Adam Lee Davies

Comedy has a shorter shelf life than just about any other movie genre. A classic drama will still make hearts swell and eyes water decades down the line, and a truly terrifying horror movie can still scare the bejesus out of viewers no matter how standards for scares change. But humour is highly subjective and dependent on context: what’s funny in 1924 might land with a thud in 2024.  That’s why, when considering the greatest comedy movies of all-time, one of the most important questions is not necessarily how big the laughs are, but how long they can keep audiences laughing. With the help of comedians like Diane Morgan and Russell Howard, actors such as John Boyega and Jodie Whittaker and a small army of Time Out writers, we believe we’ve found the 100 finest, most durable and most broadly appreciable comedies in history. As we said, hilarity is in the gut of the beholder – some like it, silly, others sophisticated or dark or surreal – but if you don’t find something funny on this list, you may want to check your pulse. Recommended: 🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time🥰 The greatest romantic comedies of all time🤯 33 great disaster movies😬 The best thriller films of all-time🌏 The best foreign films of all-time

A comédia é um género frequentemente ignorado pelos prémios e pela crítica. Mas produzir uma grande comédia, uma comédia intemporal, é uma das maiores conquistas no cinema. É uma forma de arte em grande parte dependente do contexto: aquilo que faz uma plateia chorar a rir em 2024 pode ser recebido mais tarde com olhares vazios – nem sequer é preciso passar meio século, como é muitas vezes o caso; bastam alguns anos de diferença. Por isso mesmo, aqueles que nos fizeram rir durante décadas são verdadeiramente especiais. Para elaborar esta lista das 100 maiores comédias de sempre, pedimos a comediantes como Diane Morgan e Russell Howard, a actores como John Boyega e Jodie Whittaker e a uma pequena legião de escritores da Time Out sobre os filmes que mais os fazem rir, e por mais tempo. Ao fazê-lo, acreditamos ter encontrado as melhores, mais intemporais e amplamente apreciáveis 100 comédias da história do cinema. Independentemente do seu sentido de humor – disparatado ou sofisticado, leve ou sombrio, surreal ou mais abrangente – vai encontrá-lo representado aqui. Recomendado:🔥 Os 100 melhores filmes de sempre🥰 As melhores comédias românticas de sempre

Movie monsters come in many shapes, sizes and species, from parasitic slugs to reanimated dinosaurs to creeping mounds of space gelatin. Some are meant to symbolise social ills or reflect the deepest, darkest human fears, while others are clearly reflective of the issues their designers have been working on in therapy. In other cases, some monsters are just unholy beasts that are often nauseating to look at but impossible to turn away from, driven only by pure instinct. All that said, a great movie monster doesn’t necessarily make for a great monster movie. In the case of these movies, the monster might drive the action, but there’s more going on than just awesome effects and righteous kills. To help sort the beastly from the bogus, we put a few parameters in place. First off, no zombies or vampires – those guys warrant lists of their own. Secondly, no humans. Apologies to Freddy, Jason, Michael and Henry from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, but you are not the kind of monsters we’re looking for. Rather, we loaded up on killer rabbits, killer plants, killer fish, killer clowns, killer aliens and killer giant sandworms – and even then, it was hard to choose the bloodthirstiest of the bunch. But we did the best we could.  Written by Tom Huddleston, Adam Lee Davies, Andy Kryza, Paul Fairclough, David Jenkins & Matthew Singer Recommended: 👹 The 66 greatest movie monsters💀 The 100 best horror movies of all-time👽 The 100 best sci-fi movies of all-time🦄 The 50 best fantasy m

War has long fascinated filmmakers, no conflict more so than World War II. No wonder: the sheer scale of the destruction, the atrocities associated with it and its place in human history make it a natural framework for stories of resistance, survival and unimaginable loss. So many movies have been made about the war, it’s almost a genre unto itself.  For that reason, choosing the best World War II movies is a challenge. That’s why, along with polling our well-studied Time Out writers, we also called in an outside expert: Quentin Tarantino, a man who knows a thing or two about making a great WWII film. Among the selections, you’ll find towering epics, intimate character studies, intense documentaries, historical revisions and even a few comedies. War is hell, and World War II was particularly hellish – but at least we have these films to help make some sense of it. Written by Tom Huddleston, Adam Lee Davies, Paul Fairclough, Anna Smith, David Jenkins, Dan Jolin, Phil de Semlyen, Alim Kheraj & Matthew Singer Recommended: ⚔️ The 50 best war movies of all-time🎖️ The best World War I movies, ranked by historical accuracy💣 The 101 best action movies of all-time🇺🇸 The 20 best Memorial Day movies

