Satire

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

A comedic send-up of the grim circumstances of the Middle Ages as told through the story of King Arthur and framed by a modern-day murder investigation. When the mythical king of the Britons leads his knights on a quest for the Holy Grail, they face a wide array of horrors, including a persistent Black Knight, a three-headed giant, a cadre of shrubbery-challenged knights, the perilous Castle Anthrax, a killer rabbit, a house of virgins, and a handful of rude Frenchmen.

Blazing Saddles (1974)

In this satirical take on Westerns, crafty railroad worker Bart (Cleavon Little) becomes the first black sheriff of Rock Ridge, a frontier town about to be destroyed in order to make way for a new railroad. Initially, the people of Rock Ridge harbor a racial bias toward their new leader. However, they warm to him after realizing that Bart and his perpetually drunk gunfighter friend (Gene Wilder) are the only defense against a wave of thugs sent to rid the town of its population.

PCU (1994)

Nervous high school senior Tom Lawrence (Chris Young) visits Port Chester University, where he gets a taste of politically correct college life when he’s guided by fraternity wild man Droz (Jeremy Piven) and his housemates at The Pit. But Droz and his pals have rivals in nasty preppy Rand McPherson (David Spade) and the school’s steely president (Jessica Walter). With their house threatened with expulsion, Droz and company decide to throw a raging party where the various factions will collide.

Bowfinger (1999)

On the verge of bankruptcy and desperate for his big break, aspiring filmmaker Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin) concocts a crazy plan to make his ultimate dream movie. Rallying a ragtag team that includes a starry-eyed ingenue (Heather Graham), a has-been diva (Christine Baranski) and a film studio gofer (Jamie Kennedy), he sets out to shoot a blockbuster featuring the biggest star in Hollywood, Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy) — only without letting Ramsey know he’s in the picture.

The History of The World, Part I (1981)

Human history is traced through a series of vignettes, beginning with cavemen awestruck by their own magnificence. Then Moses (Mel Brooks) receives the tablets containing the “15” commandments, and Emperor Nero (Dom DeLuise) presides over a madcap Rome with his wife, Nympho (Madeline Kahn). Jumping ahead, the Spanish Inquisition softens repression with song and dance, and a few centuries later Madame Defarge (Cloris Leachman) is fomenting revolution in France.

Airplane! (1980)

This spoof comedy takes shots at the slew of disaster movies that were released in the 70s. When the passengers and crew of a jet are incapacitated due to food poisoning, a rogue pilot with a drinking problem must cooperate with his ex-girlfriend turned stewardess to bring the plane to a safe landing.

Stripes (1981)

Hard-luck cabbie John Winger (Bill Murray) — directionless after being fired from his job and dumped by his girlfriend — enlists in the U.S. Army with his close pal, Russell Ziskey (Harold Ramis). After his barely satisfactory performance in basic training, the irreverent Winger emerges as the figurehead for a ragtag band of Army misfits. However, his hijinks threaten to cause an international scandal when he inadvertently commandeers a military assault vehicle behind enemy lines.

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis are two young, attractive serial killers who become tabloid-TV darlings, thanks to a sensationalistic press led by Robert Downey Jr. The press reports the pair as they go on a 52 people killing spree. A controversial look at the way the media portrays criminals.