8 Forgotten '90s Comedy Movies That Have Aged Like Fine Wine

Image via Paramount Pictures Published Sep 28, 2026, 8:09 PM EDT A New York native, Joe graduated from an avant-garde theater school upstate, where he was obsessed with sketch comedy. There, he and his lunatic friends founded The Sketchies — which still lives on at Skidmore College today. Living in New York City, a screenwriter friend of his then taught him how to write for film. This awakened a new passion in Joe. Since then his scripts have garnered over 200 festival selections, nominations, and wins all over the globe (including the BlueCat Best Feature award). Several of his screenplays have been made into feature films — some of them not that bad! Overall, he loves to create unique, hilarious, touching, and bizarre stories. Sign in to your Collider account Comedy is a very interesting beast. Sometimes, things can be very funny for a very particular moment in time, and then, as the cruel hands of the clock keep turning, the humor inherent to those things completely vanishes. Not these 90s comedy gems, though. Every one of these fine funny films has maintained their hilariousness, even three decades or more later. Here are the best, forgotten comedy films of the 1990s, that have all aged like a 1945 Château Mouton-Rothschild…or something like that. All these comic delights were popular in their day, but have somehow left the cinematic spotlight over the years. Not to fret, though, giggling film buffs; here are all the best 90s comedies to revisit, rewatch, and replay on that dusty VCR of yours. 8 'So I Married an Axe Murderer' (1993) Image via TriStar Pictures While the 90s saw Mike Myers become an international star as he assumed the role of international man of mystery, Austin Powers, there was one gem that he starred in prior to that — that has since all but vanished from the classic comedy conversation. The satirical send-up of murder-mystery films that is director Thomas Schlamme’s So I Married an Axe Murderer, gave Myers the chance to play a fairly normal character (seeing as how most of his other roles involve either wigs, prosthetic makeup, accents, or all three). The story is essentially told in the title; Charlie MacKenzie (Meyers) falls for the beautiful, witty, sensitive girl next door, Harriet Michaels (Nancy Travis). Yet, Harriet is a wee bit mysterious, and lets her eccentric behavior slip out every now and again as Charlie woos her and eventually proposes. When it’s revealed that all her other fiancés perished on her previous wedding nights, Charlie is justifiably quite scared. Myers also plays his hilariously gruff Scottish father in this, Stuart (okay, so he does get to show off an accent here…in a precursor to his famed Shrek character). Again, this movie is a great stand-alone comedic mystery, with tons of funny sequences, and definitely deserves a fresh watch. 7 'Mallrats' (1995) Image via Gramercy Pictures There’s just so much to like about Kevin Smith’s follow-up to Clerks, that it’s hard to touch on all the funny, uniquely 90s elements contained in Mallrats. This was the first major flick to give Jason Lee a chance to lead a film, and he did so with a brilliant flourish. The film as a whole is a love letter to New Jersey mall culture, so that alone makes it stand out for its pure singularity. The ensemble story follows a bunch of young people as they cavort around a shopping mall. Brodie (Lee) is trying to win back his ex-girlfriend, Rene (Shannen Doherty, masterfully showing the world that she was more than just Brenda), who has had just about enough of his slacker shenanigans. Oafish menswear store manager, Shannon (Ben Affleck, just oh so at home being a douche), attempts to swoop in and steal Rene, so Brodie, with the help of his buddy, TS Quint (Jeremy London), must utilize a televised game show happening at the mall to expose Shannon for the vile thug he really is. The plot really isn’t that important (it’s a MallGuffin), as the heart and soul of this film are the random characters that pop up in the shopping complex. From Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) to the X-rated psychic Ivannah (Priscilla Barnes) to the dude who stares at the 3-D painting, William (Ethan Suplee), to the cameo appearance by Stan Lee, it’s a cast of outlandishly joyous characters that really should cement this as a permanent staple of mandatory 90s comedy viewing. 