15 Best Netflix Original Comedy Movies to Stream Right Now

Don’t look up negative reviews of this star-studded satire; just enjoy the ride and heed the allegory. Inspired by modern-day society’s terrifying apathy toward the climate crisis, writer-director Adam McKay makes an incoming comet the looming apocalypse to which no one pays attention, least of all Meryl Streep’s U.S. president. (Make sure to watch the credits, though, to see her character get her just desserts.)

Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín has been on a biographical drama kick (see: Neruda, Jackie, Spencer), but this comedy horror presents a different kind of life story. Specifically, it’s more of an afterlife story. Here, Larraín cannily sinks his teeth into Augusto Pinochet, one of his home country’s most ruthless leaders, by portraying him as a centuries-old vampire with a thirst for blood, money, and power.

Adam Sandler’s comic work often overshadows his serious fare, such as this droll Noah Baumbach film, in which Sandler’s character and his onscreen half-brother (Ben Stiller) have to reckon with their loose cannon of a father (Dustin Hoffman) and his his latest wife, played by an always-scene-stealing Emma Thompson. You might not like the Meyerowitzes all the time, but you’ll certainly like their stories.

In a Bronx community already facing the perils of gentrification, the stakes are literally raised when vampires subject the New Yorkers to a reign of terror. Directed and cowritten by longtime Saturday Night Live director Oz Rodriguez, this witty comedy horror film follows the teenagers who fight back in the battle for their neighborhood’s survival and soul.

George Clooney might not beat the always-playing-himself accusations, but the actor can certainly riff on them. Here, in another Baumbach film costarring Sandler, the leading man plays the title character, an aging film star reckoning with his own identity, loneliness, and legacy. And Clooney is charming as ever as Baumbach presents a meta satire of Tinseltown.

Unlike with the fictional Jay Kelly’s Hollywood trajectory, fame doesn’t come easy to Rudy Ray Moore in this biopic about the real-life comedian and Blaxploitation filmmaker behind the character of Dolemite. Eddie Murphy turns in a Golden Globe-nominated performance in the lead role, but look for big names up and down the credits, including Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Wesley Snipes, and T.I.

Speaking of lead roles earning Golden Globe nods, observe Glen Powell’s breakout role in this thriller billed as a true story about a fake hit man. It sounds like typical popcorn fare, but this is a Richard Linklater film, and the high-concept premise belies an interesting exploration of self as viewers and protagonist Gary Johnson have to figure out which of his many personas is real.

Jamie Foxx gave another can’t-look-away performance, and John Boyega and Teyonah Parris got well-deserved leading roles in this sci-fi comedy about a secret cloning experiment targeting Black people. The film is farcical and funny, but also, as some viewers have pointed out, it’s reminiscent of horrifying real-life medical experimentation on people of color.

Why have one Coen Brothers tale when you could have six in one film? The title chapter is just the opening volley in this Western anthology. As they capture the American West with gorgeous cinematography, the Coens mine life and death for humor and irony. Think Fargo for the post-Civil War era, with the action transposed a bit farther west.

What happens when upstart fame doesn’t result in career longevity? Ask Radha, the protagonist of this semi-autobiographical comedy-drama from Radha Blank. The fictional Radha is a playwright who can’t find her way back into the theater world, and she’s a teacher who can’t get the respect of her students. So she pivots and becomes a rapper, throwing her frustrations and foibles into her lyrics with as much singularity as Blank shows with this personal story.