20 Must-See Spoof Movies That Deliver Non-stop Laughs

Star Trek. Frankenstein. Enter the Dragon. These names evoke memories of classic films and TV shows — works that have stood the test of time.

What better way to acknowledge their importance than poking fun at them? The best spoof movies don’t just make fun of their source material. Instead, they celebrate it, having fun with the tropes and playing with the goofier aspects of hits and blockbusters.

These twenty parody films help fans laugh and love the greatest films ever made.

1. Young Frankenstein (1974)

Young Frankenstein director Mel Brooks secured original props and sets from Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). It’s that level of detail and commitment to the source material that makes Young Frankenstein so great.

Well, that and Brooks’ whip-smart humor helped him transform a tender meeting between the Monster and a blind man in the original film into a slapstick masterpiece, with Peter Boyle playing Frankenstein’s creation and Gene Hackman as the hapless helper. But the best aspect might involve Gene Wilder in the lead, who plays a reluctant Frankenstein scion who gets pulled back into his family’s wacky world.

2. Airplane! (1980)

Airplane! achieves an honor shared by a few other spoof films. More people know about Airplane! than they know about Zero Hour!, the 1957 disaster movie that writers and directors David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker used as a template.

The straight-laced Zero Hour! also helped the filmmakers set the tone for the flick. The directors cast stars best known for serious roles, including Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, and Leslie Nielsen. By putting these trusted men in a wacky adventure, Airplane! gives viewers everything offered by Zero Hour! and adds some of the best one-liners and sight gags ever devised.

3. This is Spinal Tap (1984)

“It’s a fine line between clever and stupid,” says guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), one of the hard rock musicians chronicled in This is Spinal Tap. Director Rob Reiner’s mock documentary skewers the special mix of pretension and cluelessness among some rock acts, blurring the line Nigel mentions.

Nigel’s observation notwithstanding, neither he nor his bandmates David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) show any more self-awareness throughout the film. Instead, the trio’s ostentatious tastes lead to hilarious bits, including a miniature Stonehenge and an amp that goes up to 11.

4. Galaxy Quest (1999)

Director Dean Parisot and writers David Howard and Robert Gordon give Galaxy Quest a traditional narrative structure, which doesn’t prioritize jokes like some entries on this list. However, that narrative involves the cast of a beloved, but short-lived show about space-faring explorers, which lends itself to plenty of Star Trek riffs.

Tim Allen stars as Jason Nesmith, an arrogant TV star in the vein of William Shatner, who gets hired to recreate his most famous role with his co-stars. However, Jason discovers that what seemed like an over-eager fan is, in fact, a desperate alien who doesn’t understand fiction, forcing the Galaxy Quest team to become real heroes. Within the derring-do leaves plenty of space for cracks about red shirts dying first and nerds who know the show better than the cast.

5. UHF (1989)

On the surface, UHF also has a traditional narrative, following imaginative and unlucky dreamer George Newman as he runs his own UHF television station. However, that plot takes less precedence than the many jests at TV shows and movies, such as Conan the Librarian and Wheel of Fish.

That shift should come as no surprise to anyone who knows Weird Al Yankovic, the writer and star of UHF. Working with director Jay Levey, Weird Al takes his parody talents to the visual medium. The film underperformed, driving Weird Al back into the world of pop music, but it’s become a cult hit over the past few decades.

6. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping comes from the comedy musical trio Lonely Island, which consists of Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Andy Samberg. Most readers recognize just that last name, as Samberg’s popularity eclipses that of his childhood pals. That real-world emotional tension helps give Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping pathos within the great jokes.

Samberg plays Conner4Real, a popular but dimwitted pop star who embarks on a solo career from his former bandmates (Schaffer and Taccone). As the trio deals with their new dynamic, Popstar makes many great jabs about the indulgences of the music industry, along with some catchy songs that would be hits if they weren’t so silly.

7. Blazing Saddles (1974)

As with Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks strove for authenticity for Blazing Saddles, even getting Frankie Laine to sing the title song, as the performer had done for straightforward Westerns such as 3:10 to Yuma. However, Brooks and his co-writers (which included an uncredited Richard Pryor) went further into social humor and smart postmodernism.

Whatever Blazing Saddles lacks in purity it makes up for in razor-sharp wit. Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder make a perfect duo as Bart, the first Black sheriff in the frontier town Rock Ridge, and the Waco Kid, a washed-up gunslinger. The film’s gleeful excess and irreverent jokes make Blazing Saddles feel cutting-edge, even today.

8. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

The British sketch comedy troupe Monty Python described themselves as smart people acting dumb, a claim backed up by their first feature film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The movie includes more than its share of goofy gags, such as clamping together two coconuts to take the place of horses and the dismembered but determined Black Knight.

However, the film hews close to actual Grail lore, in everything from its portrayal of King Arthur and Camelot to the launching of cows at enemies, something drawn from history books. Thanks to the Pythons’ detailed depiction, audiences might learn something about English folklore… if they weren’t laughing so hard.

9. Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

Martial arts fans worldwide know that Hong Kong trains the best action stars, luminaries such as Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen. Stephen Chow came up through the Hong Kong movie industry, which gave him the knowledge to spoof the genre with such accuracy.

Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle follows beats familiar to any martial arts lover, with a small village under attack from a brutal gang. Chow uses that setup for exaggerated sequences and wild camera work, dialing the fight scenes up to a ridiculous degree. However, Chow never skimps on the majesty of the fight scenes, getting help from choreographer Yuen Woo-ping, who also worked on Iron Monkey and The Matrix.

10. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

The novel Red Alert by Peter George tells a serious story about the United States and the Soviet Union launching into an accidental nuclear war. Although it acknowledges the absurd nature of the conflict, Red Alert has a palpable sense of sadness.

When Stanley Kubrick adapted Red Alert for Dr. Strangelove, he employed the satirist Terry Southern to help write the screenplay. Southern and Kubrick kept the same basic plot but made the characters more comedic. The change allowed Dr. Strangelove to poke fun at the powers that ruled the world while retaining George’s basic cynicism.

11. Shaun of the Dead (2004)

The title Shaun of the Dead, the debut feature from director Edgar Wright and co-writer Simon Pegg, suggests a full parody of the 1978 zombie movie Dawn of the Dead. Indeed, Shaun of the Dead features plenty of great gags inspired by that film. The movie begins with regular townsfolk wandering around with mindless malaise and dialogue from the George A. Romero original.

However, Wright and Pegg go further, using a zombie invasion to explore the friendship between loser Shaun (Pegg) and his best mate Ed (Nick Frost). The lads forge a bond that neither life nor the living dead can break.

12. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)

While making Airplane!, the writing and directing trio of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker realized they had a rare talent in Leslie Nielsen. They used Airplane!’s success to develop a crime comedy called Police Squad, starring Nielsen as a straight-laced moron called Lieutenant Frank Drebin. Police Squad lasted just six episodes, but gained a cult following.

That following allowed Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker to make the spin-off film The Naked Gun, once again with Nielsen in the lead. The Naked Gun goes further into film noir tropes as Drebin protects the Queen of England on a trip to the States, leading to all manner of inappropriate and irresistible gags.

13. Black Dynamite (2009)

As CIA Agent turned street avenger Black Dynamite, Michael Jai White cuts an impressive figure. He keeps a scowl on his face and has his impressive muscles ready to act. That intense seriousness allows Black Dynamite to ridicule and celebrate the absurdities of Blaxploitation movies such as Superfly and Shaft.

Working with director Scott Sanders, who co-wrote the script with Byron Minns, White touches on all of the expected plot points in a Blaxploitation movie. Black Dynamite uses his kung fu to uncover a conspiracy that goes from the street to the government and further. Instead of backing away from the excesses of the genre, Black Dynamite takes them all with full solemnity, which makes them all the funnier.

14. High Anxiety (1977)

High Anxiety may not have the same level of acclaim as Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein, but it does share the commitment to accuracy found in those movies. With High Anxiety, Mel Brooks turns his attention to the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Brooks builds his jokes around his admiration for the Master of Suspense, as in a creepy slow zoom shot that ends when the camera smashes into a window.

The psychological complexity of Hitchcock’s work gives Brooks space to do some headier bits, including a lecture about Freud that his character must deliver without offending children in the audience. At the same time, Brooks indulges in low-brow shenanigans, such as a gross-out take on The Birds.

15. Best in Show (2000)

After This is Spinal Tap, director Christopher Guest and his co-stars went on to make more mockumentaries, starting with 1996’s Waiting for Guffman. For Best in Show, Guest and his cohorts turn their attention to the world of high-stakes dog shows. Along with his Spinal Tap bandmate Michael McKean, Guest gets Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Jennifer Coolidge, and more to portray dog lovers of high class and low self-awareness.

While Best in Show has fun depicting the hullaballoo around the actual dog show, he gets the most comedic mileage out of talking head sequences. In these scenes, actors speak to the camera in character, setting the stage for The Office and Parks & Recreation.

16. Walk Hard (2007)

The music industry always lends itself to some ribbing, especially in the mid-2000s, when musical biopics became all the rage. Movies such as Ray and Walk the Line turned the lives of Ray Charles and Johnny Cash into high drama, inflated Oscar plays that lost sight of the raucous nature of the artists’ work.

That grandiose attitude made music biopics ripe for satire in Walk Hard, from writer/director Jake Kasdan and co-writer Judd Apatow. Walk Hard begins with country star Dewey (John C. Reilly) waiting in shadow because he “has to think about his whole life before he plays.” That setup allows Kasdan and Apatow to crack about celebrity cameo casting, tragic backstories, and unrealistic depictions of the creative process, making music from audience laughter.

17. Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

In the 1980s, summer sleepaway camp provided an ideal setting for movies in several different genres, such as the Friday the 13th horror franchise and comedy Meatballs. With Wet Hot American Summer, members of the sketch comedy team The State look back at the era with a fondness for their camp movie comedy.

Thirty-year-old Michael Showalter, who also co-wrote the movie with director David Wain, plays teen counselor Coop, who hopes to profess his love for Katie (Marguerite Moreau) on the last day of camp. That earnest plot allows the cast to construct fantastic bits, with Paul Rudd as a punk kid with too much attitude and Christopher Meloni as a cook whose best friend is a can of peas.

18. Three Ages (1923)

Irritated by the pushback he received from his white supremacist epic The Birth of a Nation, director D.W. Griffith aired his grievances with 1916’s Intolerance, which depicted oppression in three different periods.

Comedian Buster Keaton couldn’t resist borrowing the mawkish and bold Intolerance for his first feature, Three Ages. Always more interested in the joke than anything else, Keaton doesn’t have anything to say about the themes of Griffith’s movie. However, he does use the three-part structure for some mind-blowing stunts, split across different periods of history.

19. Team America: World Police (2004)

Michael Bay movies such as Bad Boys II and Pearl Harbor play their over-the-top explosions and emotions with so little introspection that they resist simple parody. That’s why South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, along with co-writer Pam Brady, depict Bay’s chaos-ridden movies with marionettes.

Team America: World Police takes jabs at the political climate of the 2000s, working North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, United Nations inspector Hans Blix, and documentarian Michael Moore into the film.

Team America works best when it’s playing around with Bay’s style, replaying his titanic stakes and adult situations of his movies to the domain of tiny toys. The movie reveals those bloated action flicks for the ridiculous (and fun!) nonsense that they are.

20. Scary Movie (2000)

“No mercy. No shame. No sequel.” So declared the tagline of Scary Movie, directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans and starring Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans. Scary Movie takes shots at The Sixth Sense and Scream, as well as The Matrix, Miss Congeniality, and anything else that came to mind.

Scary Movie did go on to feature several sequels of varying quality. But it indeed lacked mercy and shame, going for bold and ribald jokes. While the crass humor may not work for everyone, no one can deny the talent of Anna Faris and Regina Hall as a pair of hilarious final girls.