6 'Waiting for Guffman' (1996) Image via Warner Bros Ah, the delight of every theater kid across America in 1996. Christopher Guest’s shrewd take on the heartwarming, yet, let’s face it, fairly sad, community theater scene in rural America is one of, if not the funniest movie about the stage. Obviously, Guest is a master of satire, having already been the driving force behind This Is Spinal Tap and played Count Rugen in The Princess Bride. But here in Waiting for Guffman, he really was given the opportunity to shine in all his Corky glory. Now, of course, detractors of today may have the attitude that Guest playing a flamboyantly gay man is offensive, since he doesn’t identify as that in real life, but for most people who view the film, they see Guest’s performance as a silly yet heartfelt one, that’s more innocuous fun than anything else. The story is kind of adorable. It’s about a community theater director, Corky St. Clair (Guest), now living in Missouri, who once was part of the New York theater scene, years ago. In the made-up town of Blaine, he is given the chance to direct an original musical that he’s written, about the very town’s odd history. As the show gains momentum, Corky receives word that a producer from New York will come to see the show, right there in Blaine; so, naturally, the cast thinks they are Broadway-bound. Speaking of the cast, which is made up of Guest’s go-to players (that he would later work with in A Mighty Wind and Best in Show), these people are what really give this film eternal comedic life. Veteran actors Eugene Levy (who co-wrote the script) as Dr. Allan Pearl, Catherine O’Hara as Sheila Albertson, and Fred Willard as Ron Albertson are joined by relative newcomer Parker Posey (as the sassy Libby Mae Brown, who happens to have one of the theater community’s most quoted lines, “It’s the day of the show, y’all.”), and their chemistry is pure magic. With a lot of the film shot in the “improv” format, some truly amazing spur-of-the-moment lines were uttered, and have made it into the comedic catalog for all eternity. 5 'Swingers' (1996) Image via Miramax There was a period in the 90s where it seemed virtually impossible to avoid the cultural impact that Doug Liman’s (with a script by Jon Favreau) low budget sensation Swingers had on America. Everywhere one looked, there were lounge lizard-style clothing (with wallet chains hanging from many a belt loop), Martinis being swirled, esoteric nightclub lingo being spoken, and swing music blaring in bars — and major national commercials. Even the city of Las Vegas had (completely unauthorized) adopted the slogan, “Vegas, Baby, Vegas” onto huge billboards. These were all direct influences of the phenomenon of Swingers. And then, one day…whoosh. It all went away. Perhaps pushed out of fashion by the frosted-tipped boy bands of the early 2000s, Swingers seemed to have simply, sadly, swung for the last time. The story is as seemingly jejune as it gets: a heart-broken boy moves to Los Angeles to try to make it as a comedian/actor. He’s comforted by his boorish, yet authentically supportive, cadre of Hepcat actor friends; the swingers, if you will. They instruct Mike (Favreau) on how to get over his one true love, and move on with his romantic life. There is, of course, Trent (Vince Vaughn, in the role that blasted him to fame), and Sue (Patrick Van Horn, who did fairly well for himself after the success of the film, but obviously didn’t enjoy a Vaughn-like career). This movie is so genuinely funny, not just for its ridiculous west-coast wannabe entertainer slang, but for all the lunatic situations that Mikey and Trent get into together. As selfish as the characters can seem, it’s truly a buddy story at the end of the day, and a horn-blaring one at that. Looking back, there are a couple of potentially offensive moments, but overall, this movie has stood the test of time, and is just as fun a watch as when it came out. Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Coen Brothers Movie Would You Thrive In? Lebowski · O Brother · Fargo · No Country Nobody writes people like the Coen brothers. The decent ones. The talkers. The ones who stopped trying years ago. And the ones who can already see how bad this is going to get. Four films, four completely different ways of handling trouble. Eight questions decide which one you would actually walk out of. 🎳Lebowski(1998) 🎸O Brother(2000) ❄️Fargo(1996) 🪙No Country(2007) FIND YOUR FILM → 01 A bag of money lands in your lap. What happens next? Every Coen film starts roughly here. It never goes smoothly. AI do not overthink it. Rent is paid, evening is free. BI have a plan for this. It involves other people. CI hand it in. Somebody is looking for this. DI am gone before anyone knows I have it. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Somebody is being completely unreasonable with you. How does it go? Coen dialogue is mostly people failing to understand each other. AI let it go. It is not worth the energy. BI talk. At length. Until they are on my side. CI stay polite and repeat myself until they hear me. DI stop talking. Talking has not been working. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What is your actual relationship with work? Everyone in these films is either working far too hard or not at all. AI have arranged things so I do as little as possible. BI would rather chase one big idea than hold a steady job. CI do it properly, including the boring parts. DIt pays. I do not need it to mean anything. NEXT QUESTION → 04 Long drive, bad weather, nobody else on the road. How are you? There is always a drive in these films. It is never a good drive. AMusic on, in no hurry, perfectly content. BTalking the whole way, whether anybody answers or not. CBoth hands on the wheel, checking everyone is warm enough. DQuiet, watching the mirrors. NEXT QUESTION → 05 You are offered a shortcut that is not quite legal. This is the moment where the Coens find out who you really are. ANo, but not on principle. It sounds like effort. BYes, and I will make it sound like a great idea. CNo. And I would probably say something about it. DOnly if I am certain nobody finds out. NEXT QUESTION → 06 The plan has fallen apart completely. What is your move? In a Coen film the plan always falls apart. That is the genre. AOrder a drink and let things settle down. BImprovise loudly and hope momentum carries it. CStart again from the beginning and do it right. DCut my losses and leave before it gets worse. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Which of these sounds most like something you would say? Nobody writes a line quite like the Coens. Which one is yours? AIt is really not that serious. BTrust me, I have thought about this. CI just think we could all be a bit kinder. DThat was always going to happen. NEXT QUESTION → 08 How does your film end? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your movie. ANothing is resolved and I am completely fine with it. BA ridiculous piece of luck saves everybody. CQuietly, at home, with somebody I love. DSomebody older admits they no longer understand the world. REVEAL MY FILM → The Verdict Is In Your Coen Film Is…Four films, four completely different ways of handling money, trouble and other people. This is the one you would survive, why it suits you, and what it would cost you to be there. The Big LebowskiYou have quietly arranged your life so that very little can get to you, and a surprising number of people find that infuriating. You would be completely at home here. The Dude is the only person in the film with no ambition, and the only one who comes out the other side undamaged. That is not an accident. You do not chase things. You let situations arrive and you deal with them at your own pace, which is a genuine skill however lazy it looks. This is a full crime plot happening around a man who mostly wants his rug back, and that is exactly the energy you would bring to it. Everything goes wrong. You abide. The film ends. O BrotherYou talk your way through life and it works far more often than it should. Give you a bad situation and an audience and you will find a way out of both at once. Everett never has a plan that survives contact with reality. He has something better, which is the ability to keep talking until a new one turns up. You are the optimist in the group, the one who makes a ridiculous idea sound reasonable at two in the morning. This is the warmest film the Coens have made. It is a chase, a comedy and a musical at once, and nobody in it is quite beyond saving. You would end up famous entirely by accident, and act like you planned it all along. FargoYou would survive Fargo because you are the only kind of person who does: patient, decent, and completely unimpressed by anybody trying to be clever. Marge Gunderson solves the whole case by being polite, thorough and unhurried while everybody around her panics. That is the entire argument of the film. You do the boring parts of the job, which is precisely why you would notice the thing everyone else walked straight past. Fargo is about ordinary greed causing enormous damage, and about one person who simply refuses to be corrupted by any of it. You would go home at the end of it, have dinner, and sleep perfectly well. No CountryYou do not expect the world to be fair and you stopped being surprised about it a long time ago. That clear-eyed quality is exactly what this film asks for. No Country is the Coens at their coldest: a film where being smart, fast and careful might still not be anywhere near enough. You plan for the worst, you keep your own counsel, and some part of you is already working out the exit. Llewelyn Moss is competent, prepared and resourceful, and the film is honest about whether any of that is ever sufficient. You would see it coming. Whether that helps is the one question the film refuses to answer. