100 great female com­e­dy per­for­mances – part 1

Com­e­dy may be sub­jec­tive, but every­one loves a good laugh. Whether its func­tion is to edu­cate, enlight­en or sim­ply enter­tain, a good joke is one of the most pow­er­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools we have. Humour can be refined or risqué, scorn­ful or self-dep­re­cat­ing. It has the capac­i­ty to inspire, shock and intro­duce new ways of see­ing the world. Down the years, cin­e­ma has pro­vid­ed some tru­ly hys­ter­i­cal, unfor­get­table moments, be it in a clas­sic Hol­ly­wood screw­ball, a less­er-seen ​’80s slap­stick gem, a scathing con­tem­po­rary satire or some­thing else entire­ly. The women fea­tured in this list are not nec­es­sar­i­ly renowned come­di­ans, but they have each giv­en us at least one great com­ic per­for­mance. Here, in the first of five parts, is our hat tip to the finest female actors to have ever tick­led our fun­ny bone.

Hell hath no fury like a scorned Streep. As fad­ing film star Made­line Ash­ton, she embod­ies the very worst parts of you and me; ungrace­ful and unre­lent­ing, she spits ven­om, cas­trates lovers and glee­ful­ly stabs her old­est fren­e­mies in the back. And yet, when we look beyond the car­i­ca­ture of the hag cling­ing to youth with clenched talons, we see the strug­gle many women face in a soci­ety so eagar to slap an expi­ra­tion date on our val­ue. This is Meryl at her cack­ling, hyper­bol­ic best. Aimee-lee Abra­ham

The clue is in the title. Bar­bra Streisand was the obvi­ous choice for the part of real-life ​’30s come­di­enne Fan­ny Brice in William Wyler’s roman­tic musi­cal, see­ing as how she’d pre­vi­ous­ly starred in the Broad­way ver­sion for most of its orig­i­nal run. Yet no one could have pre­dict­ed just how suc­cess­ful­ly she would tran­si­tion to the sil­ver screen. Already a pop­u­lar face in Amer­i­ca at the time of the film’s release, Fun­ny Girl sent Streisand stratos­pher­ic, earn­ing her the Oscar in 1969 and leav­ing audi­ences with one of the endur­ing female per­for­mances of the era. Adam Wood­ward

Being forced to pick just one of the per­for­mances in George Cukor’s unim­peach­able, female-dom­i­nat­ed ensem­ble com­e­dy from 1939, we’d have to thank Ros­alind Rus­sell and Joan Craw­ford for their ster­ling efforts, but the cham­pagne and caviar goes to film-steal­ing bit play­er Mary Boland for her out-and-out hilar­i­ous turn as daffy blue blood, the Count­ess de Lave. Turn­ing up in the sec­ond half of the film when our hero is holed up in a board­ing house in Reno, her pres­ence man­ages the unthink­able feat of mak­ing an extreme­ly fun­ny film feel like it was just warm­ing up until her grand entrance. David Jenk­ins

Few com­ing-of-age movies car­ry such a weighty cul­tur­al lega­cy; the what­ev­ers and ughs and as-ifs burned into our col­lec­tive lex­i­con. Paving the way for dozens of spin-offs, Clue­less is pio­neer­ing. But unlike the mean-spir­it­ed Regi­na George or mur­der­ous cliques of Jaw­break­er, Ali­cia Silverstone’s Cher is a good egg served with a hearty dose of side-eye and gar­nished with a sick­en­ing­ly good plaid col­lec­tion. Despite the brat­tish exte­ri­or, she has us on her side from the start. ALA

Despite its trou­bling rape scene (which direc­tor Spike Lee pub­li­cal­ly admit­ted his regret over around the film’s 25^th anniver­sary), She’s Got­ta Have It remains a vital exam­i­na­tion of black female sex­u­al­i­ty. In her first ever film role, Tra­cy Camil­la Johns brings charis­ma, humour and intel­li­gence to the role of sex­u­al­ly lib­er­at­ed Brook­lynite Nola Dar­ling, who is open­ly dat­ing three very dif­fer­ent men. Johns has since reunit­ed with Lee twice, in 1990’s Mo’ Bet­ter Blues and 2012’s Red Hook Sum­mer. AW

Char­l­ize Theron play­ing an unlike­able char­ac­ter seems like an oxy­moron. But Mavis is tru­ly an irri­tat­ing anti-hero: despite her suc­cess as a YA writer and her unde­ni­able attrac­tive­ness at 37, she is bit­ter and hates most things and peo­ple. When she goes back to the home­town she despis­es to recon­quer her ex Bud­dy (Patrick Wil­son), she tries to con­vince her­self that mar­riage and father­hood make him mis­er­able and that only she can help him. Drink­ing, insult­ing every­one with ter­ri­ble puns, pity­ing her­self and revers­ing to the sweet flir­ta­tious girl for Bud­dy, Mavis allows Theron to dis­play her incred­i­ble range and sad­ly under­used sar­cas­tic streak. Manuela Laz­ic

Goldie Hawn is almost unrecog­nis­able when we first meet her rich bitch, Joan­na, on the yacht where she is spend­ing the sum­mer with her hus­band in Gar­ry Marshall’s strange­ly endear­ing and offen­sive­ly sex­ist ​’80s rom-com. Her hair is scraped off her face which makes her look severe and her rude­ness to a hard work­ing car­pen­ter (played by her real-life spouse Kurt Rus­sell) makes you hate her from the get-go. Hawn then inhab­its a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent role after her char­ac­ter gets amne­sia, show­cas­ing her ver­sa­til­i­ty as she switch­es from in con­trol to utter­ly help­less with ease. Kather­ine McLaughlin

One crit­i­cism of Whit Still­man is that, too often, the male char­ac­ters in his films snaff up all the fun­ny lines. Yet Car­olyn Fari­na as debu­tant ball queen Audrey Roget – a found­ing mem­ber of the enclave known as the ​“urban haute bour­geoisie” – sparkles in a role that com­bines strict social eti­quette and adorable naiveté. She’s a doll liv­ing a life dic­tat­ed by lit­er­ary con­ven­tion, and almost entire­ly detached from real­i­ty. It’s a cry­ing shame that Fari­na moved away from film act­ing as quick­ly as she entered into it, her only cred­its being minor sup­port­ing roles in Stillman’s lat­er movies and Mar­tin Scorsese’s The Age of Inno­cence. Good news, though: she’s rumoured to be star­ring oppo­site Michael Mad­sen in a sci-fi in 2017! DJ

Cather­ine Demon­geot was only 10 when Louis Malle gave her the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be the rud­est child on screen in 1960. Zazie should have been old­er but the direc­tor decid­ed he want­ed to cap­ture the grace and inno­cence of child­hood instead of the essence of young adult­hood like his New Wave coun­ter­parts. Her palette of emo­tion is quite restrict­ed but so per­fect­ly han­dled that Demongeot’s con­ta­gious smile became emblem­at­ic. Mathilde Dumazet

It’s some­thing of a mys­tery why the grande dame of ​’90s cin­e­ma accept­ed a role in this unique and strange indie com­e­dy from weirdy-beardy alchemist, Vin­cent Gal­lo. The direc­tor plays a man whose life is ruined by a piece of poor deci­sion mak­ing, which all links back to the lack of love he received from his par­ents. He is released from prison and wants des­per­ate­ly for them to be proud of him, but once we meet them, we realise that they are total­ly insane and that he is very much the prod­uct of that insan­i­ty. Hus­ton essays a mad-eyed Bills fan who resents her son because giv­ing birth to him meant that she missed a key fix­ture. It’s a per­for­mance unlike any­thing else she has done, cut­ting through faux mater­nal swad­dling with man­ic psy­chosis. DJ

A reg­u­lar fix­ture of cult mid-’00s TV come­dies like Garth Marenghi’s Dark­place and The Mighty Boosh, Alice Lowe’s first major film role, in Ben Wheatley’s car­a­van­ning 2012 ser­i­al killer caper, felt like a long time com­ing. It was worth the wait, though. Not just one of the fun­ni­est female per­for­mances in recent years, but one of the best writ­ten by one too – Lowe penned the pitch-black, sav­age­ly fun­ny script with her co-star, Steve ​“Aaaaaaaah!” Oram. AW

Jayne Mansfield’s fame resides most­ly in her sur­re­al fig­ure and man­u­fac­tured per­sona. The Girl Can’t Help It crit­i­cis­es this arti­fi­cial­i­ty with her per­for­mance as Jer­ri Jor­dan, a girl forced by her ex-gang­ster sav­iour to become a singing star worth mar­ry­ing. When dis­cov­er­ing her lack of tal­ent, her agent, Tom Miller (Tom Ewell), unscrupu­lous­ly decides to mar­ket only her sex appeal. Exag­ger­at­ing her exhi­bi­tion­ism, Mans­field fear­less­ly ridicules her­self to bet­ter deride men’s dirty minds, but she brings a light­ness that, first equat­ed with stu­pid­i­ty, lat­er reveals itself as a cop­ing strat­e­gy: for­bid­den to think for her­self, Jor­dan (and Mans­field?) choos­es to laugh at her mis­for­tune, until love gives her the nerve to rebel. ML

An ear­ly exam­ple of the com­e­dy fran­chise fea­ture, the Thin Man films saw William Pow­ell and Myr­na Loy team up as Nick and Nora Charles; the for­mer an arm­chair detec­tive with a fond­ness for fizz, the lat­ter his unas­sum­ing­ly intel­li­gent and daffy part­ner. The humour in these films (think the Marx Broth­ers go noir), derives large­ly from Pow­ell and Loy’s rapi­er-sharp rejoin­ders along with their own inter­per­son­al ban­ter. The equi­lib­ri­um between the two stars is per­fect­ly bal­anced, and Loy’s per­for­mance is the thing that not only gives this orig­i­nal film its lift, but is the rea­son to sit through the increas­ing­ly des­per­ate and, erm, thin sequels. DJ

