Comedy

Winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, The Sting, is one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed films of all time. Set in the 1930s, this intricate comedy caper deals with an ambitious small-time crook (Robert Redford) and a veteran con man (Paul Newman) who seek revenge on the vicious crime lord (Robert Shaw) who murdered one of their gang. How this group of charlatans puts "the sting" on their enemy makes for the greatest double-cross in movie history, complete with an amazing surprise finish.

The "lost" sleeper hit of 1980 has since become one of the most revered cult movies of all time, largely due to its bawdy, irreverent story about the art and artifice of filmmaking and an outrageously clever performance by Peter O'Toole. As megalomaniacal film director Eli Cross, O'Toole plays a larger-than-life figure whose ability to manipulate reality is like a power-trip narcotic. The focus of his latest mind game is a fugitive (Steve Railsback) recruited to replace a stuntman killed during a recent on-set accident.

Erin Grant (Demi Moore) must confront the naked truth: to take on the system, she must first take it off. Bounced from her job, she needs money if she's to have any chance of winning back custody of her child. The pulsating gentlemen's club world of exotic dreamgirls and whooping patrons is skewered in this lively comedy/drama co-starring Burt Reynolds, Armand Assante, Ving Rhames and Robert Patrick. Erin strips to conquer, then faces unintended circumstances when a horny hound dog of a Congressman (Reynolds) fixates on her.

Bill Murray has joined the Army, and the Army will never be the same! When John Winger (Murray) loses his job, his car, his apartment and his girlfriend-all in one day-he decides he only has one option: volunteer for Uncle Sam. He talks his friend Russell (Ramis) into enlisting with him. Where else, they figure, can they help save the world for democracy...and meet girls! John and Russell find basic training a snap: They are arrested twice, have endless run-ins with their drill sergeant (Oates) and get into a big mess at a female mud-wrestling match.

Acclaimed director John Badham delivers a winning combination of action, suspense, comedy, and romance! Convinced that a dangerous escaped convict (Aidan Quinn) is headed for his ex-girlfriend's (Madeleine Stowe), a pair of Seattle detectives (Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez) stakeout her apartment. The watch remains routine until one of the detectives begins a high-risk romance with the woman under surveillance -- jeopardizing not only the partners' careers ... But also their lives!

Tom Hanks was a relatively unknown TV actor with a sitcom as his biggest credit when relatively unknown director Ron Howard (best known for his own sitcom acting) cast him in this surprise hit. It made stars of Hanks, Daryl Hannah, and John Candy and an A-list director out of Howard. Hannah is a mermaid who comes to Manhattan in search of Hanks, the guy she has twice saved from drowning. Hanks runs a business with his lovable blowhard brother (Candy), whose goal in life is to have a letter published in Penthouse.

Zoinks! Two years after a clash of egos forced Mystery Inc. to close it's doors, Scooby-Doo and his clever crime-solving cohorts Fred, Daphne, Shaggy and Velma are individually summoned to Spooky Island to investigate a series of paranormal incidents at the ultra-hip Spring Break hot spot. Concerned that his frightfully popular resort might truly be haunted, Spooky Island owner Emile Mondavarious tries to reunite those notoriously meddling detectives to solve the mystery before his supernatural secret scares away the college crowds.

The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming looks overly cute now, but really, it was pretty hip for 1966. The cold war was in full deep-freeze when this well-meaning comedy tried to thaw things out a little: a Soviet submarine beaches on the New England coast, sending the locals into a paranoid frenzy. The chief pleasure of the film is Alan Arkin as the sub captain; this was Arkin's first major film role, and he had already mastered his exasperated, slow-burning frown (to say nothing of mastering his Russian dialogue).

The director and stars of 1998's You've Got Mail scored a breakthrough hit with this hugely popular romantic comedy from 1993, about a recently engaged woman (Meg Ryan) who hears the sad story of a grieving widower (Tom Hanks) on the radio and believes that they're destined to be together. She's single in New York, he lives in Seattle with a young son, but the cross-country attraction proves irresistible, and pretty soon Meg's on a westbound flight. What happens from there is ...

This comedy is based on Dan Jenkins's novel about two good-old-boy pro football players (Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson). Best friends on the field and off, they're also friendly competitors in the arena of love for the same woman (Jill Clayburgh), who happens to be the daughter of their team's owner. Directed by Michael Ritchie, who was something of a poet of films about competition in the 1970s and early 1980s, this movie has a certain shaggy charm, abetted by Reynolds's knowing way with a one-liner.