Top 1970s Comedy Movies Ranked

The son of famous detective Sam Spade carries on the family tradition of getting involved with the Maltese Falcon - and with the people who will stop at nothing, including murder, to get it.

A nuclear-powered bus is making its maiden non-stop trip from New York to Denver. The journey is plagued by disasters due to the machinations of a mysterious group allied with the oil lobby. Will the down-on-his-luck driver, with a reputation for eating his passengers, be able to complete the journey?

An eccentric games inventor dies and leaves behind an inheritance worth hundreds of millions of dollars - which will only be given to the person or team, amongst his family and hired help, who wins a madcap scavenger hunt.

The famous Pink Panther jewel has once again been stolen and Inspector Clouseau is called in to catch the thief. The Inspector is convinced that 'The Phantom' has returned and utilises all of his resources – himself and his Asian manservant – to reveal the identity of 'The Phantom'.

Rabbi Avram arrives in Philadelphia from Poland en route to San Francisco where he will be a congregation's new rabbi. An innocent and inexperienced traveller, he is tricked by con men to pay for the trip to go west, then they leave him and his belongings scattered along a deserted road. He is befriended by a stranger, Tommy, who is a bank robber and have many adventures during their journey.

After divorcing his ambitious singer wife, a middle-aged man begins a new relationship with a teacher.

Muffin's wedding to Dino Corelli is to be a big affair. Except the ageing priest isn't too sure of the ceremony, only the families actually turn up as the Corelli Italian connection is suspect, security guards watch the gifts rather over-zealously, and Dino's grandma expires in bed just as the reception starts. Could be quite an occasion.

When frustrated movie studio mogul Adolph Zitz announces a talent search for a romantic leading man to rival the great Rudolph Valentino, thousands of hopefuls decend upon Hollywood. Rudy Valentine, a neurotic baker from Milwaukee, knows little about romance or acting. But when his wife leaves him for the real Valentino, Rudy goes to outrageous lengths to win the role of a lifetime and win back the love of his life.

At the age of twenty-nine, Elgar Enders "runs away" from home. This running away consists of buying a building in a black ghetto in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Initially, his intention is to evict the black tenants and convert the building into a posh flat. But Elgar is not one to be bound by yesterday's urges, and soon he has other thoughts on his mind.

Singer-songwriter Winslow Leach seeks revenge on the nefarious music producer Swan, who steals both Winslow's music and his favorite singer for the grand opening of Swan's new rock palace, the Paradise.

An ugly girl undergoes plastic surgery and becomes beautiful. She then takes revenge on all the people who mistreated her when she was ugly.

Two CIA bunglers botch a Soviet defection, then both sides mark them for termination.

Jack Beauregard, an aging gunman of the Old West, only wants to retire in peace and move to Europe, but a young gunfighter known as "Nobody" who idolizes Beauregard wants him to go out in a blaze of glory. So, he arranges for Jack to face the 150-man gang known as The Wild Bunch and earn his place in history.

Mystery abounds when it is discovered that, one by one, the greatest chefs in Europe are being killed. The intriguing part of the murders is that each chef is killed in the same manner that their own special dish is prepared in. Food critics and the (many) self-proclaimed greatest chefs in Europe demand the mystery be solved.

When God appears to an assistant grocery manager as a good natured old man, the Almighty selects him as his messenger for the modern world.

After being dumped by her live-in boyfriend, an unemployed dancer and her 10-year-old daughter are reluctantly forced to live with a struggling off-Broadway actor.

Mel Edison has just lost his job after many years and now has to cope with being unemployed at middle age during an intense NYC heat wave.

Orange picker Leroy Jones inadvertently becomes a union leader and is forced out of town, leaving behind his sex-obsessed father, Rufus, and timid spouse, Annie Mae. He heads for Los Angeles, where he falls for union organizer Vanetta. Annie Mae seeks solace from local preacher Lenox Thomas, who eventually impregnates her. When Leroy catches wind, he heads home for a showdown with Lenox.

Two hopelessly out of their class con-men attempt to pull off the largest bank heist of the 19th century — by gaining the enmity of the most famous bank robber in the world and the affection of a crusading newspaperwoman.

Over-the-hill gumshoe in Los Angeles seeks to avenge the killing of an old pal, another detective who was involved in a case concerning a murdered broad, stolen stamps, a nickel-plated handgun, a cheating dolly, and a kidnapped pussycat.

After dumping a bucket of water on a beautiful young woman from the window of a train car, wealthy Frenchman Mathieu, regales his fellow passengers with the story of the dysfunctional relationship between himself and the young woman in question, a fiery 19-year-old flamenco dancer named Conchita. What follows is a tale of cruelty, depravity and lies -- the very building blocks of love.

