The east and west factions of the Writers Guild of America have published their official list of 101 funniest screenplays, revealing Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman’s Annie Hall as their top pick. Members of both guilds voted on the films, which had to have had theatrical releases, English-language scripts, and hour-plus run times (live-action, animated, silent, and doc features were eligible; films without onscreen credits were not), according to the WGA.
Seven Allen scripts total found their way into the results; Mel Brooks and Preston Sturges also fared well, popping up amid more contemporary, varied comedy powerhouses, including Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey, and Kristen Wiig, among others. As a whole, the results showcase the best from almost a century of hilarious filmmaking (for your debating pleasure, of course), but they also underline more of the industry’s historic and still-changing imbalance in behind-the-scenes diversity, which the WGA notes in a prelude on its website: “Comedy screenwriting has long been a playground that women and writers of color have not had enough time in,†WGA’s Paul Brownfield writes. “The work of Richard Pryor on Blazing Saddles, Tina Fey on Mean Girls, Amy Heckerling on Clueless, and Hagar Wilde, co-writer of Bringing Up Baby, makes you wonder what a list would be if the playground had been more inclusive all along.â€
Although other criteria and voting methods were not released, Brownfield continues: “The best comedy writers and comedians are like astronauts, launching themselves beyond the ozone layer of the tasteful and the expected in order to find the forbidden or the outrageous or the merely uncomfortable,†for the goals of provocation and truth.
Read on for the full list, which includes a mix of classic and recent scripts, spanning nearly nine decades of filmmaking and almost as many sub-genres of comedy (via WGA):
- Annie Hall
Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman - Some Like It Hot
Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond - Groundhog Day
Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis - Airplane!
James Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker - Tootsie
Screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal; story by Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart - Young Frankenstein
Screenplay by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks; screen story by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks - Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Stanley Kubrick, Peter George, and Terry Southern - Blazing Saddles
Screenplay by Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, and Alan Uger; story by Andrew Bergman - Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin - National Lampoon’s Animal House
Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, and Chris Miller - This Is Spinal Tap
Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Rob Reiner, and Harry Shearer - The Producers
Mel Brooks - The Big Lebowski
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen - Ghostbusters
Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis - When Harry Met Sally …
Nora Ephron - Bridesmaids
Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig - Duck Soup
Story by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby; additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin - There’s Something About Mary
John J. Strauss, Ed Decter, and Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly; story by Ed Decter and John J. Strauss - The Jerk
Screenplay by Steve Martin, Carl Gottlieb, and Michael Elias; story by Steve Martin and Carl Gottlieb - A Fish Called Wanda
Screenplay by John Cleese; story by John Cleese and Charles Crichton - His Girl Friday
Charles Lederer - The Princess Bride
William Goldman - Raising Arizona
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen - Bringing Up Baby
Screenplay by Hagar Wilde and Dudley Nichols; story by Hagar Wilde - Caddyshack
Brian Doyle-Murray, Harold Ramis, and Douglas Kenney - Monty Python’s Life Of Brian
Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin - The Graduate
Calder Willingham and Buck Henry - The Apartment
Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond - Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, and Dan Mazer; story by Sacha Baron Cohen, Peter Baynham, Anthony Hines, and Todd Phillips - The Hangover
Jon Lucas and Scott Moore - The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Judd Apatow and Steve Carell - The Lady Eve
Screenplay by Preston Sturges; story by Monckton Hoffe - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (tied)
John Hughes - Trading Places (tied)
Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod - Sullivan’s Travels
Preston Sturges - Planes, Trains and Automobiles
John Hughes - The Philadelphia Story
Donald Ogden Stewart - A Night at the Opera
George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind - Rushmore
Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson - Waiting for Guffman
Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy - The Odd Couple
Neil Simon - The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Pat Proft - Office Space
Mike Judge - Big
Anne Spielberg and Gary Ross - National Lampoon’s Vacation
John Hughes - Midnight Run
George Gallo - It Happened One Night
Robert Riskin - M*A*S*H
Ring Lardner, Jr. - Harold and Maude
Colin Higgins - Shaun of the Dead
Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright - Broadcast News
James L. Brooks - Arthur
Steven Gordon - Four Weddings and a Funeral
Richard Curtis - Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (tied)
Will Ferrell and Adam McKay - Dumb and Dumber (tied)
Peter Farrelly, Bennett Yellin, and Bob Farrelly - Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Mike Myers - The General
Written by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman; adapted by Al Boasberg and Charles Smith - What’s Up, Doc?
Screenplay by Buck Henry, David Newman, and Robert Benton; story by Peter Bogdanovich - Wedding Crashers
Steve Faber and Bob Fisher - Sleeper
Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman - Galaxy Quest
Screenplay by David Howard and Robert Gordon; story by David Howard - It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Screenplay by William and Tania Rose; story by William and Tania Rose - Best in Show
Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy - Little Miss Sunshine
Michael D. Arndt - South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Pam Brady - Being There
Jerzy Kosinski - Back to the Future
Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale - Superbad
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg - Bananas
Woody Allen and Mickey Rose - Moonstruck
John Patrick Shanley - Clueless
Amy Heckerling - The Palm Beach Story
Preston Sturges - The Pink Panther
Maurice Richlin & Blake Edwards - The Blues Brothers
Dan Aykroyd and John Landis - Coming to America
Screenplay by David Sheffield and Barry W. Blaustein; story by Eddie Murphy - Take the Money and Run
Screenplay by Woody Allen and Mickey Rose; story by Jackson Beck - Election
Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor - Love and Death
Woody Allen - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (tied)
Dale Launer, Stanley Shapiro, and Paul Henning - Lost in America (tied)
Albert Brooks and Monica Johnson - Manhattan
Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman - Modern Times
Charles Chaplin - My Cousin Vinny
Dale Launer - Mean Girls
Tina Fey - Meet the Parents
Screenplay by Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg; story by Greg Glienna and Mary Ruth Clarke - Fargo
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - My Favorite Year
Screenplay by Dennis Palumbo and Norman Steinberg; story by Dennis Palumbo - Stripes
Written by Len Blum, Dan Goldberg, and Harold Ramis - Beverly Hills Cop
Screenplay by Daniel Petrie, Jr.; Story by Danilo Bach and Daniel Petrie, Jr. - City Lights
Charles Chaplin - Sideways
Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor - Broadway Danny Rose
Woody Allen - Swingers
Jon Favreau - The Gold Rush
Charles Chaplin - The Miracle Of Morgan’s Creek
Preston Sturges - All About Eve
Screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz - Arsenic and Old Lace
Screenplay by Julius Epstein and Philip G. Epstein - The Royal Tenenbaums
Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson - Mrs. Doubtfire
Randi Mayem Singer and Leslie Dixon - Flirting with Disaster
David O. Russell - Shakespeare in Love
Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard