Genre blending can be difficult to achieve if not done right. If too many genres are mixed together, more often than not the movie ends up feeling overstuffed and usually leads to an unnecessarily long run-time. Some genres just don’t pair well together, while others feel made to go hand-in-hand. A romantic comedy blends romance and humor, and it has been a successful format since the beginning of the film industry. Audiences have loved the blend of the two genres for about a hundred years. Horror and comedy also work well together, and the blend of the two genres has inspired successful film franchises such as Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead.
A genre blend that has a history of working well together is drama and comedy, also known as a dramedy. Comedy and drama pair so smoothly because they balance out the extremes in each other. Comedy can help soften the seriousness of a drama, while drama can enhance the story a comedy is trying to convey. Dramedies appeal to people because they can be invested in the story while also leaving the movie with a sense of enjoyment. Despite the humor element of combining comedy with drama, dramedies often affect your emotions. Dramedies can make you feel sad, confused, grateful, amused, or happy. A well-done dramedy makes you feel your way through the wheel of human emotions. So, here are ten comedy dramas that toy with your emotions:
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10 Doc Hollywood (1991)
Warner Bros.
A hot-shot doctor heading to L.A. from Massachusetts to become a big-time plastic surgeon gets stuck in a podunk town in South Carolina after his convertible gets wrecked in an accident along the way in Doc Hollywood. Michael J. Fox plays Dr. Ben Stone, who is forced to work for free at the local doctor’s office while his car is being fixed. At first, he is appalled that he is stuck in this rinky-dink town where everyone knows each other and all the local businesses are located on the town’s one main road.
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As the movie progresses, however, he starts to form connections with townspeople and eventually comes to care for the well-being of the town they love so much. The townspeople also grow to care for him as most of them at the start thought of him as a selfish surgeon who only cared about wealth and success. This is a true feel-good movie that will certainly bring a smile to your face. It has humor and heart, and it is always a treat to see Michael J. Fox leading a movie.
9 Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Indian Paintbrush
A nerdy boy scout and a precocious girl fall in love in a coastal New England town in the ’60s and decide to run away together. Various groups within the town form search parties to look for them, causing the town to turn upside down in Wes Anderson’s quirky dramedy Moonrise Kingdom. Anderson is known for creating films that have very specific, vibrant color patterns and for having symmetrical shots that are perfectly centered. He is also known for his witty dialogue and eccentric characters.
All of these characteristics add to the charm and appeal of his movies. In this film, the children act more like adults and the adults act more like children. Sam and Suzy are perfectly calm and responsible when they decide to leave town together, meanwhile, the adults looking for them argue and get distracted easily. It’s a funny, sweet depiction of young love and adolescence that will have you thinking about your childhood crush and breezy summer days spent by the water.
8 Juno (2007)
Mandate Pictures / Mr. Mudd
16-year-old Juno (Elliot Page) is a high school junior in the Midwest who unexpectedly finds herself pregnant after one encounter with her best friend Bleeker. After debating how to handle the situation, she decides to give the unborn baby up for adoption to an upscale couple she found in the PennySaver and continue on with school for the duration of the pregnancy. The husband is laid back and very into music, while the wife is more practical and clearly very eager to be a parent.
Juno is a witty, quirky, and offbeat dramedy that captures the uncertainty and embarrassment of simply existing as a teenager. Juno, while relatively sure of herself for a high schooler, still internally debates what is right and wrong and attempts to find her way through high school, just with the added struggle of being pregnant.
7 The Breakfast Club (1985)
Universal Pictures
A brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal meet in Saturday morning detention for different reasons and unwillingly get to know each other and the different high school cliques they belong to, discovering that they actually have more in common than they would have thought.
John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club has become the quintessential teen movie over the almost 38 years since its release. It is the model for every high school movie that has followed since and has been a massive influence on pop culture over the years. It’s the reason movies about teenagers and high school have become such a popular subject to make movies about. It blends comedy and drama in just the right way. You laugh with them, you cry with them, you agree with them, and you disagree with them. No matter what, you want to keep coming back to spend that Saturday with them.
6 The Meyerowitz Stories (2017)
Netflix
Noah Baumbach is another director known for his idiosyncratic dialogue and characters. In The Meyerowitz Stories, an estranged family meets in New York for an event celebrating the artistic work of their father. Danny (Adam Sandler) moves back in with their father after separating from his wife and his daughter, whom he is close with, starts her freshman year as a film student at Bard College.
The cast is stacked with Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, and Elizabeth Marvel playing siblings and Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson playing their father and stepmother, respectively. Each sibling has their own quirks, their father is convinced the art world has forgotten about him, Danny’s daughter is into making suggestive films, and their stepmother is an alcoholic hippie. It makes for a strange yet heartfelt story about the dysfunction of families who actually care very much about each other.