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 4 'Go' (1999) Image via Columbia Pictures Oh, Go, you deviously rich tapestry of illicit Californian behavior. There’s something just so purely entertaining about this film (another winner directed by Doug Liman). Maybe it’s the combustible combination of teen disillusionment, highly illegal activity, bros being bros, West Coast slang, and rave culture that make this such a hidden gem of a frenetically fun film. As the to-the-point title suggests, this movie is all about seizing the moment and making a real go of it. The plot is divided into three main segments that diverge and come together again in various timelines, which in itself is a erudite format when done right. One storyline concerns Ronna Martin (the now widely respected director Sarah Polley), a girl in need of some serious cash who gets involved with a mid-level drug dealer, Todd Gaines (Timothy Olyphant, menacingly donning a Santa hat). The other chapter involves a heartthrob soap opera actor, Adam (Scott Wolf), his (secret) boyfriend, Zack (Jay Mohr), and Burke (William Fichtner, in hands-down his best role ever, ever), an undercover cop who wants to use Adam and Zack to set up the dealers in town (and that’s how Ronna gets mistakenly caught up with this leg of the story). Finally, there is Tiny (Breckin Meyer) and his crew of dudes that just want to go to Vegas to gamble and partake in naughty behavior (with giddily fun turns by Desmond Askew as Simon and Taye Diggs as Marcus). Again, all these stories come crashing together in such deliciously dark, creatively humorous ways that this movie needs to be seen at least a few more times to be fully appreciated for all its underground, criminal underworld fun. 3 'PCU' (1994) Image via 20th Century Fox Long before Jeremy Piven received notoriety for his role as the cut-throat agent Ari Gold in the bromance bro-fest television series Entourage, he played one of the funniest characters in 90s cinema. Yes, we’re of course talking about his portrayal of James 'Droz' Andrews in director Hart Bochner’s PCU, a film that was wayyy ahead of its time in terms of satirizing the polar sides of the “politically correct” spectrum. A scathing look at the socio-political landscape of college in the early 90s, this truly hilarious film doesn’t pull any punches, as everyone is a target for mockery. The storyline is basically your typical fish-out-of-water tale, where we follow the first days of school of college freshman Tom Lawrence (Chris Young). His POV is really ours, as we get to witness all the wildly wacky characters for the first time from his viewpoint. Droz leads a sort of “anti-frat house,” where the denizens are a wildly diverse collection of ne’er-do-wells and outcasts. Their house must raise an obscene amount of money or else they will be shut down and kicked off campus. So, they decide to have the grandest party the school has ever seen — except every group in the highly sensitive student body wants to protest the party for a litany of politically correct offenses, too long to list. Piven is a joy to watch, with Jon Favreau as the lumbering, stoned-out-of-his-mind Gutter, Sarah Trigger as the lovely Samantha, and Jessica Walter as the hard-as-nails school president Andrea Garcia-Thompson all delivering great performances. Lest we forget David Spade, who really plays to his strengths here; portraying the sniveling, over-privileged prep Rand McPherson. It’s a role he was born to play. Also, though, this movie probably has the best cast of day players and “under-5s” of any 90s film. There are so many characters that just have one line that is truly unforgettable and priceless. In light of recent times, where everything in society is scrutinized and put under the microscope, viewing this movie would really do a lot of people good, giving them permission to laugh at themselves. 