The best comedy movies on Netflix Australia

Want something funny to watch on Netflix? ‘Course you do. Critic Luke Buckmaster has combed its archives and picked its greatest rib-ticklers.

Baby Driver (2017)

WATCH ON NETFLIX

Edgar Wright’s sassy crime caper follows a getaway driver (Ansel Elgort) on the autism spectrum, who puts his foot to the floor only when listening to killer tracks on his headphones. The story of a decent kid embroiled in a life of crime becomes a quasi-musical, Wright furthering his already innovative style through playful experimentation with various kinds of rhythm: rhythm of sound, rhythm of images, rhythm of editing.

Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

Watch on Netflix

Rolf de Heer’s notorious classic about a tortured soul (Nicholas Hope) who spent the first 35 years of his life locked in a grubby apartment still, after all these years, almost defies description. Its various boundary-pushing sequences tend to be discussed only in hushed tones. Bubby’s venture into wider society is an unflinching portrait of mental illness and much more—including a social critique formed from the protagonist’s, shall we say, unique life experiences.

The Big Short (2015)

Watch on Netflix

The core challenge in Adam McKay’s satire about Wall Street sharks (who saw the GFC coming and conspired to profit from it) is to make a dry subject broadly accessible. The writer/director’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach deploys narration, fourth wall-breaking and endless analogies, including the following sage words from Steve Carrell: “So mortgage bonds are dog shit wrapped in cat shit?” It’s structurally messy, but it works.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017)

WATCH ON NETFLIX

“This whole visual storytelling thing is hard”, says a character in David Soren’s gloriously kiddish pastiche. This reflects the director’s attitude: keep moving, keep poking every scene for opportunities, keep shifting realities. When two young kids get complete mind control of their malevolent principal, mayhem ensues.

Cosi (1996)

WATCH ON NETFLIX

Ben Mendelssohn plays a theatre director who gets a job directing a play for a psychiatric facility, starring the inmates. It’s an excellent high concept, executed a little shaggily but with plenty of irresistible moments—particularly during rehearsals. A dream cast of Aussie talent play the patients-cum-thespians including Jacki Weaver, Toni Collette, Pamela Rabe, Barry Otto and David Wenham.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Watch on Netflix

Armando Iannucci’s ferociously sharp tragicomedy explores, with bone-dry wit, power-grabbing among top-level Russian ministers in the aftermath of the titular event. The drama is farcical; the comedy hurts. Like the British auteur’s also terrific In the Loop, The Death of Stalin has an addictive quality: the more you watch it the better it gets.

Dick Johnson is Dead (2020)

Watch on Netflix

Refusing to accept that her elderly father is on the way out, director Kirsten Johnson decides to celebrate his life by killing him off in various ways—from crushing him with a falling air conditioner to making him bleed out on the street. Working on the premise that part of the lovable 84-year-old has already left the building, Johnson uses the personal documentary genre (i.e. Shirkers, Stories We Tell) to construct a Buñuelian outlook, the real world forming a kind of purgatory, or waiting room before the inevitable. It’s weirdly tender and sweet.

Eighth Grade (2018)

Watch on Netflix

Elsie Fisher’s leading performance in this very smart and tender film—as its 13-year-old protagonist Kayla—is so good she feels like a co-author of it. Following Kayla through her final days in middle school, writer/director Bo Burnham vividly captures the turbulence and angstiness of adolescence, focusing on Kayla’s twin existences: one in the physical world, the other online. The drama feels organic and pockets of humour take you by surprise.

Fantastic Mr Fox (2009)

Watch on Netflix

Stop-motion animation allows Wes Anderson to accelerate his already intensely fastidious style. This witty adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s novel is a kitschy and kooky pleasure, every frame a delight. The titular fox (irresistibly voiced by George Clooney) goes toe to toe with farmers intent on destroying him, his craftiness given the ultimate workout.

The Half of It (2020)

Watch on Netflix

Yet another contemporary take on Cyrano de Bergerac, writer/director Alice Wu finds a fresh queer perspective in the story of a brainiac student (Leah Lewis) who writes beautiful love letters for a jock (Daniel Diemer). Amiable and well paced, it’s the sort of comedy that comes across as effortless—because the filmmaker made so many good decisions in their writing and direction.

