Everyone loves a great comedy — apart, it would seem, from the people who get to vote at awards ceremonies. Comedies don’t tend to fare well when it comes to Oscars and the like. Only a handful have ever won Best Picture, and even those weren’t what most people would consider out-and-out comedies, but rather romantic comedies or comedy-dramas such as “It Happened One Night,” “Annie Hall,” and “Shakespeare in Love.”
But who needs awards, anyway? Making people laugh is its own prize, and the following comedy movies have certainly achieved that. Here are some of their funniest lines, delivered by some of the greatest comedic characters ever, including Dr. Evil, Derek Zoolander, and more.
We get the warhead and we hold the world ransom for… ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
— Dr. Evil (Mike Myers) is totally out of touch with modern finances in “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.”
I had another Liam Neeson nightmare. I kidnapped his daughter and he just wasn't having it… They made three of those movies. At some point you have to wonder if he's just a bad parent.
— It’s pretty clear why Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is known as the “Merc With a Mouth” in the relentlessly acerbic “Deadpool” movie.
That's why her hair is so big, it's full of secrets.
— Damian (Daniel Franzese) is a cult-favorite character in the eminently quotable pop-culture phenomenon that is “Mean Girls.”
I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
— Picking the funniest lines from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” is no easy task, but John Cleese’s “taunting French guard” definitely has some of the best of them.
What is this? A center for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read… if they can't even fit inside the building?
— Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) is perhaps the least intelligent character in cinema history, a trait fully displayed when he mistakes a small architectural model of a school for an actual school.
Boy, that escalated quickly… I mean, that really got out of hand fast.
— In the wake of the epic news team street fight, Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) reflects on the brawl — and Brick confirms that he “killed a guy with a trident” — in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.”
I’ll have what she's having.
—After Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) loudly fakes an orgasm in a deli, a female customer (Estelle Reiner) delivers this now-iconic line from “When Harry Met Sally.”
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.
— President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) reprimands his squabbling staff in one of the blackest black comedies of all time, “Dr. Strangelove.”
This isn't the real Caesar's palace, is it?
— Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis) is genuinely curious as to whether the actual Caesar lived at Caesars Palace when the hapless group checks in in “The Hangover.”
The numbers all go to 11. Look, right across the board, 11, 11, 11…
— In “This Is Spinal Tap,” Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) explains how the dials on his guitar amplifier go all the way up to 11, and therefore one louder than the normal 10. (Incidentally, the BBC’s online volume controls still go up to 11 in tribute to the movie.)
I have nipples, Greg, could you milk me?
— Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) finds himself in many awkward situations in “Meet the Parents,” none more so than when he has to elaborate on his lie about growing up on a cat-milking farm in Detroit.
Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his a**, in two weeks you'd have a diamond.
— Cameron Frye is the hypochondriac best friend of the eponymous Ferris (Matthew Broderick) in “Ferris Bueller's Day Off,” and the two of them couldn’t be much more unalike.
This job would be great if it wasn't for the f**king customers.
— Anyone who has ever worked in retail can probably relate to this comment from wisecracking slacker Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) in “Clerks.”
You have the voice of an angel. Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus.
— Dale Doback (John C. Reilly) finally shows some respect to his new stepbrother Brennan Huff (Will Ferrell) when the two bond over music, in the bizarre but hilarious man-child double-act at the heart of “Step Brothers.”
According to the map, we've only gone 4 inches.
— If anyone can rival Derek Zoolander as cinema’s least intelligent character, it could well be Harry (Jeff Daniels) in “Dumb and Dumber.”
Photo credit: Archive Photos/ Moviepix via Getty Images
About the Author
Tony Dunnell
Tony is an English writer of non-fiction and fiction living on the edge of the Amazon jungle.