As gross­ly inap­pro­pri­ate guid­ance coun­sel­lor Ms Perky, Alli­son Jan­ney brings wit and a dash of sur­re­al humour to this con­ven­tion­al and rather stilt­ed teen movie. Pre­oc­cu­pied with writ­ing erot­ic fic­tion, she makes thin­ly veiled sex­u­al remarks and dead­pan jokes that only seem to con­fuse and stun the stu­dents. Jan­ney lat­er found a more expan­sive space to devel­op her comedic tal­ent as off-the-wall White House Press Sec­re­tary CJ Cregg in The West Wing, but her dead­ly deliv­ery here is sub­lime. Ele­na Lazic

Broad­way Dan­ny Rose dis­pels the myth that all Woody Allen films, and mus­es, are essen­tial­ly the same. Unlike Diane Keaton, Cate Blanchett and Mar­i­on Cotil­lard, Mia Far­row does not embody the elite art scene of 1960s New York or 1920s Paris in her role as Tina. She’s scat­ty and brash, she’s styled like Dol­ly Par­ton, and she has an affin­i­ty for low-life gang­sters. Allen is at his most affec­tion­ate and acces­si­ble here, and Far­row is the per­fect match for his hope­less tal­ent agent. ALA

Or, What Rol­ler­girl Did Next. Fresh off the bus from Hicksville with her (emp­ty) head full of star­dust, Heather Graham’s Daisy is exact­ly the kind of corn-fed bim­bo low-rent LA pro­duc­er Bob­by Bowfin­ger needs to com­plete his crew of tal­ent­less delu­sion­als before rolling cam­era on his mag­num opus, Chub­by Rain. Gra­ham radi­ates inno­cence and gulli­bil­i­ty, but the way Daisy exploits her wide-eyed sex­u­al­i­ty to climb the Hol­ly­wood lad­der hints at an untapped Machi­avel­lian core she will need to con­quer Tin­sel­town. Adam Lee Davies

Anx­ious­ly pre­oc­cu­pied with fit­ting into a ridicu­lous­ly pre­ten­tious art world, matri­arch Delia Deetz (Cather­ine O’Hara) bare­ly con­ceals her con­tempt for dull hus­band, Charles (Jef­frey Jones), and goth-styled daugh­ter, Lydia (Winona Ryder). When the fam­i­ly moves into a new home, scares from ​‘bio-exor­cist’ Beetle­juice (Michael Keaton) serve as a hum­bling expe­ri­ence for Deetz. O’Hara demon­strates her effort­less comedic tal­ent most mem­o­rably in a grotesque din­ner sequence where she’s forced to express ter­ror with facial expres­sions alone; the rest of her body is pos­sessed by Beetle­juice and manip­u­lat­ed into per­form­ing an awk­ward dance num­ber. EL

At the cen­tre of Ken­neth Branagh’s sun-soaked adap­ta­tion of Shakespeare’s con­tentious play lies Emma Thompson’s quick-wit­ted, cyn­i­cal Beat­rice. Benedick (Branagh) is too arro­gant to believe that that he’ll ever find a woman who can match him. From the out­set, Thompson’s Beat­rice is strong-willed, charm­ing and brazen – an unstop­pable force bound to prove him wrong. Cather­ine Karellis

Car­ole Lom­bard (born Jane Peters) secured her icon sta­tus before dying in a plane crash at 33. She was an effer­ves­cent per­former, with the glam­our of a star­let, and the deliv­ery of a nim­ble come­di­enne. In My Man God­frey, she starred (oppo­site her then hus­band, William Pow­ell) as a ditzy, dizzy but good-heart­ed ingénue, Irene Bul­lock, who hires a home­less man to be a but­ler for her mad fam­i­ly. Bul­lock radi­ates inno­cence but is dogged in sex­u­al and roman­tic pur­suit. Lom­bard car­ried off these con­trasts with panache. For fur­ther evi­dence of her com­ic nous, see Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not To Be. Sophie Monks Kaufman

As Susie in David Wain’s out­ra­geous and bor­der­line exper­i­men­tal com­e­dy Wet Hot Amer­i­can Sum­mer, Amy Poehler exceeds the stereo­types of the sum­mer camp coun­sel­lor. Not sim­ply over-enthu­si­as­tic about mak­ing a real spec­ta­cle of the tal­ent show she organ­is­es, she requires pro­fes­sion­al per­fec­tion from her per­form­ing teens. Beyond bossy, she screams at and insults any­one who gets in her way, only to then sud­den­ly reverse to her stan­dard exag­ger­at­ed polite­ness and good spir­it. In her first major film role, Poehler’s flaw­less com­ic tim­ing and unflinch­ing readi­ness to reach extremes of expres­sion makes Susie unpre­dictable, acer­bic and hys­ter­i­cal­ly fun­ny. ML

What are some of your favourite female com­e­dy per­for­mances? Let us know @LWLies and check back tomor­row for part two.