The Last Comedy to Win Best Picture?

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 9:28pm

I've been wondering for a while, maybe someone here with vast cineMUH knowldge can help me out here...

so:

What was the last real "comedy" to win the Academy Award for best picture?

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 9:31pm

Shakespeare in Love. (1999)

Or, if you don't count that as a "real comedy," I think you'd have to go all the way back to Annie Hall (1978?).

Updated On: 1/10/07 at 09:31 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 9:31pm

Believe it was Annie Hall

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 9:32pm

Or would Driving Miss Daisy (1990) count?

[CapnHook]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 9:36pm

oscars.org has the database of nominees and winners. No need to ask for someone "with vast cineMUH knowldge."

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 9:36pm

I'd certainly consider "Shakespeare in Love" a romantic comedy.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 9:37pm

I still think it should be Annie Hall but to each his own

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 9:41pm

thanks for the link, Capn. I had no idea that existed!

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 10:20pm

Shakespeare in Love is correct.

And there have been VERY few comedies to win Best Picture.

*without cheating and looking at a list*

It Happened One Night
You Can't Take It With You
The Apartment (but I would argue that's a comedy/drama)
Tom Jones
The Sting (possibly?)
Annie Hall
Shakespeare In Love

In the "dramedy" department, I would put Driving Miss Daisy and Terms of Endearment.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 11:47pm

Don't forget Schindler's List.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 12:09am

I would consider CHICAGO to be a musical comedy.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 12:11am

True.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 12:12am

The last comedy to be nominated for Best Director was, I believe, Robert Altman's THE PLAYER.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 12:16am

ANNIE HALL is one of the least funny movies I've ever seen. People say it is BRILLIANT. I've heard some people describe it as the best film ever made. I found it to be agonizingly boring. I know that Diane Keaton is the queen of overacting, but really, to give her an Oscar for THAT? Please.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 12:26am

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE is a comedy? I didn't laugh once during the damn movie. However, I did chuckle in certain parts of DRIVING MISS DAISY and TERMS OF ENDEAREMENT, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them comedies.

That said, I would say FORREST GUMP. Then again, humor is relative, but I remember the entire theater cracking up throughout -- including me.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 12:34am

Well, I think ANNIE HALL is excellent and that Keaton is one of the best living actresses. Perhaps I just enjoy her.

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE is, indeed, a comedy. I don't think it's best picture material, but it certainly was a comedy. So much a comedy that I don't think it can possibly be seen as a drama...but it's really not very good. It's charming.

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT is the opposite of a comedy! Crazy!

FORREST GUMP has its moments, but I don't think it can qualify for a comedy.

But then again, I would say CRASH. Just not in the standard sense of the word "comedy."

[StageManager2]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 12:50am

How about AMERICAN BEAUTY? Can satire be comedy? A dark comedy, perhaps?

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 12:52am

Forrest Gump would be more of a satire than a comedy, although there is a LOT of subtle comedy that a lot of people seem to disregard. It's not really a movie that you should take at face value, as a lot of people seem to have done.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 12:58am

AMERICAN BEAUTY is largely funny, but the ending transforms the entire film to have an overall depressing tone. I don't think it can quality as a drama.

Now that I think about it, CHICAGO isn't really a drama or a comedy - it's floating somewhere on the border in between.

I still think the safest and most correct answer is SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE.

[Pinguin]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 5:25am

I wouldn't call Forrest Gump a comedy, it's largely aiming for tears, I think...as is American Beauty, IMO.

Shakespeare in Love would count as a romantic comedy, I think...I'm sure the fact that it's a period piece makes it easy to overlook it as a comedy.

I think Annie Hall is often hysterically funny...the scene in line where he brings out the writer is one of my favorite things on earth, and as a girl who's from LA but primarily now lives in NYC I LOVE this line:

"I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light."

[D2]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 8:34am

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE won, in part, as a backlash to all of the "epic" films that had been winning in the immediately preceding years - TITANIC, THE ENGLISH PATIENT, etc...

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 9:02am

Terms of Endearment is hilarious until...cough...cough...

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 9:03am

Actually, you have it backwards. It's not funny UNTIL...

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 9:04am

Shakespeare In Love is a brilliant film, with one of the best and "smartest" screenplays of the past 20 years. The movie gets better each time I watch it.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 1/11/07 at 9:05am

I found it to be an overhyped piece of boredom.