, anyway.



-Doc

Great! I'd have to put my vote in for this for sure.

But another is Anthony Perkins at the end of "Psycho".. creepy!

Tyler Durden: Would you like to say a few words to mark the occasion?
Narrator: mumbles...
Tyler Durden: I'm sorry...
Narrator: I still can't think of anything.
Tyler Durden: Ah... flashback humor.

I thought High Fidelity did it best by keeping us face to face with the main character through the movie, but The Jerk did it in an interesting way as well, by having Navin begin and end the movie by telling us his life story.

Fight Club as a whole is one big wink to the audience. God, I love the fuckin' movie.



-Doc

Darryl in <b>Coming to America</b>. You know, after Lisa's sister finds him outside in the rain and invites him in, then she says "Let's get you out of these wet clothes." That look he gives is priceless.

"Ocean's 12"

Doesn't she look just like...

Actually didn't like that one. I get what they were doing, trying to be cute. But it was one of those winks where, instead of letting me in on the joke, it just took me totally out of the movie.



-Doc

I agree. It sealed the fate of what, for me, had been an already disappointing movie up to that point.

I think Ferris Bueller is going to be the overriding winner in this discussion. Most of the time, breaking the fourth wall just doesn't work.

The other 4th wall moment in Superman:

Clark Kent shows the audience that he's caught the bullet that almost kills Lois.

Bill Murray-Ghostbusters 1/2 has always been my favorite example of this.

Hamlet

Did he? I thought he looked down at his hand, all proud of himself like the cat that ate the canary. I didn't realize he was showing us (From a filmmaking standpoint he was, just as in any movie where there's a reveal, the character is "Showing us" what had just happened, but it wasn't like he looked at the camera and then opened his hand, was it?)


-Doc

Yeah, that was just an insert shot, not breaking the 4th wall.

I don't know what my favorite one is, but I can tell you my least favorite.

Into the Wild, out of nowhere he just stares at the camera while he's eating an apple. I'm sure Sean Penn thought it was "cute", but it ruined the movie for me the rest of the time I watched it.

On a related note... Are there examples other than Blazing Saddles where the movie breaks the fourth wall almost literally, panning out to a soundstage and going fully meta?

Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fIXByCAIzos&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fIXByCAIzos&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>