Heathers (1988)

Watch on Netflix

A comedy so dark the prefix “black” barely begins to cut it. This 1988 cult film is up there with Election and Mean Girls as one of the great high school-set comedies, with a more potent air of irreverence. Winona Ryder joins a clique of students called the Heathers while Christian Slater plays the demon on her shoulder, encouraging her to kill them.

Home Alone (1990)

Watch on Netflix

Chris Columbus’ beloved classic indulges a popular childhood fantasy—of being left, indeed, home alone, with no bed time and endless snacks—but makes the protagonist work for it. I’m not the first to suggest this film is a remake of The Last House on the Left, rewarding the execution of violent booby-trapping—from swinging buckets of paint to the old tar and feather routine. Watching Macauley Culkin outsmart Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern’s nincompoop goons never gets old.

Hot Fuzz (2007)

WATCH ON NETFLIX

Edgar Wright has great flair for visual expression and narrative economy. The second instalment in his beloved Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy is a genre-bending buddy cop comedy about a London police officer (Simon Pegg) relocated to a boring, sleepy village. Boring, that is, until all those gruesome killings. Few filmmakers direct comedy as creatively and interestingly as Wright.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

WATCH ON NETFLIX

When cardshark Eddy (Nick Moran) loses big in a rigged poker game, he and his pals set out to settle their debts by stealing from weed dealers. Surprise surprise, there’s complications. The various elements of Guy Ritchie’s cockney gangster movie really gel: the snappy performances, the even snappier dialogue, the washed-out cinematography, the disciplined and energetic editing.

Love Serenade (1996)

Watch on Netflix

A bigshot radio personality, Ken Sherry (George Shevtsov), relocates from Brisbane to a crummy small town where he entrances the locals—particularly next-door neighbours Dimity (Miranda Otto) and Vicki-Ann (Rebecca Frith). No plot synopsis can adequately sell the appeal of Shirley Barrett’s coyly crafted comedy, with its deliciously idiosyncratic quirk, tongue so subtly in cheek. The dynamic between the three characters evolves into an absurd and tragic love triangle.

Malcolm (1986)

Watch on Netflix

Nadia Tass’ endearingly odd comedy-drama about an on-the-spectrum inventor (Colin Friels) who teams up with a career criminal (John Hargreaves) has a homely everyday aesthetic. The film is famous for its kooky contraptions, including remote control rubbish bins and a yellow 1970 Honda Z that splits in half, becoming two vehicles—an irresistibly absurd getaway car.

The Mask (1994)

Watch on Netflix

Produced in the giddy era of 90s Jim Carrey comedies, the star’s rubber-faced antics inform the tone and even the aesthetic of this stupidly enjoyable film about a mild-mannered bank clerk who dons a magical mask and becomes a kind of live action cartoon—as Carrey always was. It’s a Jekyll and Hyde story and, in today’s context, a kind of anti-superhero movie, the protagonist transforming into a human pogo stick wreaking Looney Tunes style carnage.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

Watch on Netflix

British troupe Monty Python had a great knack for merging realities, crafting jokes sort of from this world and sort of not. Instead of riding a horse, for instance, Arthur (Graham Chapman) mimes riding one while a man behind him simulates the noise of horse hooves. The joke makes no sense but it doesn’t have to. This film’s structure is patchy and sketch-like, though, with the gags flowing thick and fast, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)

Watch on Netflix

He’s not a messiah, he’s a very naughty boy! Monty Python’s beloved satire on western religion observes history and legend from a just-to-the-side perspective, with a protagonist (Graham Chapman) who was born in the stable next to Jesus. What could’ve been an exhausting single joke fest is padded out into a riotously entertaining film full of mirth—all the way till the final rib-tickling musical number.

Muriel’s Wedding (1994)

Watch on Netflix

PJ Hogan’s portrait of a love-hungry sad sack, brilliantly played by Toni Collette, has a dark and complicated soul. Muriel (Toni Collette) is, as one character famously puts it, a rather terrible person. The film is a twisted tragicomedy in which weddings are bitterly ironic and beautiful friendships are squandered. Collette makes dweebiness dangerous, and turns self-pity into flagellation.

