Subgenre Sampler
Foreign Cinema > Black Comedy: 72 Films to Buy & Rent
- Bye Bye Morons (2020)
- Dir. Albert Dupontel
Feat. Virginie Efira, Albert Dupontel, Nicolas Marie…
- A French black comedy about a 43–year–old hairdresser who goes looking for her adopted son after finding out she is terminally ill.…
- It Must Be Heaven (2019)
- Dir. Elia Suleiman
Feat. Elia Suleiman, Tarik Kopty, Kareem Ghneim…
- Brilliantly absurdist comedy of errors following a Palestinian filmmaker who leaves his country for the West and the promise of a new and better…
- Parasite (2019)
- Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong Cho…
- An unemployed family with a bleak future systematically ingratiate themselves into the lives of a wealthy family in this brilliant,…
- Donbass (2018)
- Dir. Sergey Loznitsa
Feat. Tamara Yatsenko, Irina Zayarmiuk, Grigory Masliuk
- A 13–part exploration of the conflict between Ukraine and the Russian–supported Donetsk People's Republic throughout the…
- Square, The (2017)
- Dir. Ruben Östlund
Feat. Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West
- A smart and ambitious art world satire from the director of FORCE MAJEURE set in and around a cutting–edge contemporary art museum, where a…
- Rams (2016)
- Dir. Grimur Hakonarson
Feat. Sigurour Sigurjonsson, Theodor Juliusson
- Distinctively woolly Nordic tale of two estranged sheep–farming brothers as they attempt to save their flocks from pending eradication in a…
- Toni Erdmann (2016)
- Dir. Maren Ade
Feat. Peter Simonischek, Sandra Huller, Ingrid Bisu
- Brilliant, unclassifiable German comedy where a stern, career–focused woman is followed around a series of mundane board meetings and vapid…
- Force Majeure (Turist) (2014)
- Dir. Ruben Östlund
Feat. Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Kristofer Hivju…
- A barbed and incisive Swedish black comedy of gender politics, centred around a family on a skiing holiday in the French Alps who face a recognizable…
- In Order of Disappearance (2014)
- Dir. Hans Petter Moland
Feat. Stellan Skarsgard, Bruno Ganz, Pål Sverre Hagen…
- Stellan Skarsgård reunites with the director of ZERO KELVIN and A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN for this blackly comic Nordic noir.
He plays a somewhat…
- Mafia Kills Only in Summer, The (2014)
- Dir. Pierfrancesco Diliberto
Feat. Cristiana Capotondi, Pierfrancesco Diliberto, Alex Bisconti…
- Italian black comedy set in Palermo follows a young boy from childhood to maturity, and examines the pervasive influence the Cosa Nostra holds over…
- Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, A (2014)
- Dir. Roy Andersson
Feat. Holger Andersson, Nils Westblom
- Absurdist comedy that follows two hapless novelty salesman on a picaresque tour of the human condition.
- Wild Tales (Relatos Salvajes) (2014)
- Dir. Damian Szifron
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Darío Grandinetti
- Exhilarating anthology film combining six tales of revenge provides an ambitious smorgasbord of thrills, spills and blackly humorous gags that are…
- In the House (2012)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner…
- Set in a literary milieu, this deliciously warped meta drama from dir. Francois Ozon concerns the writings of a precocious 16–year–old…
- Lesson of Evil (Lesson of the Evil) (2012)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Yamada Takayuki, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Hideaki Ito
- Another manga adaption from director cult Takashi Miike based on the seinen manga on the same name.
A successful English teacher who is secretly a…
- Headhunters (2011)
- Dir. Morten Tyldum
Feat. Aksel Hennie, Synnove Macody Lund, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau…
- Jo Nesbo's blockbusting crime novel about a corporate headhunter moonlighting as an art thief gets an appropriately energetic treatment, and with its…
- Jackpot (Jo Nesbo's Jackpot) (2011)
- Dir. Magnus Martens
Feat. Kyrre Hellum, Mads Ousdal, Henrik Mestad…
- This second helping of Jo Nesbo's blackly comic tales has the hapless sole survivor of a strip club massacre taken in for questioning where his…
- Smuggler (2011)
- Dir. Katsuhito Ishii
Feat. Satoshi Tsumabuki, Masatoshi Nagase, Yasuko Matsuyuki…
- An entertainingly schizophrenic black comedy by way of cult Japanese dir. Katsuhito Ishii, whose penchant for the wacky and surreal drives this…
- Klown (2010)
- Dir. Mikkel Nørgaard
Feat. Frank Hvam, Casper Christensen, Marcuz Jess Petersen
- Danish comedians Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen play debauched versions of themselves on a weekend canoe trip away with their long–suffering…
- Dogtooth (Kynodontas) (2009)
- Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
Feat. Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis…
- An astringent, blackly comic tale of a modern Greek family whose adult children have been imprisoned in their home since birth.
