Black Comedy Movies

So, where does comedy end and black comedy begin?

I guess that's a difficult question...and many good movies have bombed because they didn't delineate clearly enough which they were...and Joe Public didn't quite understand if he should laughing at something or crying.

For me, black comedy is a delicate mixture of:

a believable drama
with comic undertones, whether in the plot or theme
where there is at least one sympathetic character that the audience can identify with

...and there must be a complete absence of satire (which has the propensity to stop audience identification).

So, with that as a definition, these are some of my favorite black comedies.

American Beauty

With 5 Academy awards in 2000, including Best Picture, American Beauty was a rare thing: a black comedy that many people undestood.

Kevin Spacey gives a brilliant central performance as middle-aged Lester Burnham, who seeks external American Beauty (obsession with his teenage daughter's gorgeous best friend) and discovers it, finally, within himself.

Bonfire Of The Vanities

Slammed by the critics who said it wasn't faithful to the well-respected novel of the same name, it died a sudden death at the box office.

But looking at it now, I see a wonderful send-up of the excessive 80s and the me-generation, as epitomised by Sherman Mccoy, (Tom Hanks), whose high falutin' bond trading world starts to rapidly fall apart when, of all things, he's driving with his mistress Maria (Melanie Griffith), takes a wrong turn and ends up in the Bronx.

Bruce Willis' turns in a delightful comic performance as Peter Fallow, the alcoholic journalist who unravels Sherman's life...and director Brian de Palma's incredibly choreographed opening 5-minute tracking shot has to be seen to be believed, it's as excessive as everything its satirising.

Get Shorty

After the incredible Pulp Fiction, John Travolta was not only re-established as an A-League star...he was now the coolest of the cool!

Get Shorty, a wonderful, witty satire, was the perfect follow-up vehicle for him, playing Chilli Parker, a loan-shark with a heart of gold, who loves movies. By circumstance, Chilli gets a tilt at becoming a Hollywood movie producer when he's asked to call in an outstanding casino debt from B-grade movie producer Gene Hackman...

Pulp Fiction

For me, quite the most delicious black comedy of the 1990s with a stunning, out-of-sequence script, stand-out performances by all the cast: