Edward Regan Murphy is an American comedian, actor, and singer. He shot to fame on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which he was a regular cast member from 1980 to 1984. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest comedians of all time. Murphy received a Grammy Award, and an Emmy Award. In 2015, Murphy was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and in 2023 the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen and produced by Charles H. Joffe from a screenplay written by Allen and Marshall Brickman. Allen co-stars as a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl but falls in love with his best friend's mistress. Meryl Streep and Anne Byrne also star.
The Goodbye Girl is a 1977 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Herbert Ross, written by Neil Simon and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings and Paul Benedict. The film, produced by Ray Stark, centers on an odd trio of characters: a struggling actor who has sublet a Manhattan apartment from a friend, the current occupant, and her precocious young daughter.
Stranger Than Paradise is a 1984 American black-and-white absurdist deadpan comedy film directed, co-written and co-edited by Jim Jarmusch, and starring jazz musician John Lurie, former Sonic Youth drummer-turned-actor Richard Edson, and Hungarian-born actress and violinist Eszter Balint. It features a minimalist plot in which the main character, Willie, is visited by Eva, his cousin from Hungary. Eva stays with him for ten days before going to Cleveland. Willie and his friend Eddie go to Cleveland to visit her, and the three then take a trip to Florida. The film is shot entirely in single long takes with no standard coverage.
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most important stand-up comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974. He was listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him first on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.
Trading Places is a 1983 American comedy film directed by John Landis, with a screenplay by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod. Starring Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliott, and Jamie Lee Curtis, the film tells the story of an upper-class commodities broker (Aykroyd) and a poor street hustler (Murphy) whose lives cross when they are unwittingly made the subjects of an elaborate bet to test how each man will perform when their life circumstances are swapped.
Martin Brest is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. After his feature debut, Going in Style (1979), he directed the action comedies Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Midnight Run (1988), which were critical and commercial hits.
Funny Lady is a 1975 American biographical musical comedy-drama film and the sequel to the 1968 film Funny Girl. The film stars Barbra Streisand, James Caan, Omar Sharif, Roddy McDowall and Ben Vereen.
The Power and the Glory is a 1933 pre-Code film starring Spencer Tracy and Colleen Moore, written by Preston Sturges, and directed by William K. Howard. The picture's screenplay was Sturges' first script, which he delivered complete in the form of a finished shooting script, for which he received $17,500 and a percentage of the profits. Profit-sharing arrangements, now a common practice in Hollywood, were then unusual and gained Sturges much attention.
Stop Making Sense is an independently produced 1984 American concert film featuring a live performance by the American rock band Talking Heads. Directed by Jonathan Demme, it was shot over four nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre in December 1983, when Talking Heads were touring to promote their 1983 album Speaking in Tongues. Stop Making Sense includes performances of the first Talking Heads single, "Psycho Killer" (1977), through to their most recent hit at the time, "Burning Down the House" (1983). It also includes songs from the solo career of frontman David Byrne and by Tom Tom Club, the side project of drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth.
Eddie Murphy Raw is a 1987 American stand-up comedy film starring Eddie Murphy and directed by Robert Townsend. It was Murphy's second feature stand-up comedy film, following Eddie Murphy Delirious. However, unlike Delirious, Raw received a wide theatrical release. The 90-minute show was filmed at the Felt Forum, a venue in the Madison Square Garden complex in New York City. The film was released in the United States on December 18, 1987. As of January 2022, it is the highest-grossing stand-up comedy concert film ever released, making $50.5 million in the United States and Canada.
Harlem Nights is a 1989 American crime comedy-drama film starring and directed by Eddie Murphy, who also wrote. The film co-stars Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, Danny Aiello, Michael Lerner, Della Reese, and Murphy's older brother Charlie. The film was released theatrically on November 17, 1989, by Paramount Pictures. The film tells the story of "Sugar" Ray and Vernest "Quick" Brown as a team running a nightclub in the late 1930s in Harlem while contending with gangsters and corrupt police officials.
48 Hrs. is a 1982 American buddy cop action comedy film directed and co-written by Walter Hill, co-written by Larry Gross, Steven E. de Souza and Roger Spottiswoode, and starring Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy as a cop and a convict, respectively, who team up to catch two hardened criminals. The title refers to the amount of time they have to solve the crime.
A concert film or concert movie is a film that showcases a live performance from the perspective of a concert goer, the subject of which is an extended live performance or concert by either a musician or a stand-up comedian.
Critical Condition is a 1987 American comedy film starring Richard Pryor and directed by Michael Apted. The film was released in the United States on January 16, 1987.
Norbit is a 2007 American romantic comedy film, directed by Brian Robbins, and co-written by, co-produced by, and starring Eddie Murphy. The film co-stars Thandiwe Newton, Terry Crews, Cuba Gooding Jr., Eddie Griffin, Katt Williams, Marlon Wayans, and Charlie Murphy. It was released by DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures on February 9, 2007. Eddie Murphy portrays multiple roles including the eponymous Norbit and his abusive obese wife Rasputia; regretting ever having married her, Norbit decides he has had enough of her behavior at about the same time that his childhood sweetheart Kate returns to his life with plans for the orphanage where Norbit and Kate grew up. Norbit risks everything to be with her, but must also contend with Rasputia and her brothers, who have an agenda of their own.
The Sunshine Boys is a 1975 American comedy film directed by Herbert Ross and produced by Ray Stark, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and based on the 1972 play of the same name by Neil Simon, about two legendary comics brought together for a reunion and revival of their famous act. The cast included real-life experienced vaudevillian actor George Burns as Lewis, Walter Matthau as Clark, and Richard Benjamin as Ben, with Lee Meredith, F. Murray Abraham, Rosetta LeNoire, Howard Hesseman, and Ron Rifkin in supporting roles.
Walter Latham is an American film and comedy producer born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Latham, who is African-American, founded a comedy production company, Latham Entertainment, which helped launch the careers of noted comedians and comic actors, including Bernie Mac, Steve Harvey, and Mo'Nique. His releases, The Original Kings of Comedy, Queens of Comedy, Latham Entertainment Presents, and Bad Boys of Comedy have grossed more than $200 million worldwide. He currently resides in Franklin, TN with his wife and business partner,Yulonda.
Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip is a 1982 American stand-up comedy film directed by Joe Layton. The film stars and was produced by Richard Pryor, who also wrote the film with Paul Mooney. The film is released alongside Pryor's album of the same name in 1982, and was the most financially lucrative of the comedian's concert films. The material includes Pryor's frank discussion of his drug addiction and of the night that he caught on fire while freebasing cocaine in 1980.
Airport is a 1970s film series consisting of four airplane-themed disaster films: Airport, Airport 1975, Airport '77 and The Concorde... Airport '79. They are based on the 1968 novel Airport by Arthur Hailey. The four films grossed $387.5 million worldwide.