Something of a…
- Micmacs (2009)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Feat. Dany Boon, Andre Dussollier, Jean-Pierre Marielle…
- The dir. of AMELIE and CITY OF LOST CHILDREN stays true to form(ula) with his visual chutzpah lavished upon another idealised scenario that this time…
- Robogeisha (2009)
- Dir. Noboru Iguchi
Feat. Aya Kiguchi
- Two sisters, recruited as assassins in a robotic geisha army, fight from the inside to take down the head of an evil corporation. More cartoonish,…
- Louise - Michel (2008)
- Dir. Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern
Feat. Yolande Moreau, Bouli Lanners, Benoit Poelvoorde…
- A black comedy treasure about a newly redundant factory worker who hires a dodgy hit man to take out her rich employers. The trouble starts when the…
- Pain in the Ass, A (L'emmerdeur) (2008)
- Dir. Francis Veber
Feat. Richard Berry, Patrick Timsit, Pascal Elbé…
- Fast–paced black comedy arises out of an unlikely friendship between a hitman and a depressive who find themselves sharing hotels.
Based on…
- Tony Manero (2008)
- Dir. Pablo Larrain
Feat. Alfredo Castro, Paola Lattus, Héctor Morales
- Unsettling drama set against the Pinochet regime in Chile in 1978, where a psychopathic disco fan steals and kills in an effort to become the…
- Ugly Melanie (Vilaine) (2008)
- Dir. Jean-Patrick Benes, Allan Mauduit
Feat. Marilou Berry, Frédérique Bel
- Mild black comedy set in a world of beauty or death, where ugly Melanie (Berry, not really ugly at all) plots a series of contrived punishments for…
- You the Living (2007)
- Dir. Roy Andersson
Feat. Jessica Lundberg, Elisabeth Helander, Björn Englund
- Master of the painstaking, deadpan vignette, Roy Andersson, continues his singular and obsessive vision with this absurdist comedy of…
- Bothersome Man, The (2006)
- Dir. Jens Lien
Feat. Trond Fausa Aurvaag
- A black comedy with a typically Scandinavian sense of absurdity and style, in which an amnesiac finds himself in an unfamiliar city with a new job,…
- Adam's Apples (2005)
- Dir. Anders Thomas Jensen
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Paprika Steen…
- Roguishly sardonic Danish black comedy about a sanguine country vicar (CASINO ROYALE’s Mikkelsen) who encounters resistance from a neo–Nazi…
- Ax, The (Le Couperet) (2005)
- Dir. Costa-Gavras
Feat. Jose Garcia, Karin Viard, Olivier Gourmet
- Dastardly satire from the always–edgy Costa Gavras plumbs the depths of a corporate downsizing victim (Garcia) who resorts to murderous ways in…
- Death of Mr Lazarescu, The (2005)
- Dir. Cristi Puiu
Feat. Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminita Gheorghiu
- Whirling, labyrinthine black comedy follows with interest the Kafkaesque plight of an ailing elderly drunk, whose stomach pains are met with…
- Ferpect Crime (Crimen Ferpecto) (2005)
- Dir. Alex de la Iglesia
Feat. Guillermo Toledo, Monica Cervera
- A spunky Spanish black comedy set almost entirely in a department store, where an obnoxious playboy salesman is blackmailed by a…
- Ordeal, The (Calvaire) (2004)
- Dir. Fabrice du Welz
Feat. Laurent Lucas
- Less gruelling than its title suggests, this is a macabre, blackly humorous slice of "redneck gothic" from Belgium, in which a cabaret singer's…
- Fear and Trembling (Stupeur et tremblements) (2003)
- Dir. Alain Corneau
Feat. Sylvie Testud
- A Belgian translator (Testud) takes a job in the corporate world of Tokyo (a city where she was born and grew up) hoping to rediscover the culture…
- Forest for the Trees, The (Der Wald vor lauter Bäumen) (2003)
- Dir. Maren Ade
Feat. Eva Löbau
- Impressively insightful German drama following an idealistic young teacher who starts a job at a Karlsruhe school and contends with her own…
- Love Me If You Dare (Jeux d'enfants) (2003)
- Dir. Yann Samuell
Feat. Marion Cotillard, Guillaume Canet
- Two French kids develop an intense relationship through escalating games of "dare" that bond and haunt them through a turbulent teenage and…
- Memories of Murder (Salinui chueok) (2003)
- Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Sang-kyung Kim, Roe-ha Kim
- A darkly lyrical thriller, set around the true–life hunt for South Korea's first documented serial killer in 1986, during the years of Chun…
- Vodka Lemon (2003)
- Dir. Hiner Saleem
Feat. Romen Avinian
- The residents of a diminishing Armenian village eke out meagre living in this sombre, if delightfully deadpan post–communist…
- Suicide Club (Suicide Circle) (2002)
- Dir. Sion Sono
