Comedy

Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear and Cuba Gooding Jr. star in James L. Brooks' 1998 Best Picture nominated hit comedy, "As Good As It Gets." Nicholson gives a show-stopping performance as Melvin Udall, an obsessive-compulsive novelist with Manhattan's meanest mouth. But when his neighbor Simon is hospitalized, Melvin is forced to baby-sit Simon's dog. And that unexpected act of kindness along with waitress Carol Connelly - helps put Melvin back in the human race. Magically written, directed and acted, As Good As It Gets is the best and funniest romantic comedy of the year.

Brendan Fraser stars in Bedazzled as Elliot, a dweebish office worker who yearns for Alison (played by Frances O'Connor from Mansfield Park), a coworker who barely knows he exists. When he blithely says he'd give his soul for Alison, the Devil appears (Elizabeth Hurley, Austin Powers) and says she'll give him seven wishes in exchange. Elliot is dubious at first, but agrees out of desperation. Unfortunately, his every wish always leaves the Devil a little wiggle room. When he asks to be rich and powerful, the Devil turns him into a drug lord beset on all sides.

Devotees of Neil Simon's repartee, such as in his Goodbye Girl and Brighton Beach Memoirs, will enjoy this earlier tale of domestic dispute between newlyweds. Corie (Jane Fonda) is the young housewife trying to keep life exciting while making a home for her and her husband, Paul (Robert Redford), on the fifth floor of a Greenwich Village walkup apartment. He's working hard at starting his career as lawyer; she's eager to be romantic and spontaneous; and the two have plenty to squabble about.

With enough lively banter to keep its customers happy for years, Barbershop is a loose, lanky comedy with its heart--and its humor--in all the right places. Ice Cube plays Calvin, reluctant heir to his late father's barbershop on Chicago's South Side--a neighborhood institution that seems like a trap for a guy with bigger dreams. But Calvin is devoted to his employees and local customers, and when he makes an ill-considered deal with a loan shark (Keith David), the future of the barbershop hangs in the balance.

Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon are The Banger Sisters, two former groupies who got it on with every late '60s music legend with a guitar and a Y-chromosome. Now, more than two decades later, Suzette (Hawn) is still her brassy self, and Lavinia (Sarandon) is a prim, proper suburban wife and mother. When their two worlds collide, the ensuing "big bang" will rock the house down with laughter!

Fulfilling a long-time fantasy, Doc Brown has decided to live in the Old West of the 1880s. But when he's in danger of meeting an untimely end, Marty travels back into the past to rescue him. There just one problem: Doc is so smitten by schoolteacher Clara Clayton (Mary Steenbergen) that he's become a little distracted. Now it's up to Marty to keep Doc out of trouble, get the DeLorean running, and put the past, present and future on track so they can all get back to where and when they belong.

Marty and Doc have barely recovered from their first time-traveling adventure when they launch themselves once more into the space-time continuum. But this time around, their attempt to fine tune the future in the year 2015 creates an outlandish, alternate Hill Valley where bully Biff Tannen is rich, powerful and Marty's dad! Now, their only chance to fix the present is by going back to 1955 all over again. But can Doc and Marty patch up the past without igniting a universe-shredding time paradox?

Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis topped his breakaway hit Romancing the Stone with Back to the Future, a joyous comedy with a dazzling hook: what would it be like to meet your parents in their youth? Billed as a special-effects comedy, the imaginative film (the top box-office smash of 1985) has staying power because of the heart behind Zemeckis and Bob Gale's script. High schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox, during the height of his TV success) is catapulted back to the '50s where he sees his parents in their teens, and accidentally changes the history of how Mom and Dad met.

Rodney Dangerfield (Caddyshack, Meet Wally Sparks) makes the grade with this laugh-riot comedy that's in a class of its own! Higher education will never be the same when co-stars Sally Kellerman, Robert Downey, Jr., Sam Kinison, Ned Beatty and more join the maniac as he takes on the brainiacs! Thornton Melon's (Dangerfield) son is a college misfit, so Thornton's lending some fatherly support...by enrolling as a fellow freshman! Who cares if the owner of the "Tall and Fat" clothing empire never finished high school?

When you get lost between the moon and New York City (ahem), chances are you'll find yourself taking another look at this hit comedy starring Oscar-nominated Dudley Moore as the charmingly witty, perpetually drunken millionaire Arthur Bach. Arthur falls in love with a waitress (Liza Minelli) who doesn't care about his money, but unfortunately Arthur's stern father wants him to marry a Waspy prima donna. The young lush turns to his wise and loyal butler (Oscar-winner John Gielgud) for assistance and advice.