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- After reviewing our guide we're still confident these are the best comedies streaming on Prime Video.
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Comedic movies can be goofy, clever, tragic, melancholy, or uplifting. If you're looking for something to watch, Prime Video has a little bit of all of that. Here are the 10 funniest comedies streaming for free on Amazon Prime Video.
UPDATE: 5/24/23
After reviewing our guide we're still confident these are the best comedies streaming on Prime Video.
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
There's no way that Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues could have ever reached the heights of the original Anchorman, if only because audiences are already familiar with Will Ferrell's buffoonish, self-involved newscaster Ron Burgundy. Still, the sequel retains the original movie's absurdist energy and nonstop barrage of silly, often nonsensical jokes.
Ron moves from local news to cable TV, but he's still the same overly confident doofus, supported by his equally ridiculous colleagues. Packed with cameos and elaborate digressions, Anchorman 2 is unwieldy but consistently hilarious, and of the funniest movies on Amazon Prime.
Appropriate Behavior
Writer/director/star Desiree Akhavan made an impressive debut with semi-autobiographical comedy Appropriate Behavior. She stars as a Brooklyn hipster reeling from a break-up with her longtime girlfriend, attempting to juggle her love life, pressure from her Persian immigrant parents, and her faltering career.
Akhavan's Shirin is an endearing trainwreck, and Akhavan never hesitates to place herself in humiliating situations for the sake of comedy. The humor is balanced by vulnerability and honesty, making for a refreshingly messy coming-of-age story.
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The Big Sick
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon turn their real-life trauma into a sweet and funny romantic comedy with The Big Sick. Kumail falls for Emily (Zoe Kazan), and then must deal with her family as well as his own career and commitment issues when she is suddenly struck with a mysterious illness.
Goon
Seann William Scott delivers a surprisingly layered performance as the title character in hockey comedy Goon. He plays Doug Glatt, a good-natured lunkhead who's great with his fists. That's enough to get him hired to play on a minor-league hockey team, where he protects his teammates and mostly avoids the puck.
Loosely inspired by a true story, Goon is a warm-hearted tribute to marginal semi-pro athletes, with a team full of oddball characters. Alison Pill fits right in as Doug's equally awkward girlfriend, adding an offbeat romance to the underdog sports story.
Heathers
The 1980s were a golden age for teen comedies. Heathers is the black sheep of that age, a dark comedy starring Winona Ryder as a miserable popular girl and Christian Slater as the outcast bad boy who romances her and then uses her to take revenge on their vapid classmates. It's full of hilariously mean-spirited one-liners, offering a bracing take on the inanity of teenage life.
His Girl Friday
Possibly the definitive screwball comedy of the 1940s screwball-comedy heyday, His Girl Friday is a dizzyingly paced romantic comedy with whip-smart banter between former spouses (and current co-workers) played by Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Grant's newspaper editor and Russell's star reporter are constantly at odds over their relationship and the story they're covering, and those sparks eventually turn to a rekindled romance.
Landline
This 1990s-set comedy from 2017 often feels like it was made in the '90s, with its warm, cluttered aesthetic and NYC indie-movie subject matter. Jenny Slate stars in Landline as a struggling journalist who moves back in with her family, including her parents (Edie Falco and John Turturro) and younger sister (Abby Quinn).
The movie is less about the main character's quarter-life crisis and more about the family's messy but relatable squabbles. Slate is funny but also vulnerable, and the sibling bond between her and Quinn forms the movie's charming emotional core.
The Lost City
Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum have excellent chemistry in throwback adventure comedy The Lost City. Bullock plays a jaded romance novelist kidnapped by a deranged billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) who's convinced that she knows the location of an ancient city full of riches. Tatum plays the beefcake cover model who decides he can come to the author's rescue, despite knowing nothing about wilderness survival or covert operations.
The two characters amusingly bumble through the jungle, bantering and bickering on their way to predictable but satisfying romance.
Love & Friendship
Writer-director Whit Stillman adapts Jane Austen's early, lesser-known novel Lady Susan as Love & Friendship, a tart comedy about social climbing and romantic scheming. Kate Beckinsale gives one of her best performances as the conniving Lady Susan, who is always quick to deliver a withering putdown, and the tone is sharper and more cutting than a typical Austen adaptation.
My Man Godfrey
In the midst of the Great Depression, Hollywood movies provided audiences with an escape, but My Man Godfrey derives its comedy from the Depression itself. The movie doesn't downplay the seriousness of poverty, and it uses the upper-class Bullock family to poke fun at entitled privilege amid societal misfortune.
William Powell plays the title character, a "forgotten man" who becomes the Bullocks' butler and falls in love with Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard). Godfrey turns the situation to his own advantage, proving smarter and more resourceful than the wealthy people who see him as an object of pity.