Okja (2017)

WATCH ON NETFLIX

Tilda Swinton plays the Willy Wonka-esque CEO of a company that produces a not-so-sweet product: giant genetically engineered pigs to carve up and sell worldwide. Chaos ensues when a young girl (Seo-Hyun Ahn) puts up a fight to save the titular character’s bacon. There’s Spielbergian largesse in Bong Joon Ho’s brisk direction, but he goes places Spielberg wouldn’t—with pointy messages about anti-meat consumption and corporate malfeasance.

Orion and the Dark (2024)

Watch on Netflix

The target audience of Orion and the Dark, adapted by Charlie Kaufman from a 40-page children’s book, is viewers whose shoe size exceeds their age—but adults will have a blast with it too. The story, involving a neurotic little pipsqueak taken on big adventure to overcome his fears, doesn’t condescend to kids, and the writing and direction feels zany and fresh.

Rams (2020)

Watch on Netflix

Remaking the excellent Icelandic film of the same name, about two brothers who live on neighbouring sheep farms but haven’t spoken in years, Jeremy Sims changes the location to rural Western Australia and casts Michael Caton and Sam Neil as his leads. This is a sweet, down-to-earth film, with endearing characters and an even-tempered spirit.

School of Rock (2003)

Watch on Netflix

Jack Black’s characteristically boisterous performance as a heavy metal guitarist who becomes a substitute music teacher, leading a bunch of lovable pipsqueaks to a battle of the bands competition, fits this film so well he gives the impression of having shaped the entire thing in his image. The story is archetypal but the energy of the cast is infectious, writer/director Richard Linklater’s earnest approach matching head with heart—while rocking out.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Watch on Netflix

You’ve got red on you! Edgar Wright’s zany rom-zom-com (romantic zombie comedy) introduced us to the director’s innovative approach to visual comedy, making the entire form and structure of the film in on the joke. A schmucky salesman (Simon Pegg) is dumped by his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) but his personal apocalypse is nothing compared to what’s happening outside, when the dead rise up and get bitey.

Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)

Watch on Netflix

The titular character’s dialogue-free movie spin-off sends Shaun and co to the big city, on a mission to find and return their amnesia-afflicted farmer. Evoking the craftsmanship of great silent era comedies, in addition to stylistic and thematic inspirations ranging from Jacques Tati to Luis Buñuel, co-directors Mark Burton and Richard Starzak construct a delightful work of art: spirited, lively, inventive, humane.

She’s Gotta Have It (1986)

Watch on Netflix

Shot on a shoestring budget over a couple of weeks, Spike Lee’s film about a polyamorous woman with three lovers is regarded as a breakthrough in depictions of African Americans (focusing on urbanites, intellectuals and deep thinkers) as well as in the American indie movement more broadly. Lee dabbles with different styles, including documentary techniques, in an affecting early work that has the decorum-breaking chutzpah of a young iconoclast.

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

WATCH ON NETFLIX

Jeff Daniels is brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s prickly comedy-drama centered around the collapse of a marriage and family unit. Which doesn’t sound like a hoot and a half, but Daniels is acidicly amusing from the first scene, bringing ruthless competitiveness to a family tennis match. The film is far from belly-up material, but it’s funny in a bitter and tangy way.

They’re a Weird Mob (1966)

WATCH ON NETFLIX

Acclimatizing to life Down Under can be played for horror or laughs. Michael Powell’s 1966 classic presents a reverse Crocodile Dundee: a fish-out-water comedy about a good-natured Italian (Walter Chiari) who relocates to Sydney and figures out how to “do” Australia, including earning a crust and pursuing romance. The film is funny, warming, and optimistic. In the words of its narrator: “a bewt sort.”

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Watch on Netflix

Martin Scorsese dines on tales of personal and corporate excess, not to mention outright misogyny, drawing on the debaucherous memoir of former stockbroker (and convicted criminal) Jordan Belfort. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort and Jonah Hill as his right-hand man, hubris and hedonism is the name of the game—in a loud, fast, incongruous film that runs for three frantically paced hours.


This guide is regularly updated to reflect changes in Netflix‘s catalogue. For a list of capsule reviews that have been removed from this page because they are no longer available on the platform, visit here.