Top Ten Comfiest Movies of All Time
What makes a movie “comfy”?
It’s not so easy to define. Some might say it’s about comedy, low intensity, or a plot with relatively low stakes. Yet some of the comfiest movies of all time are dramas or thrillers with save the world stakes and relatively little humor. Comfiness is in truth a quality defined by a confluence of factors, chief among them being charismatic performances, a charming plot easy to enjoy no matter where you pick it up, and a number of isolated brilliant setpieces and moments you always look forward to seeing again. This combination of traits give comfy movies an enduring quality making them endlessly rewatchable.
Comfy movies aren’t stressful, gross, or depressing. Though there are exceptions, you won’t generally find horror or serious dramas on this list. They can be rated R and some are even quite gory, sexual, or mature. These movies can be and are many things, but chiefly, they are comfy. Here is my top ten.
Honorable Mentions:
Showdown in Little Tokyo, Bladerunner, Lethal Weapon, Rush hour, The Scorpion King, Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars (original trilogy), The Mummy (1999), Blade, The Matrix
10. Fast and Furious 3: Tokyo Drift
With zero embarrassment I freely admit this movie is a big part of why I decided to go to Japan for the first time right after finishing college. This movie never fails to put a smile on my face. That opening act with the goofy high school jock race, Kid Rock’s “Bawitdaba,” and then that slick introduction of Tokyo with The 5,6,7,8’s “Barracuda,” — what can I say, it left an impression. This flick was full of memorable performances, great music, and plenty of fan service. It’s also the last time the Furious movies gave a damn about racing. It takes me back to a simpler time. Nostalgia aside it has aged gloriously.
9. X2: X-Men United
This is still the best X-Men movie ever made and it’s not even close. Following up on a decent first film in 2000 this sequel introduced a bunch of kickass new characters and raised the stakes. There are just so many great standalone scenes. We finally get to see Wolverine just go off and dice up some dudes during the mansion invasion. We see Pyro reek havoc, we see Storm’s goddess-like powers, we get a stupendous introductory scene with Nightcrawler, and above all my favorite scene by far, we get that truly goated escape scene with Magneto in the plastic prison. Every time I catch this movie on cable I am just a minute away from one of the coolest scenes ever done in a comic book film.
8. True Lies
Arnie was 47 when he did this flick back in 1994 and it seemed like homie still hadn’t even peaked. This movie was just oodles of fun from start to finish. It’s got some of Arnie’s best one-liners of all time, (“You’re fired!”) as well as some of his best action scenes. The sleazy car salesman subplot is hilarious, Tia Carrere and Jamie Lee Curtis are delicious, and James Cameron is and will always be the greatest action movie director of all time. This was just a perfect storm of talent. Schwarzenegger has about a dozen films that could make this list (Last Action Hero, Total Recall, The Running Man, Commando) but the family spy dynamic and comedy make True Lies the best. They tried to do a remake but lacking an understanding of what made the original great there is zero need to acknowledge it.
7. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
All three of the Indiana Jones trilogy films could make this list easily. (I have heard rumors of forth and fifth Indiana Jones films but I refuse to believe them) Temple of Doom, definitely the darkest and bloodiest, I think is actually the most comfy because of its great cast and the pacing of its story beats. That opening in Shang Hai with the Anything Goes dance number never gets old. The first half with the trek across India is a delightful mix of character development and setup. Then shit gets real when the evil voodoo priest Mola Ram starts ripping out dudes’ hearts. Shout out to Ke Huy Quan as Short Round, the heart of the film. Props also to Kate Capshaw’s Willie Scott for embodying the ditsy damsel in distress role with some real moxie.
6. Die Hard
What even needs to be said about this one? It’s the greatest Christmas movie of all time. In the era of Arnie, Sly, Van Damme, and other muscle bound leading men, here comes Bruce Willis in 1988 with a truly relatable hero. John McClane has a foul mouth, a bitchy wife giving him shit, and a great fish out of water cynical air as a NYC cop in LA. He’s also got a spectacular supporting cast with motherfucking Karl Winslow as his cop sidekick and Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, quite possibly the best action movie villain of the 1980’s. The humor is truly timeless and the action scenes and special effects have aged really well.
