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Last Updated: August 3rd
There’s comedy and then there’s dark comedy. The two genres share a few traits — you’re guaranteed some laugh-out-loud moments, a few slapstick scenes and plenty of physical humor — but a dark comedy doesn’t shy away from the tough, gruesome, eyebrow-raising elements of life. If anything, a dark comedy takes those awkward, macabre, tension-filled moments and mines humor from them. Sure, you’ll watch these films below and constantly question, “Should I be laughing at this?” but that’s really half the fun.
Here are the 10 best dark comedies currently streaming on Netflix that deserve a place in your queue.
Related: The Best TV Shows On Netflix Right Now, Ranked
Focus Features
In Bruges (2008)
Run Time: 107 min | IMDb: 7.9/10
No one hates Bruges more than Colin Farrell. The actor plays a rookie hitman named Ray, who’s stuck in the charming city after a hit gone wrong with his more experienced associate, Ken (Brendan Gleeson). The two pal around for a bit, hanging out with cocaine-snorting dwarfs on movie sets and production-assistants-turned-drug-dealers before their pissed off boss catches up to them, and things get bloody. Farrell does some of his best comedic work here and while the ending is a bit of a downer, getting there is wicked fun.
Overture Films
Sunshine Cleaning (2008)
Run Time: 91 min | IMDb: 6.9/10
A comedy about a pair of sisters who run a maid service that cleans up crime scenes is the definition of dark but there are some bright spots in Amy Adams and Emily Blunt’s Sunshine Cleaning. The two play siblings struggling to find themselves and stay afloat in a small town before they happen upon a macabre idea for a new business. Mopping up blood and hazardous waste isn’t the most reputable of jobs, and the two aren’t particularly good at it, especially Blunt who plays a woman floundering in her personal and professional life, but if you’ve got a strong stomach, there’s plenty of payoff here.
New World Pictures
Heathers (1988)
Run Time: 103 min | IMDb: 7.3/10
Heathers was a vicious counterpoint to the John Hughes ’80s teen flicks. Where Hughes found the magic in high school, Heathers dwelled on its hell, subverting high-school politics and making a punchline of teenage suicide (“Don’t do it!”). It’s a deranged Breakfast Club, twisted and turned inside out and layered in scathing satire and school violence that might not sit as well in a post-Columbine world, even if the spirit of Heathers continues to resonate. For younger viewers who have always wondered what the big deal about Christian Slater was, Heathers should provide all the answers.
Magnet
Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil (2010)
Run Time: 88 min | IMDb: 7.6/10
This indie comedy has quickly become a cult classic, turning familiar scary movie tropes on their heads in bloody and hilarious ways. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine star as two bumbling-yet-well-meaning hillbillies, who get pulled into a nightmare scenario when a group of horny coeds think they’re trying to kill them. In a series of events that escalates in violence, Tucker and Dale try to do the right thing while managing to stay alive in the process. As one of the best horror comedies, it’s a hidden gem waiting to be discovered by those looking for off-the-beaten-path hilarity.
Focus Features
Burn After Reading (2008)
Run Time: 95 min | IMDb: 7/10
Burn After Reading is for people who like their comedy unapologetically mean. Pitch black and filled with irredeemable idiots, Burn After Reading features Brad Pitt as the opportunistic himbo Chad, who accidentally acquires the sensitive memoirs of a CIA agent, and George Clooney as the inept and unscrupulous U.S. Marshall, who is trying to retrieve it. While these two morons may be at the center of the film, scene-stealing supporting performances from Frances McDormand and John Malkovich really elevate this to one of the Coens’ funniest and best films to date.
Columbia
Sausage Party (2016)
Run Time: 89 min, IMDb: 6.2/10
This gleeful gross-out comedy seems innocent enough for the first two acts, full of borscht-belt comedy and crude humor. But then, Seth Rogen and his friends take the movie’s premise, about sentient food products who discover they’re in for a grisly death, to its natural conclusion in an ending that takes the shtick and gives it a very, very dark edge. You’ll never look at anthropomorphic food advertising in quite the same way.
Vertical Entertainment
Other People (2016)
Run Time: 97 min | IMDb: 6.7/10
There’s a lot going on in the dramedy Other People. Most of the action centers on Jesse Plemmons’ David, a 29-year-old gay man returning home to a conservative, religious household. Then there’s the subplot, David’s coming home because his mother (a brilliant Molly Shannon) has cancer. On top of that, David is trying to reconcile with his father, a man who refuses to accept his son’s sexuality even though it’s been 10 years since he came out of the closet. Of course, Shannon can be counted on to bring the laughs, even as a woman who’s resigned herself to an early grave, and Plemmons is awkward and endearing as a young man searching for his place in the world. Most of the comedy is mined from pretty sh*tty circumstances, but there’s a lot of heart to this one.
Dimension
Bad Santa (2003)
Run Time: 91 min | IMDb: 7.1/10
If Billy Bob Thornton set out to make the raunchiest Christmas comedy in the history of film, he succeeded with Bad Santa. The holiday classic is the trailer trash alternative to those sappy, feel-good family films that normally litter the seasonal lineup. Thornton plays Willie, a sex-addicted alcoholic moonlighting as a mall Santa. With his dwarf assistant, the two pull of carefully planned heists once the doors close but when Willie begins to spiral out of control, meeting a young kid being bullied by schoolyard punks and beginning a relationship with a woman with a Santa fetish, sh*t really hits the fan.
Netflix
The Polka King (2017)
Run Time: 95 min | IMDb: 5.9/10
Jack Black stars in this quirky comedy about the leader of a polka band who finds himself in trouble with the law after running a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme. Black plays Jan Lewans, an immigrant working hard to pursue the American dream, performing with dancing bears, delivering pizzas, and swindling unsuspecting investors out of their money. Jenny Slate plays Jan’s wife, a beauty pageant contestant, but Black is the real star of the show, proving his comedic chops with this eccentrically memorable turn.
The Orchard
The Overnight (2015)
Run Time: 79 min | IMDb: 6.1/10
Adam Scott and Taylor Schilling star in this zany sex comedy about a couple of newcomers to Los Angeles who make friends with their married neighbors and are treated to a surprise awakening in their own love life. It all begins with a playdate that turns into an R-rated soiree once the kids go to sleep. From there, Scott and Schilling’s characters indulge in some wild, awkward encounters with their next-door neighbors, which have them questioning those boring heteronormative concepts like monogamy and fidelity.
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