5 Lady Bird (2017)
A24
There is truly no relationship quite as strong and complex as the relationship between mother and daughter. The bond between mother and daughter is so fierce, causing even the smallest of interactions to have a profound effect on both women. Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird captures this intricate relationship in a way that few movies have been able to do. Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) is an artistic high school senior longing to graduate from her Catholic school and leave her hometown of Sacramento to go to college in New York City. Her mother (Laurie Metcalf) while sometimes blunt with her opinions, just wants her daughter to be happy with her life.
Lady Bird desperately wants freedom and to be her own person while her mother wants her to be sensible and consider staying in California for college. When the two of them argue, which is frequent, it doesn’t usually end well. Yet, when they allow themselves to just talk to each other, they have the best time together. When Lady Bird feels troubled or upset, her mom is the first person she wants to run to. When she finally makes it to the East Coast like she had been dreaming of her whole life, all she wants is to share it with her mom. It is a funny, heartfelt look into the mother-daughter dynamic and one of the best interpretations of that special dynamic put to screen.
4 Thunder Road (2018)
Vanishing Angle
A police officer is on the verge of a nervous breakdown following his divorce and the death of his mother, leaving him to raise his little girl alone. Jim Cummings both stars in and directs Thunder Road, the feature film adaptation of his original short film of the same name. Officer Jim Arnaud (Cummings) struggles with being a single parent as he has trouble connecting with his little girl, but he knows that her mother is not a good parental figure for her. With the recent death of his own mother, the stress of his personal and professional life gets to him, causing him to suffer a midlife crisis.
This is a rather offbeat blend of comedy and drama because what Jim is going through is actually quite depressing, but his mannerisms and the way he handles himself presents a very dry, subtle humor. He always tries to do the right thing, but his impulsiveness and his short temper normally get the best of him. He has difficulty discerning what is considered socially acceptable behaviors and topics of conversation, which leads to some awkward, but entertaining, interactions with his coworkers and even his daughter.
3 Punch Drunk Love (2002)
Sony Pictures
Paul Thomas Anderson is a talented filmmaker who puts a lot of thought into his work. Punch Drunk Love is perhaps one of his best entries. It follows Barry Egan (Adam Sandler), the only boy in a family full of girls, who is treated poorly by all of his sisters and has a difficult time socializing. Despite owning his own business, Barry’s insecurities get the best of him, causing him to have outbursts and not be able to form relationships. In his loneliness, he contacts a woman through a phone-sex line in an attempt to feel something. Soon after, he meets Lena, who likes him despite his obvious social issues, and he is pulled in two very different directions.
Many people claim that Uncut Gems is Sandler’s best role, and while he is fantastic in that, his portrayal as Barry Egan really defined his capabilities as an actor and proved he could do more than just a straight-up comedy. He is an oddball with a lot of personal issues to work through, but he is lovable all the same. Through all of his ups and downs, you root for his happiness the entire time.
2 The Truman Show (1998)
Paramount Pictures
One of comedian Jim Carrey’s absolute best roles, The Truman Show follows the life of insurance salesman Truman Burbank. Naive but kind-hearted Truman is the best neighbor anyone could ever have and wants adventure. Little does he know, his entire existence has been televised for the whole world to see via thousands of tiny cameras hidden throughout his idealistic, completely fake town for the 24/7 reality show, The Truman Show.
Truman is one of the most likable characters in movie history. He is funny, smart, sweet, and cares about everyone. As he starts to question the picturesque nature of his reality, the paid actors who are pretending to be his coworkers, friends, neighbors, and even his wife, desperately try to gaslight him into thinking that nothing is wrong, and it’s all in his head. This is of course at the demand of the manipulative producer running the show, Christof (Ed Harris).
1 Parasite (2019)
CJ Entertainment
Korean director Bong Joon Ho won the Oscars for Best Directing and Best Picture for his satire on wealth and class, Parasite. The Kims, a poor family living in a tiny, half-basement apartment in the working-class district of Seoul, befriend the Parks, a wealthy family who live in a modern house on their own property. The Kims’ son Ki-woo scores a tutoring job for the Parks’ daughter, which leads to him recommending his sister as an art therapist for their son under the alias of Jessica. Eventually, all four Kims wind up working for the Parks in some capacity.
What starts off as a satirical comedy about a poor family scheming their way out of poverty by taking advantage of a preoccupied wealthy family, that serves as a commentary on capitalism, slowly but surely turns into a drama-filled thriller that ends with blood and violence. The film takes such an unexpected turn about halfway through that absolutely pulls the viewer in even further.