Feat. Ryo Ishibashi, Akaji Maro, Masatoshi Nagase
- Off–beat Japanese thriller based on apparently real–life incidents in which groups of high–school children commit mass…
- Tanguy (2001)
- Dir. Etienne Chatiliez
Feat. Sabine Azema, Andre Dussollier, Laurent Chouchan
- A crowd–pleasing French comedy set around the efforts of a middle–aged couple to surreptitiously get their 28–year–old son to…
- 101 Reykjavik (2000)
- Dir. Baltasar Kormakur
Feat. Baltasar Kormakur, Victoria Abril
- An endearingly skewed yet unexpectedly poignant sex comedy moored in the 30–below temperatures of the Icelandic winter, about a…
- Barking Dogs Never Bite (Flandersui gae) (2000)
- Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Doona Bae
- An accomplished black comedy from Korea, which follows an unemployed lecturer's annoyance with the barking of neighbourhood dogs through to its…
- Attack the Gas Station (1999)
- Dir. Sang-Jin Kim
Feat. Sung-jae Lee, Oh-seong Yu, Seong-jin Kang…
- Four disaffected youths take hostage an entire gas station in this subversive, blackly–comic masterpiece from Korea.
Gleefully tearing apart…
- Cabaret Balkan (The Powder Keg) (1999)
- Dir. Goran Paskaljevic
Feat. Nikola Ristanovski
- Troubling split–portrait of the Serbian psyche, depicting a series of often violent incidents over the course of a single night in Belgrade,…
- Carriers Are Waiting, The (Les Convoyeurs Attendent) (1999)
- Dir. Benoit Maraige
Feat. Benoit Poelvoorde, Morgane Simon, Bouli Laners
- When journalist Benoit Poelvoorde decides his family MUST win top prize in local competition (which involves training his reluctant son to break the…
- Celebration, The (Festen) (1999)
- Dir. Thomas Vinterberg
Feat. Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo Larsen
- Conceived and executed under the "Dogma 95" manifesto, this corrosive black comedy sees the birthday celebrations of a wealthy family implode after…
- Hypnosis (Saimin) (1999)
- Dir. Masayuki Ochiai
Feat. Hiroshi Inagaki, Miho Kanno
- A mysterious force is causing a spate of bizarre suicides, creatively and gruesomely staged for our blackly comic pleasure, in this…
- Inheritors, The (Die Siebtelbauern) (1998)
- Dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky
- An earthily subversive drama set among a rural community of peasants and masters in an idyllic Austrian valley in the early 20th century.
When the…
- Quiet Family, The (Choyonghan kajok) (1998)
- Dir. Ji-woon Kim
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Min-sik Choi
- A deliciously deadpan black comedy in which a respectable family decide to leave the rat race behind, buy a hotel in remote mountains and lead more…
- For Roseanna (Roseanna's Grave) (1997)
- Dir. Paul Weiland
Feat. Mercedes Ruehl, Jean Reno
- Terminally–ill Mercedes Ruehl's dying wish is to be buried in the local cemetary, but the plots are filling up fast, thus sending off her…
- Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (1996)
- Dir. Sadjan Dragojevic
Feat. Dragan Bjelorgrlic, Nikola Kojo
- Seen in flashback from a ward in triage, the Bosnian war is portrayed in a riveting counter–play of nihilism and theatre, as a band of Serbian…
- Kamikaze Taxi (1995)
- Dir. Masato Harada
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Kazuya Takahashi, Reiko Kataoka
- An apprentice gangster fouls up his first major assignment and flees Tokyo in a taxi, the driver of which turns out to be a unlikely confident with a…
- Tango (1993)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Thierry Lhermitte, Philippe Noiret, Richard Bohringer
- Left by his wife, Thierry Lhermitte hits the road to track her down with the help of his misogynist uncle, Phillippe Noiret. Hitman Richard Bohringer…
- Wild Target (1992)
- Dir. Pierre Salvadori
Feat. Jean Rochefort, Guillaume Depardieu
- Jean Rochefort is a fastidious hitman whose mania for control, both at home and on assignment, is dangerously weakened when he apprentices Gerard…
- Tatie Danielle (1991)
- Dir. Etienne Chatiliez
Feat. Tsilla Chelton, Catherine Jacob, Isabelle Nanty…
- Brilliantly absurd black comedy about an elderly widow who does her best to make life miserable for her relatives. Tsilla Chelton is irresistible as…
- Trop Belle Pour Toi (Too Beautiful For You) (1989)
- Dir. Bertrand Blier
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Josiane Balasko, Carole Bouquet
- Car salesman Gerard Depardieu has a beautiful wife, but becomes infatuated with his plain yet passionate receptionist. Insightful, melancholy comedy.
