Top 10 Satires in Film History | A CineFix Movie List
Video Overview & Insights
Satires tend to inflate real life like a parade balloon until it pops under the pressure of its own contradictions, using irony and exaggeration to highlight the world’s absurdities, and film and filmmakers have a long tradition of employing satire to great effect. Ridiculous, biting and often times uncomfortable, these are our picks for the 10 best satire films of all time.
How could you leave out CB4
From Dustin Hoffman and a dry parody of young love in The Graduate and Stanley Kubrick and Tom Cruise with intimate satires of love or the lack thereof in Eyes Wide Shut to media industry satires like digging into fandoms with Galaxy Quest, reality TV with Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, there aren’t many off limits topics when it comes to Hollywood parody. Religious satires like Kevin Smith and Dogma or the racism skewering works of Jordan Peele in Get Out, Us and the recent Nope, to the send ups of war and indictments of colonialism in films like Starship Troopers or MASH, there’s plenty of satire to choose from and it was VERY hard to narrow down.
This Movie List was written and edited by Billy Jackson.
I am not sure that the writers of this piece understand the difference between satire and parody. Parody is using humor to pay an homage to something, such as the many "Thunderbirds" references in the "Wallace and Gromit" films. Satire is using ridicule to pull down something that does not deserve respect. Chaplin's "The Little Dictator" was satire directed against Hitler. "Life of Brian" is a parody of the film genre of biblical epics, such as "The Ten Commandments" or "Ben Hur". It also includes references to classic historical dramas, such as the shout out to "Spartacus" when all of the condemned people (except Brian, who is distracted) cries out "I'm Brian", ending with "I;m Brian and so's my wife". To include "Gospel" and "Jesus Christ, Superstar" among the films parodied, "Life of Brian" segues from Brian's crucifixion to the musical number "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".
One satire that you may have missed is the animator Kaj Pindal's rant about how then-current trends in urban planning (late 1960s) were vreating cities optimized for cars, not people. The joke is that a space probe from Mars images the Earth from orbit and the Martians mistakenly identify the automobile as Earth's dominant lifeform. It was produced by the National Film Board of Canada's animation studio, in 1968 and called "What on Earth". link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFaHArkYLsM&t=2s
The Picks:
10 - Relationships - The Lobster (2015) dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
If you think “Bemboozled” was way ahead of its time, that can only mean you’ve never seen “Putney Swope.”
9 - Media / Art - Network (1976) dir. Sidney Lumet
8 - Hollywood Itself - The Player (1992) dir. Robert Altman
Not including any of these is a crime against cinema
Oh! What a Lovely War
The Bridge on the River Kwai - Just note the motivations and wants of each character compared to their outcomes.
The Bed Sitting Room
How to Get Ahead in Advertising
Idiocracy
Zelig
Annie Hall - Jeff Goldblum on the phone "I forgot my mantra", funniest one liner in film
The Admirable Crichton
The Mouse That Roared
Our Man in Havana
Man Bites Dog
7 - Religion - Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) dir. Terry Jones
6 - Race and Racism - Bamboozled (2000) dir. Spike Lee
this one goes to eleven
5 - Politics - In The Loop (2009) dir. Armando Ianucci
4 - Politics (Non U.S.) - Z (1969) dir. Costa-Gavras
Preelble? WTF. Parible.
3 - War - Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) dir. Stanley Kubrick
2 - Capitalism / Advertising - Robocop (1987) dir. Paul Verhoeven
Rutles
1 - Class - La Dolce Vita (1969) dir. Federico Fellini
For more tangentially related CineFix - IGN Movies and TV, be sure to subscribe AND check these out!
The ruling class deserves to be here
Goodfellas, Fruitvale Station and How Biopics Distort, Adapt and Distill Reality - https://youtu.be/Vu3319FUuRM
Jordan Peele, Nope and a History of Horror Movie Close Ups - https://youtu.be/tbO3BOsFacc
"Life of Brian" was not making fun of christianity (it actually avoided it!), but of ideologies in general.
Everything Everywhere All At Once, Hereditary and the Top 10 A24 Movies of All Ti… well, of All the Last 10 Years - https://youtu.be/GO9a4l8mIQE
Top 10 Independent Movies of All Time - https://youtu.be/VSiERa2Cp_E
Aren’t some of these parodies instead of satire??
5 Brilliant Moments of David Cronenberg Body Horror - https://youtu.be/ii4gUB3-dZo
The Green Knight, David Lowery and a Unique Obsession with Myth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEfDu2s7G5I&t=84s
How can you not know how to pronounce prêt-à-porter?
Heath Ledger, The Joker and The Top 10 Oscar Winners of All Time - https://youtu.be/hKkwBYZ96Dk
Verhoeven is such a successful satirist that he feeds the very people he satirizing all while parodying them to their face without them knowing it, he does this so successfully that few know it’s satire.
More User Perspectives
“Well ah, what happened is… uhm, one of our base commanders he had a sort of… well, he went a little funny in the head. You know, just a little.. funny, and uhm… he went and did a silly thing. Well, I’ll tell ya what he did. He ordered his planes … to attack your country, we’ll let me finish Demetri.” 😂😂 the best ever 😂😂😂
@jpetersgoyanksIt's clearly zed, not zee 😂😂😂
@miljanmatovic880Wag the Dog doesn’t even get a mention?