5. The Avengers
This keeps popping up on TV randomly and what jumps out is the cinematography. The first Avengers movie was shot in a way that makes it look like a TV show. This played to director Joss Whedon’s strengths I think given his fame from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. The quips and comic book goofiness somehow feel fresh and appropriate here. I remember watching this movie in theaters three times when it first came out and man was the audience hyped. It was the payoff of five previous superhero movies and the start of a truly once in a lifetime cinematic experiment that is the MCU. Avengers 2012 is still a great time thanks to some crowd-pleasing character moments (Thor vs Hulk, Thor vs. Iron Man, Hulk vs. Loki, etc.) I have no real argument to make against anyone who feels the Marvel Cinematic Universe peaked here.
4. Big Trouble in Little China
Big Trouble in Little China is a hard movie to describe. It’s John Carpenter’s third best film after The Thing and Escape from New York. The odd thing about it is that it doesn’t really have a genre. It’s an eclectic mix of action, horror, sci-fi, comedy, and drama. What makes it so comfy is Kurt Russell’s delightful performance as Jack Burton, the badass trucker with an eye for adventure. Supposedly Kurt Russell’s approach to the character was to just do a bad John Wayne impression. It worked splendidly. There isn’t a single bad scene. Lo Pan is a hilariously charismatic villain played by James Hong, the single greatest Asian character actor in Hollywood. Kim Cattrall and Dennis Dun also do some great work as Jack’s love interest and sidekick respectively. Big Trouble is an odd, dreamlike film that defies description and yet never fails to entertain.
3. Spider-Man
In Deadpool and Wolverine the character Blade, played by a returning Wesley Snipes, had a deliberately meta line about alternate universes and characters saying, “There’s only ever been one Blade. Only ever going to be one Blade!” I’m with Snipes on that. However for me that line really applies more to Toby Maguire’s Spider-man. Toby is the OG. Similar to what I have said about the Star Trek original series films, I think that though Spider-man 2 is the better executed film, I just prefer the first movie on an emotional level. Homelander sums it up best. There is just literally nothing wrong with this movie. Willem Dafoe absolutely crushes it as Green Goblin. The endless memes and enduring love for this movie are so utterly deserved. I will watch this shit with my grandkids in thirty years and it will still be better than any other Spider-man media ever made.
2. The Big Lebowski
All Coen Brothers films are comfy to one degree or another. Some, like Fargo or No Country for Old Men, are also very dark and serious. Others, like Oh Brother Where Art Thou, are a bit higher concept and complex. The Big Lebowski hits a certain sweet spot thanks to its screwball setup and noir story structure. The Dude, a pot-smoking White Russian drinking burnout, gets mixed up in the kidnapping of a wealthy philanthropist’s trophy wife, a philanthropist who just so happens to have the same name as him. All I need say is that Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, and Steve Buscemi are all hilarious. John Turturro, Sam Elliott, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Julianne Moore also give some great supporting performances. The cast is outstanding as is the soundtrack and surreal directing. The Big Lebowski is a more philosophical film than it may appear. Even if it goes over your head it is one of the best comedies of the 1990’s and holds up really well to this day.
1. Ghostbusters
Whatever our criteria Ghostbusters must certainly top this list. Are we deciding based on humor? Are we going by the most quotable? Is it cultural impact? It doesn’t matter. Ghostbusters beats everything. It’s another movie that sort of doesn’t have a genre. It’s too weird to call it just a comedy. It’s too funny to call it sci-fi. It’s not really a thriller or action movie or horror. There really has never been anything quite like it before or since. At root it’s just a couple of dudes running a small business. It’s hard to believe the idea was greenlit and made into a movie. Then you take a look at the talent and understand. Bill Murray carries it with that effortless charm of his and a laundry list of eternally memorable lines. (“The flowers are still standing!” “Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!” “I love this plan, I’m excited to be a part of it!”) Yet as an unrepentant nerd, I have to concede Harold Ramis as Egon is actually my favorite character. In truth from Janine and Dana to Louis and Ray — there is not a single bad character. Ghostbusters is the king of comfy.
