Screwball comedy is a film subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, beginning in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1950s, that satirizes the traditional love story. It has secondary characteristics similar to film noir, distinguished by a female character who dominates the relationship with the male central character, whose masculinity is challenged, and the two engage in a humorous battle of the sexes.
Slapstick films are comedy films using slapstick humor, a physical comedy that includes pratfalls, tripping, falling, practical jokes, and mistakes are highlighted over dialogue, plot and character development. The physical comedy in these films contains a cartoonish style of violence that is predominantly harmless and goofy in tone.
Punch-Drunk Love is a 2002 American absurdist romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and starring Adam Sandler, Emily Watson and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It follows an entrepreneur with social anxiety who falls in love with his sister's co-worker. The film was produced by Revolution Studios and New Line Cinema, and distributed by Columbia Pictures.
Ryan Thomas Gosling is a Canadian actor. Prominent in both independent films and major studio features, his films have grossed over $2 billion worldwide. Gosling has received various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, and nominations for three Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Melissa Ann McCarthy is an American actress, screenwriter, and producer. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards, and nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. McCarthy was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2016, and she has been featured multiple times in annual rankings of the highest-paid actresses in the world. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her #22 in its list of the 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century.
Timothy David Olyphant is an American actor. He made his acting debut in an off-Broadway theater in 1995, in The Monogamist, and won the Theatre World Award for his performance, and then originated David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries in 1996. He then branched out to film; in the early years of his career, he was often cast in supporting villainous roles, most notably in Scream 2 (1997), Go (1999), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), A Man Apart (2003), and The Girl Next Door (2004).
Elizabeth Banks is an American actress, director, and producer. She is known for playing chaperone Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015) and an ICCA commentator in the Pitch Perfect film series (2012–2017). She made her directorial film debut with Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), whose $69 million opening-weekend gross set a record for a first-time director. She has since directed the action comedy Charlie's Angels (2019) and the horror comedy film Cocaine Bear (2023). Banks founded the film and television production company Brownstone Productions in 2002 with her husband, Max Handelman.
Dirty Love is a 2005 American romantic comedy film written by Jenny McCarthy and directed by John Mallory Asher. The film stars McCarthy alongside Eddie Kaye Thomas, Carmen Electra, Victor Webster and Kam Heskin.
Nico Lathouris is an Australian actor and writer. He is best known for his roles as George Polides in the 1993 romantic comedy film The Heartbreak Kid and as George Poulos in the 1994 television teen drama spin-off Heartbreak High. In both, he plays a Greek Australian patriarch, father of the protagonist, Nick. Lathouris was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film at the 1993 Australian Film Institute Awards.
John Tucker Must Die is a 2006 teen comedy film directed by Betty Thomas. The film stars Jesse Metcalfe, Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Sophia Bush, Arielle Kebbel, and Jenny McCarthy. The plot centers around a trio of teenage girls who plan to break the heart of school basketball star John Tucker after they learn he has been secretly dating all three and pledging each is "the one". They recruit a shy, unpopular girl in their scheme to publicly humiliate him.
Sex comedy, erotic comedy or more broadly sexual comedy is a genre in which comedy is motivated by sexual situations and love affairs. Although "sex comedy" is primarily a description of dramatic forms such as theatre and film, literary works such as those of Ovid and Giovanni Boccaccio may be considered sex comedies.
Kam Erika Heskin is an American actress. She began her career playing Caitlin Deschanel on the NBC daytime soap opera Sunset Beach (1998–1999), before appearing in films Planet of the Apes (2001) and Catch Me If You Can (2002). Heskin went on in 2003 to play Elizabeth Bennet in an independent film Pride & Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy, Robin in Charmed (2004), and Paige Morgan in The Prince and Me film franchise (2006–2010).
Jennifer Ann McCarthy-Wahlberg is an American actress, model, and television personality. She began her career in 1993 as a nude model for Playboy magazine and was later named their Playmate of the Year. McCarthy then had a television and film acting career, beginning as a co-host on the MTV game show Singled Out (1995–1997) and afterwards starring in the eponymous sitcom Jenny (1997–1998), as well as films including BASEketball (1998), Scream 3 (2000), Dirty Love (2005), John Tucker Must Die (2006), and Santa Baby (2006). In 2013, she hosted her own television talk show The Jenny McCarthy Show, and became a co-host of the ABC talk show The View, appearing on the program until 2014. Since 2019, McCarthy has been a judge on the Fox musical competition show The Masked Singer.
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a 2009 American romantic comedy film directed by Mark Waters. The script was written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, based on Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. Filming spanned February 19, 2008 to July 2008 in Rhode Island with stars Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Lacey Chabert, Emma Stone, and Michael Douglas. The film was released on May 1, 2009.
"Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land" is the twenty-first episode of the fourth season of the American television comedy series 30 Rock, and the 79th overall episode of the series. It was written by supervising producer Matt Hubbard and directed by Beth McCarthy-Miller. The episode originally aired on NBC in the United States on May 13, 2010. Guest stars in this episode include John Anderson, Elizabeth Banks, Jon Hamm, Kristin McGee, Julianne Moore, Michael Sheen, Jason Sudeikis, and Dean Winters.
Jimmy O. Yang is a Hong Kong-American actor and stand-up comedian. As an actor, he is best known for starring as Jian-Yang in the HBO comedy series Silicon Valley, as Dr. Chan Kaifang in the Netflix comedy series Space Force, and as Josh Lin in the Netflix romantic comedy film Love Hard (2021).
Julian McCullough is an American actor, writer, producer, and comedian best known for his appearances on Love You, Mean It with Whitney Cummings, Chelsea Lately, and Guy Code.
The Happytime Murders is a 2018 American adult puppet buddy cop crime action black comedy film directed by Brian Henson and written by Todd Berger from a story by Berger and Dee Austin Robertson. The film stars Melissa McCarthy, Bill Barretta, Joel McHale, Maya Rudolph, Leslie David Baker, and Elizabeth Banks. Set in a world where humans and living puppets co-exist, the film follows a puppet private investigator and a human police detective who must solve a murder spree of retired sitcom stars.
Harper Steele is an American writer. She starred in the 2024 documentary Will & Harper with actor Will Ferrell. She worked at Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2008, serving as head writer from 2004 through 2008. Her accolades include one Primetime Emmy Award from four nominations.
