Comedy

The first in a trio of very broad comedies from director Sidney Poitier features Poitier and Bill Cosby as two small-time hustlers always looking for an angle. During a robbery at a swanky nightclub, they are relieved of their wallets, only to find later that one of them had a lottery ticket that came up a winner. The chase is on as they scour the city to find their prize, along the way running up against Harry Belafonte as a sly and suave mob kingpin (with a nod to Don Corleone) with his eye on the ticket as well.

John Candy stars in this John Hughes comedy as an idle, good-natured bachelor who's left in charge of his nephew and nieces during a family crisis. Unaccustomed to suburban life, fun-loving Uncle Buck soon charms his younger relatives Miles and Maizy with his hefty cooking and his new way of doing the laundry. But his carefree style doesn't impress everyone, including Tia (Jean Kelly), his rebellious teenage niece, and Chanice (Amy Madigan), his impatient girlfriend. Uncle Buck is the last person you'd think of to watch the kids.

Cheech & Chong's first cannabis comedy is also their best, a souvenir from the more carefree days before "Just Say No," when people did not feel so defensive about inhaling.

Melanie leaves her small, Alabama town for the glamour and fame of the New York fashion world. Successful in the business and in love, her boyfriend proposes. It should be a happy moment, but Melanie can't marry him until she gets a divorce from her husband, still in Alabama. As her first marriage is unbeknownst to her NYC friends, Melanie returns to her hometown to demand a divorce. There is something about getting back to your roots and Melanie realizes maybe her fast-track life isn't exactly what she wants after all.

One of the most memorably offbeat romantic comedies of the 1990s begins when a talk-radio veterinarian named Abby (Janeane Garofalo) takes a call from Brian (Ben Chaplin), the owner of a roller-skating Great Dane. Brian is intrigued by Abby's voice and asks if she'll agree to meet him. Insecure about her looks and her nonexistent love life, Abby agrees, but describes herself as a tall blonde, then begs her attractive neighbor Noelle (played by Uma Thurman) to meet with Brian in her place.

Nicolas Cage, Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz are the larcenous Firpo brothers. Bill (Cage) is a good-hearted guy doing his best to keep pathological Dave (Lovitz) and kleptomaniac Alvin (Carvey) out of trouble. But the two small-time crooks lure their brother into robbing a bank in the small town of Paradise, Pennsylvania, where pulling off the heist is a snap compared to getting out of town after a snowstorm hits. And, the brothers soon discover that all their big-city smarts are useless against the unsuspecting, good-hearted townsfolk who shower them with kindness at every turn.

In this crowd-pleasing 1983 comedy of high finance about a homeless con artist who becomes a Wall Street robber baron, Eddie Murphy consolidated the success of his startling debut in the previous year's 48 Hours and polished his slick-winner persona. The turnabout begins with an argument between super-rich siblings, played by Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche: Are captains of industry, they wonder, born or made? To settle the issue, the meanies construct a cruel experiment in social Darwinism.

One of the touchstone movies of the 1980s, Tootsie stars Dustin Hoffman as an out-of-work actor who disguises himself as a dowdy, middle-aged woman to get a part on a hit soap opera. The scheme works, but while he/she keeps up the charade, Hoffman's character comes to see life through the eyes of the opposite sex. The script by Larry Gelbart (with Murray Schisgal) is a winner, and director Sydney Pollack brings taut proficiency to the comedy and sensitivity to the relationship nuances that emerge from Hoffman's drag act.

An unreachable shot to the green. A hopeless romance. Driving-range pro Roy McAvoy can't resist an impossible challenge. Each is what he calls a defining moment. You define it. Or it defines you. With lady-killer charm and a game that can make par with garden tools, Kevin Costner rejoins Bull Durham filmmaker Ron Shelton for another funny tale of the games people play. For Costner's Roy, golf is a head - and - heart game. On both counts, that's where shrink Molly Griswold (Rene Russo) comes in.

The wedding from hell just sparked a match made in heaven! Comedy legend Carl Reiner directs the hottest couple of the year, Bette Midler & Dennis Farina in an irresistibly funny, incurably romantic motion picture that celebrates the "lighter" side of love. Happily divorced for 14 years, Lilly and Dan still have one thing in common, they hate each other with nuclear capacity. But after a knock-down, drag-out fight at their daughter's wedding, their pent-up hostility suddenly turns to unbridled passion!