The best comedies in the history of cinema achieve more than just making you laugh (although, granted, it’s not a great comedy if it barely makes you crack a smile). Classic romcoms like ‘Notting Hill’ have us yearning for true love while teen movies like ‘Mean Girls’ get us cringing at memories of being too dorky to join the cool gang at school (and ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ ticks both boxes). Then there are the political satires, like ‘The Death of Stalin’, which serve up uncomfortable truths alongside the funnies. And finally, when we need to get into the festive spirit, the Christmas film archives are crammed with titles that leave you giggling into your eggnog.  All of which makes choosing the 100 best comedies of all time a little tricky. To help us with the task, we enlisted the help of comedians (such as Russell Howard and Diane Morgan), actors (John Boyega and Jodie Whittaker, among others), directors and screenwriters (including Richard Curtis), as well as several Time Out writers. So the next time you need something to turn that frown upside down, you’ll know where to start. RECOMMENDED:  London and UK cinema listings, film reviews and exclusive interviews

1 The time before reckoningYou never thought it would happen to someone as worldly and wise (read: lazy and snarky) as you. It might, as Huey Lewis always assured us, it's hip to be square these days, but isn’t Game of Thrones the preserve of block-quoting nerds in egg-stained Red Dwarf t-shirts and earnest girls with henna tattoos? We’re none of us strangers to the box-set/Netflix-dump/dodgy download, but whereas The Sopranos was cask-aged in gushing claret and “family” values, and The Wire made us feel all “word” and “street” and “legit,” surely GoT is just an excuse for Brit thesps to mess around with the Lord of the Rings dressing-up box. And yet. And yet… You’ve heard rumors that there’s the occasional flash of skin and that someone is graphically deprived of a limb/head/codpiece/loved one every ten minutes. So it is that you find yourself happening across a random episode while flicking around during an ad break in Family Guy. Maybe just give it five minutes. Can’t hurt, can it?2 A song of vice and ireIt’s three weeks later. You’ve steadily caught up on all the precious episodes you have missed. You find yourself in increasingly animated debate over Friday-night drinks with colleagues you’ve never really bothered with before. The depth of knowledge exhibited by your fellow Throneheads (your term) makes you realize how little of the Seven Kingdoms you have explored. There’s nothing else to it. You need to learn more. This means reading the big, thick source novels. Which

Here, as the dark cloud of Halloween descends, we showcase the horror movie scenes that have made us cower in our boots, dash for the exit sign and – in the case of ‘Guest House Paradiso’ – weep for the very future of humankind. Some of these terrifying moments are on here for personal reasons (‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, ‘The Vanishing’), some constitute lesser-known gems (‘The profound Desire of the Gods’) and some are simply chilling horror classics which no list of this nature should be without (‘Jaws’, ‘The Exorcist’). WARNING: The most terrifying scenes of these scary movies often tend to take place at the end. Some of the following entries contain major spoilers – we’ve flagged them up, but we urge readers to proceed with caution. RECOMMENDED: The 100 best horror films By Dave Calhoun, Tom Huddleston, David Jenkins, Adam Lee Davies, Derek Adams

Check out our definitive list of films guaranteed to kill even the cosiest evening stone cold dead. If you've got a bad-date-movie experience of your own you'd like to share, or think there's a woefully unromantic movie we've missed out, let us know in the comments below.  

If you’re stuck with a date you don’t really want – or just keen to make your cosy night in that little bit more 'experimental' – check out our definitive list of films guaranteed to kill even the cosiest evening stone cold dead. If you've got a bad-date-movie experience of your own you'd like to share, or think there's a woefully unromantic movie we've missed out, let us know in the comments below. RECOMMENDED: The 100 best romantic movies

We've got 007's number. Ahead of the release of 'Spectre' on October 26, Adam Lee Davies provides the vital stats for Her Majesty's go-to gunslinger.     'Spectre' is out in the UK on October 26. Read our interview with Daniel Craig on Sam Mendes, ‘Spectre’ and his advice for the next bond. Or watch our exclusive video interview with the Bond star.