This day-in-the-life cult comedy focuses on a group of friends working at Sully Boyar's Car Wash in the Los Angeles ghetto. The team meets dozens of eccentric customers -- including a smooth-talking preacher, a wacky cab driver and an ex-convict -- while cracking politically incorrect jokes to a constant soundtrack of disco and funk. Some of the workers find romance as the day moves along, but most are just happy to get through another shift.

A Hollywood songwriter goes through a mid-life crisis and becomes infatuated with a sexy blonde newlywed.

Aspiring filmmakers Mel Funn, Marty Eggs and Dom Bell go to a financially troubled studio with an idea for a silent movie. In an effort to make the movie more marketable, they attempt to recruit a number of big name stars to appear, while the studio's creditors attempt to thwart them.

A parable based on the life of Christ. This ain't your father's Bible story, full of references about the destruction of the world through massive constipation and a New Mexican setting.

Dr. Bock, the chief of medicine at a Manhattan hospital, is suicidal after the collapse of his personal life. When an intern is found dead in a hospital bed, it appears to Bock to be a case of unforgivable malpractice. Hours later, another doctor, who happens to be responsible for another case of malpractice, is found dead. Despondent, Bock finds himself drawn to Barbara, the daughter of a comatose missionary.

Two gay men living in St. Tropez have their lives turned upside down when the son of one of the men announces he is getting married. They try to conceal their lifestyle and their ownership of the drag club downstairs when the fiancée and her parents come for dinner.

To escape from a mobster, businessman Gaetano Proclo orders a cab driver to take him to a place where he can't be found. Unfortunately for Gaetano, the place turns out to be a gay bathhouse.

Lewis Tater writes Wild West dime novels and dreams of actually becoming a cowboy. When he goes west to find his dream he finds himself in possession of the loot box of two crooks who tried to rob him.

A cashier poses as a writer for blacklisted talents to submit their work through, but the injustice around him pushes him to take a stand.

Wendell Lawson has only six months to live. Not wanting to endure his last few months of life waiting for the end, he decides to take matters into his own hands and enlists the help of a delusional mental patient to help him commit suicide.

A spoof of the entire 1940s detective genre. San Francisco private detective, Lou Pekinpaugh is accused of murdering his partner at the instigation of his mistress—his partner's wife.

A three-way friendship between two free-spirited professional football players and the owner's daughter becomes compromised when two of them become romantically involved.

A race car driver tries to transport an illegal beer shipment from Texas to Atlanta in under 28 hours, picking up a reluctant bride-to-be on the way.

An unemployed pot-smoking slacker and amateur drummer, Anthony Stoner ditches his strict parents and hits the road, eventually meeting kindred spirit Pedro de Pacas. While the drug-ingesting duo is soon arrested for possession of marijuana, Anthony and Pedro get released on a technicality, allowing them to continue their many misadventures and ultimately compete in a rock band contest, where they perform the raucous tune "Earache My Eye."

The Pittsburgh basketball team is hopeless. Maybe with the aid of an astrologer, and some new astrologically compatible players, they can become winners.

When an upwardly mobile couple find themselves unemployed and in debt, they turn to armed robbery in desperation.

In 1920s Soviet Russia, a fallen aristocrat, a priest and a con artist search for a treasure of jewels hidden inside one of twelve dining chairs, lost during the revolution.

On Election Day, 1968, irresponsible hairdresser and ladies' man George Roundy is too busy cutting hair and dealing with his girlfriends and mistress Felicia Karpf, whose husband Lester is having an affair with his ex-girlfriend Jackie.

Carefree single guy Charlie Waters rooms with two lovely prostitutes, Barbara Miller and Susan Peters, and lives to gamble. Along with his glum betting buddy, Bill Denny, Charlie sets out on a gambling streak in search of the ever-elusive big payday. While Charlie and Bill have some lucky moments, they also have to contend with serious setbacks that threaten to derail their hedonistic betting binge.

Two blue-collar buddies search the underworld for a winning lottery ticket lost in a nightclub holdup.

Television programming takes it on the chin in this ribald spoof of the networks.

In late 1960s New York City, fed up with monotonous college life and police repression, free-spirited Fritz, an impenitent seducer and unrestrained party-animal, decides to explore the world. And just like that, as he flees NYC, heading to San Francisco, Fritz embarks on an endless adventure of illumination. Immersed in a world surrounded by drugs and sex, Fritz participates in mad orgies, brings about a revolution, incites mass urban riots, and crosses paths with drug-addled Nazi bikers.

When New York attorney Gordon Hocheiser meets Louise Callan, the girl of his dreams, he schemes to eliminate his aging, senile mother, even though he promised his late father that he'd always take care of her. He fears that his batty mom's eccentricities will shortly lead to Louise's departure.