- Shadows in Paradise (Varjoja paratiisissa) (1986)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Matti Pellonpaa, Kati Outinen, Sakari Kuosmanen
- The first film in Kaurismäki's Proletariat Trilogy follows a lonely garbage collector who finds romance with a check–out clerk (Kaurismäki…
- Funeral, The (1984)
- Dir. Juzo Itami
Feat. Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto
- A Buddhist funeral service for a brothel owner makes an ideal vehicle for both fiendish black comedy and social satire. An assured debut from the…
- What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Carmen Maura
- Carmen Maura plays a delirious feminist housewife in this early black–comic farce from Almodovar, here working at his freshest and most…
- Montenegro (1981)
- Dir. Dusan Makavejev
Feat. Susan Anspach, Erland Josephson, Marianna Jacobi
- A bored housewife gets caught up in Slavic sex and violence and discovers that she quite likes it. Unpredictable and weird, things become wickedly…
- Buffet Froid (Cold Cuts) (1979)
- Dir. Bertrand Blier
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, Jean Carmet…
- When his lost switchblade turns up as a murder weapon, petty crim Gerard Depardieu goes on the lam in a nightmarish Paris, several disreputable…
- Third Generation, The (Die Dritte Generation) (1979)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Hanna Schygulla, Margit Carstensen, Eddie Constantine…
- A scathing black comedy about terrorism, one of the final films of German provocateur Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
A hilariously indiscriminate plot…
- Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Preparez Vos Mouchoirs) (1978)
- Dir. Bertrand Blier
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Carole Laure, Patrick Dewaere
- Naive, frustrated husband Gerard Depardieu embarks on an unconventional quest to find his listless wife some happiness, firstly by 'lending' her to a…
- Despair (1977)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Dirk Bogarde
- Fassbinder's blackly comic adaptation of Nabakov's novel about delusion, depression and decline of the human spirit. Dirk Bogarde plays a Russian…
- Satan's Brew (Satansbraten) (1976)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Margit Carstensen, Volker Spengler, Ingrid Caven…
- Schizophrenic Fassbinder dramedy involving a German poet struck with writer's block that partakes in a number of moneymaking schemes involving his…
- Stroszek (1976)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Bruno S., Eva Mattes
- Powerful tragi–comedy follows a simple–minded Bruno S to America with a prostitute trying to escape her unsavoury past. The film's…
- Mother Kuesters Goes to Heaven (1975)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Brigitte Mira, Ingrid Caven, Karlheinz Bohm…
- A furiously witty political black comedy from New German Cinema iconoclast Rainer Werner Fassbinder, heavily inspired by the melodramas of Douglas…
- Seven Beauties (1975)
- Dir. Lina Wertmuller
Feat. Giancarlo Giannini, Shirley Stoler
- Wimpish Casanova Giancarlo Giannini is cast wherever the winds of WWII fling him: eventually into a German concentration camp run by Shirley Stoler…
- Martha (1974)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Margit Carstensen, Karlheinz Bohm
- Addressing his favourite subject, emotional cruelty, Dir. Fassbinder skillfully works a vein of pitch–black comedy in depicting Margit…
- Love and Anarchy (1973)
- Dir. Lina Wertmuller
Feat. Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Eros Pagni
- Cult director Lina Wertmuller's political parable about the would–be assassin of Mussolini who falls in love with a prostitute at his…
- A Gorgeous Girl Like Me (Une Belle Fille Comme Moi) (1972)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Bernadette Lafont, Andre Dussollier
- Twisted French black comedy of a licentious, manipulative murderess recounting her sordid past to a green criminology student. Dripping in silly…
- Fists in the Pocket (1965)
- Dir. Marco Bellochio
Feat. Lou Castel, Paola Pitagora, Marino Mase
- A ferocious intensity pervades this bitter yet utterly startling tale of a family afflicted with epilepsy, blindness and frustration, unafforded the…
- Dov'e La Liberta...? (Where Is Freedom?) (1954)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Toto, Vera Molnar, Nita Dover
- Legendary Italian comic Toto plays a barber who cannot abide the hypocritical society he is thrust into after spending two decades in prison, and…