PhantomStranger

More comedies hold up from the 1980s than either the 1970s or 1990s. The 1980s have all the strong National Lampoon Vacation movies and many others.

Ash Ketchum

When I think of '70s comedy, I think: Woody Allen at his peak, Mel Brooks at his peak, Monty Python at their peak, Benny Hill at his peak, Saturday Night Live and the first wave of its spin-off comedy movies, e.g. ANIMAL HOUSE and the first Chevy Chase and Steve Martin movies, plus Richard Pryor in various films and stand-up concerts and early Cheech and Chong. Plus the Terence Hill Italian westerns (Trinity and Nobody). I remember smoking a lot of pot and laughing a lot back then. (Okay, so I guess the pot helped.)

What am I forgetting about? Peter Sellers made a lot of movies back then. George Segal in THE BLACK BIRD and FUN WITH DICK AND JANE. Neil Simon comedies like MURDER BY DEATH and what is still my favorite Simon-scripted comedy, THE CHEAP DETECTIVE.

Not a bad bunch.

GoldenJCJ

I think with comedies, more than any other genre, the “golden age” is determined by each generation. As a child of the 80s and 90s I see the 80s as the golden age of comedy. I’m sure others see the 70s, 60s, etc. as their golden age, and others will see The Marx Bros., Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, etc. as theirs. I can certainly understand each viewpoint but for me those comedies don’t strike the same chord as movies from the 80s.

I’m sure there are people younger than me who sees the 90s as the best time for comedies with American Pie, Jim Carrey comedies, etc.

Double_Oh_7

Three O'Clock High- not as good as I remembered

Jack Straw

Classics for all-time from the 80's:

Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Revenge of the Nerds
Caddyshack
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Stripes
Spaceballs
This Is Spinal Tap
Trading Places
Used Cars
Where The Buffalo Roam

B5Erik

I know my daughter and her friends all love Better Off Dead almost as much as my wife and I do. That one has held up remarkably well. It's crazy and off the wall, and maybe that's why it holds up so well. It's firmly rooted in the 80's, but it's also so out there in some ways that it transcends the era.

OldBoy

I recently went through a strictly 80’s phase and watched so many that still brought me joy. Sure they are dated, but the entertainment and enjoy factor was still so prevalent. The ones I can remember:
Three O’Clock High
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Better Off Dead
Can’t Buy Me Love
Just One of the Guys
Weird Science
The Flamingo Kid
The Last American Virgin
The Breakfast Club (though haven’t seen it recently in whole, I think, waiting for Criterion this week)
Secret Admirer
Some Kind of Wonderful
Others that will come to me...

inri222

Josh-da-man

Animal House was probably the patient zero for the 80s comedy genre.

Original Desmond

Police academy series, definitely NOT held up !

I still love the sex comedies.

mcnabb

Even though I used to watch the Police Academy movies in the 80's as a kid, I don't think they every held up when they came out. They were always bad, but they were so bad, they were entertaining. It's like saying does Friday the 13th movies from the 80's hold up? No, but they were a punchline when I was a kid, yet we all watched them for that reason.

Inhumans99

I bought I believe the UK blu ray set on amazon years ago...it was shockingly cheap and played perfect on my blu ray (also, it is part of my permanent collection but I no longer have the set...will say no more about that).

You should grab it...as you are probably not going to see a Region 1/Zone A North American official release anytime soon.

d2cheer

Watch this every year.

Timber

I think pretty much everyone I liked in the 80's I still like now. I can't say things like Porky's don't hold up when I didn't like it when it came out. If anything I would single out the parody's but then I still thing Airplane is laugh out loud funny.

DJariya

A lot of the 1980s sex comedies are tame by today's standards.

Private Resort for example, which I mentioned I recently saw, had no sex scenes. Just a couple of boob flashes and two guys who were obsessed with looking at boobs.

grundle

The only reason that anyone still talks about this movie is because of the ending. Take that out, and it's just another teen sex movie. Of course you have to watch the entire movie to understand the why the ending is such a big deal.

grundle

There's only one reason to watch this movie, and it's censored on cable stations that have commercials (but not on the pay channels like HBO). The rental VHS tapes were worn out during that one scene because people kept rewinding it and watching it over and over.

jpcamb

Blues Brothers is one of my all time favorite movies, if you dont have it on blue ray do yourself a favor as the transfer makes it look like a new movie.

Just read somewhere that there are ~50 more minutes of the Breakfast Club coming out.

This is also the first year i haven't rewatched Christmas Vacation in a long time....

grundle

I want to give a big, heartfelt, sincere recommendation for Seven Minutes in Heaven, which is consistently excellent from beginning to end, and will not insult your intelligence.

Valley Girl also gets my recommendation. (They are doing a remake which may or may not get released this summer from what I have read).

I have a personal fondness for The Private Eyes, which is a 1920s period piece murder mystery comedy staring Don Knotts and Tim Conway. I saw this during its original theatrical run when I was a kid, and I still love it today. I'm not sure if it's just nostalgia, or if this truly is a good film that I would still like if I hadn't seen it as a child and was now seeing it for the first time as an adult.

Roxanne is awesome, but a lot of the DVDs are only pan and scan. Make sure to look for the widescreen version.

I think The Breakfast Club is highly overrated, and I never understood its huge popularity.

If I may delve into the very early 1990s, with a film that certainly seems like it's from the 1980s, I absolutely, totally, completely love and adore Drop Dead Fred with Phoebe Cates, Carrie Fisher, and Rik Mayall. Critics hated - hated - hated - this one. But it's got a loyal cult following. It's a comedy on the surface. But at a much deeper level, it is a very serious psychological drama.

Kedrix

Off the top of my head...


Hold Up:
Airplane!
Beetlejuice
Breakfast Club
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Fletch
Ghostbusters
Goonies (seen it so many times, and still love it)
Princess Bride
Spaceballs (despite what has been posted here, I frigging still love it, but I'm a huge Mel Brooks fan).
Spinal Tap
Three Amigos
Used Cars (underappreciated gem)


Not so Much:
Bachelor Party
Caddyshack
Ghostbusters II
Gremlins
Police Academy (I still like the third one though)
Porky's
Revenge of the Nerds (and any of the sequels)
Say Anything
Stripes

rw2516

Return of the Living Dead holds up.

Obi-Wanma

I watched Ghostbusters with my 8 year old daughter over Christmas Break. She loved it and wanted to watch Ghostbusters 2 the next night, so we did. Then she wanted to watch the re-make, which I had never actually seen, but had gotten for free from Vudu/Movies Anywhere, so we watched it. She fell asleep in the middle of it.

Nick Danger

Goonies is loved by people who first saw it as a kid. Like E.T., I first saw it as an adult an I don't care for either of them.

My friend and I thought Spaceballs was bad when we saw it in first release. It was not a box office success and then it was forgotten. I've always been puzzled by the revival it got in the 2000s.

Nick Danger

I forgot A Fish Called Wanda. It still makes me laugh.

JimRochester

Way back when it was released my wife, then girlfriend and I saw it in the theaters. Eagerly awaited it being released on DVD then was disappointed. After about 30 minutes of Chunk screaming every word that came out of his mouth I had to turn it off and sell the DVD. I knew I was done with that one forever.