A couple of bumbling 1920s hustlers attempt to obtain the fortune of an heiress. Nothing will stop them, not even murder.

Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.

The Muppets gather to watch their newly-finished big-budget rich-and-famous feature film: a talent agent persuades Kermit the Frog to leave the swamp to pursue a career in Hollywood. On his way there, he meets a bear, a pig, a whatever (his future muppet crew), and some special celebrity guest stars, while being chased by the desperate owner of a frog-leg restaurant!

A series of loosely connected skits that spoof news programs, commercials, porno films, kung-fu films, disaster films, blaxploitation films, spy films, mafia films, and the fear that somebody is watching you on the other side of the TV.

Ruthless Chicago newspaper editor Walter Burns resorts to dubious motives in order to get top reporter Hildy Johnson to cover one more big crime story before retirement.

In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon.

Charles Dreyfus, who has finally cracked over inspector Clouseau's antics, escapes from a mental institution and launches an elaborate plan to get rid of Clouseau once and for all.

A trip to New York for a job interview turns into a trip to hell for a small town couple.

In preparation for his daughter's wedding, dentist Sheldon Kornpett meets Vince Ricardo, the groom's father. Vince, a manic fellow who claims to be a government agent, then proceeds to drag Sheldon into a series of chases and misadventures from New York to Central America.

Lewis and Clark, aka The Sunshine Boys, were famous comedians during the vaudeville era, but off-stage they couldn't stand each other and haven't spoken in over 20 years of retirement. Willy Clark's nephew is the producer of a TV variety show that wants to feature a reunion of this classic duo. It is up to him to try to get the Sunshine Boys back together again.

After running out of funds, Henry Graham, a carefree playboy, plots to marry and murder wealthy botanist Henrietta Lowell.

Miles Monroe, a clarinet-playing health food store proprietor, is revived out of cryostasis 200 years into a future world in order to help rebels fight an oppressive government regime.

When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.

A shy San Francisco librarian and a bumbling cop fall in love as they solve a crime involving albinos, dwarves, and the Catholic Church.

An aging, down-on-his-luck ex-minor leaguer coaches a team of misfits in an ultra-competitive California little league.

The accidental mix-up of four identical plaid overnight bags leads to a series of increasingly wild and wacky situations.

A somewhat daffy book editor on a rail trip from Los Angeles to Chicago thinks that he sees a murdered man thrown from the train. When he can find no one who will believe him, he starts doing some investigating of his own. But all that accomplishes is to get the killer after him.

During the Great Depression, a con man finds himself saddled with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter, and the two forge an unlikely partnership.

A deadpan young man obsessed with death meets an eccentric septuagenarian who teaches him to live life to the fullest.

A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

One of the world's most acclaimed comedies, M*A*S*H focuses on three Korean War Army surgeons brilliantly brought to life by Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould. Though highly skilled and deeply dedicated, they adopt a hilarious, lunatic lifestyle as an antidote to the tragedies of their Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and in the process infuriate Army bureaucrats. Robert Duvall, Gary Burghoff and Sally Kellerman co-star as a sanctimonious Major, an other-worldly Corporal, and a self-righteous yet lusty nurse.

After discovering he's not really black like the rest of his family, likable dimwit Navin Johnson sets off on a hilarious misadventure that takes him from rags to riches and back again. The slaphappy jerk strikes it rich, but life in the fast lane isn't all it's cracked up to be and, in the end, all that really matters to Johnson is his true love.

Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he's not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python's signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian's life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.

A young neurosurgeon inherits the castle of his grandfather, the famous Dr. Victor von Frankenstein. In the castle he finds a funny hunchback, a pretty lab assistant and the elderly housekeeper. Young Frankenstein believes that the work of his grandfather was delusional, but when he discovers the book where the mad doctor described his reanimation experiment, he suddenly changes his mind.

A town—where everyone seems to be named Johnson—stands in the way of the railroad. In order to grab their land, robber baron Hedley Lamarr sends his henchmen to make life in the town unbearable. After the sheriff is killed, the town demands a new sheriff from the Governor, so Hedley convinces him to send the town the first black sheriff in the west.

At a 1962 College, Dean Vernon Wormer is determined to expel the entire Delta Tau Chi Fraternity, but those troublemakers have other plans for him.

King Arthur, accompanied by his squire, recruits his Knights of the Round Table, including Sir Bedevere the Wise, Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot and Sir Galahad the Pure. On the way, Arthur battles the Black Knight who, despite having had all his limbs chopped off, insists he can still fight. They reach Camelot, but Arthur decides not to enter, as "it is a silly place".