2 'Cabin Boy' (1994) Image via Buena Vista Pictures Critically reviled, Cabin Boy is one of the funniest movies in the universe. It so perfectly highlights Chris Elliott’s extremely unique, if somewhat narrow, skill set — where he can be simultaneously annoying and geekily charming. Previously, Elliott was able to show off his comedy chops with his short-lived, astoundingly bizarre and funny series Get A Life. Charlie Kaufman was a writer on this show, to give one an idea of the type of strange plot lines devised. Anyway, Elliot was finally given his first feature film to go absolutely nuts with, director Adam Resnick's Cabin Boy, and the result is one of the merriest seafaring epics ever conceived. It’s just a shame that nobody saw this thing (or dismissed it simply because of the silly premise). The tale here is of a super obnoxious, entitled “fancy lad,” Nathanial Mayweather (Elliott). He has just graduated from private school and is set to take a luxury cruise ride on the “Queen Catherine” to Hawaii, where he will assist in managing a string of upscale hotels owned by his father (old-time comedy legend Bob Elliott, in a very satisfying cameo). Instead, he mistakenly boards “The Filthy Whore,” and ends up out at sea with a bunch of salty old fishermen. The cast is amazing in their gritty crudeness, with long-time character actors Ritch Brinkley (as Captain Greybar), Brion James (in the role of Big Teddy), Brian Doyle-Murray (as Skunk), and James Gammon (as the lovably cantankerous Paps) all committing fully to the ridiculous story. When they accidentally pick up the long-distance swimmer, Trina (Melora Walters, at her foul-mouthed best), things get even more deliciously absurd. Their subsequent adventures are all zany and highly creative, and eventually take a turn towards the mythical. This film was (believe it or not) produced by Tim Burton, so that should give you an idea of the level of wonderful weirdness contained within. If more people saw this movie right now, they would be thoroughly surprised at how much they would enjoy it. It’s criminally underrated, as it showcases some of the best comedic performances of the 90s, and features such hilariously low-budget “effects” (a lot of clay-mation and cheap puppets here) that many a Gen Z analog enthusiast would surely find it sidesplitting. 1 'Tommy Boy' (1995) Image via Paramount Pictures Speak to anyone from any age bracket, and, more often than not, they will tell you that they love Chris Farley. It was his mixture of pure, genuine innocence and warmth and unfettered devotion to getting a laugh, no matter the physical cost, that makes him a national treasure, even now. So, while he would star in several comedy films, none were as perfectly matched to his sweet skill set than director Peter Segal’s Tommy Boy. Indeed, if this movie seems tailor-made for Farley, it’s because it was; SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels worked with other studio executives to develop the script to give Farley the best possible arena to shine. Segal would further fine-tune the script by watching Farley and his co-star buddy, David Spade, riff off each other in real life, and then jot down those moments and add them into the story. The tale is another very simple one. Tommy (Farley) is a lovable, slightly moronic goofball who is wildly popular with his friends, but not the best student. When he somehow graduates from college, his father (Brian Dennehy) unfortunately passes away, and Tommy must join a nebbish, fastidious, un-popular worker at his dad’s brake pad company, Richard (Spade), and travel across the country to try to keep all of their accounts open, so the company doesn’t shutter. Obviously, the hijinks that Tommy and Richard get into along the way just keep getting funnier and funnier (culminating in the deer-in-the-car scene), and the bond of these seemingly disparate characters keeps getting deeper and deeper. There are nice supporting performances by Julie Warner, as Tommy’s surprising love interest, Michelle, and Dan Aykroyd, as the bottom-line oriented owner of a big company, Zalinsky, but Farley is really the sun of this comedic universe, with Spade delightfully orbiting him. It’s a crime that more people don’t talk about how funny Tommy Boy is. Hopefully, for anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of watching this truly heartwarming, hilarious film, they will be inspired to now. As Tommy would probably say, “That’s gonna leave a mark”…on the history of comedic cinema. Tommy Boy Release Date March 31, 1995 Runtime 98 Minutes