@yevgeniyakononoff3435Sorry to Bother You is a better pick for the #2.
@marksto6581religion, race, and politics all smashed up against each other as categories....and The Great Dictator barely gets a sniffle during the following category of foreign affairs, and then back to completely passed over in the following category of war. also did your existentialist dread zap all the secret shameful love for 13yr old humor in the form of sports satire? you made a top 10 satire movies list and didn't even have the balls to mention Happy Gilmore?
@tazmon122Spinal Tap needs to be on this list.
@johnspro8559The Producers!😸💗😄💗
@ferociousgumbyCraaaaazy that you forgot to put The Firemen's Ball on this list
@HeroicPenguinTriangle of Sadness and the Menu deserve spots in the “Class” category. And American Fiction for “race’ category (Yes, they came out after this list but worth mentioning now)
@jehssickahHolly Wood was used to make magic wands.
@MediaLieDetectorNetwork is not a satire. It’s a truth documentary.
@MediaLieDetectortop 10 lesser kaiju in movies
10 gorgo
9 baragon
8 rodan
7 mothra
6 king ghidorah
5 gamera
4 king kong
3 anguirus
2 godzilla
1 Queen Vamporlini
‘How to Get Ahead In Advertising’ is completely superb. And ‘In The Loop’ is both belly-busting hilarious and shudderingly petrifying in its accuracy of the Iraq invasion at the same time.
“I will muster all the media hounds of hell to drive you to an assisted suicide!”
Great vid as ever. 👍🏻
I thought the police got defunded recently.
@52BLUEHere are my picks for satire films
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
Little misss sunshine
Heathers
The Triangle of Sadness
American Beauty
Trainspotting
The Grand Budapest hotel
Moonrise kingdom
It's kind of a funny story
Amadeus
Birdman
Ghost world
Parasite
submarine
Thumbsucker
Super
Pulp fiction
The Terminal
How to be
Visioneers
The Darjeeling Limited
Warm Bodies
Bicycling with moliere
The squid and the Whale
The Royal Tenenbaums
Adaptation
Stranger than fiction
Groundhog day
Seeking a friend for the end of the world
Did I miss it, or did one of the greatest comedies of all time, Blazing Saddles not even get a mention?
@daviduhr4941Monty Python's are the Masters of Satire.
And in the funniest way Imaginable.
S.O.B. Is also a delightfully brutal satire of Hollywood and the film industry. The plot involves a studio remaking one of their family friendly musical movies as a porno and Julie Andrews is the star. It’s as savage about Hollywood as you’d expect.
@Brianna-eo8nuBamboozled in here? oh y’all really know ball.
@elenigmoMonty Python's The Life of Brian is my go to holiday movie.
@kennyhagan5781Everything in this video is A+
@chrismeiklejohnGood list.
@ikmarchiniWhen discussing In The Loop, it's almost criminal not to mention The Thick of It; It's essentially a feature length episode with all the actors playing variations of their characters in the BBC series.
@jhjb7That's how you know Life of Brian punches all the right places: Most Christians HATE it.
@pillettadoinswartsh4974just watched it now. And, i think, The Big Short could have been your satire on capitalism. Just sayin’.
@jnslmrndMy top pick for politics is Wag the dog, not least because it brilliantly foreshadows the Balkan war
@joachimkirchner1762Criticize society per se doesn't make a movie a satire. 'Z' is FAR from satire. It's simply one of the great (political or not) 20th century movies and is based on a true story. It's not a satire, it's a political thriller.
@joaoninguem1576Full Metal Jacket was the complete opposite of a satire. That’s about as real of a representation of the military as it gets.
@mjt7231Yes, you left out "Wag the Dog", great movie.
@TheAdventurer1I hated "In the Loop" Loved Veep, but I find that movie way too dry. Glad Lobster and Baboozled made the cut, those both changed my life. Felini's Armarcord would be my #1.
@NickolasNameolasA list of satirical films and no Ingmar Bergman, that is ironic.
@duncanfrost4328In what way is Do The Right Thing a satire?! A satire of *what*?!
@greglynch391Any lists with the ridiculous Lobster on it is null and void. The director never knows when to pull back, and he ruins his own film.
@josephcallahan1664mp has all you need: the truth and satire!!! my favourite movie of all times!!!
@muppetshow2328I don't think you understand what a satire is' "Annie Hall" was pretending to be a rom-com but it was neither romantic nor very funny. It just went right past you. "Pulp Fiction" was a satire on bad movies by making a particularly bad movie. Finally, "The Silence of the Lambs" was a satire on police proceedure films with a series of clues that never add up, and a lack of logic that just moves the film along. I could go on...but you just missed the point.
@alg11297I don't think Americans understand what the word satire means.
@jimclark1374Did my boy Sterling Hayden dirty for not saying his name 😢
@lukaskoch8488One of my favourites that wasn't mentioned is Death to Smoochy - a misanthropic satire of corporate greed. Another that didn't get a mention was the French social satire Le Dîner de Cons.
Other than that, so many of my favourites were either listed or had honourable mentions: Dr Strangelove, Thank You For Smoking, Office Space, The Rules of the Game, Jojo Rabbit, Wag The Dog, The Death of Stalin, Starship Troopers, Robocop, & The Life of Brian.