Home > Black comedy

A scene in the play Waiting for Godot is a good example of black comedy: A man takes off his belt to hang himself, and his trousers fall down. The cartoons of Charles Addams typically display black humour such finding funny business with scenes that would normally be considered horrific.

Some famous black comedy films include:

• American Psycho about a serial killer. Played by Christian Bale.
• Black Cat, White Cat
• Catch-22, another film about the madness of war, based on the novel by Joseph Heller.
• , dealing with nuclear war.
• Grace Quigley , a very fun film about euthanasiaEuthanasia ( Greek, "good death") is the practice of killing a person or animal, in a painless or minimally painful way, for merciful reasons, usually to end their suffering. This article discusses euthanasia in humans; a separate article covers animal eu
• Harold and MaudeHarold and Maude is a 1971 movie, directed by Hal Ashby. The screenplay on which the film was based was written by Colin Higgins, and published as a novel in 1984. Summary The film first introduces us to Harold, an alienated teenaged boy from a wealthy fa, in which an alienated young man obsessed with staged suicides and the funerals of strangers falls in love with a vivacious octonagerian
• The HospitalThe Hospital is a 1971 black comedy which tells the story of a suicidal Chief of Medicine whose life becomes even more bizarre as doctors and staff of the hospital mysteriously begin to die. It stars George C. Bock), Diana Rigg (Barbara), Barnard Hughes (, the story of a chief of surgery who is trying to figure out why a number of hospital employees begin dying under strange circumstances
• HeathersHeathers made in 1989, is a cult movie in which three out of the four girls in a trend-setting clique at Westerburg High are called Heather. They play croquet with each other and enjoy playing tricks on their classmates. It was written by Daniel Waters an, about a disaffected, jaded couple who start killing members of popular cliques at their high school
• Ichi the KillerIchi the Killer (2001) (also Koroshiya Ichi or ) is a highly controversial film directed by Takashi Miike and adapted from a manga by Hideo Yamamoto. The film stars Asano Tadanobu as Kakihara, a sadomasochist yakuza enforcer who enjoys giving and reciving, about a pair of savage killers, one a sadist and the other a masochist.
• Life Is BeautifulLife Is Beautiful (originally La Vita e bella is a 1997 Italian language film which tells the story of an Italian Jew Guido (played by Roberto Benigni) who lives in a romantic fairy tale, but must learn how to use that dreamy quality to survive a concentr (Originally La Vita è bella), about an Italian Jew who uses humor and fantasy to hide the truth from his son in a concentration camp.
• Life of BrianLife of Brian is a film from 1979 by Monty Python which deals with the life of Brian (played by Graham Chapman), a young man born at the nearly the same time as, and in a manger right down the street from Jesus Christ. In 2004 the magazine Total Film name, Monty Python's satire about Christianity
• The Lindsay Anderson trilogy of If..., O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital .
• Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, a Guy Ritchie film about the seedy underside of London crime
• Loot by Joe Orton dramatist of several Black Comedies
• The Loved One, dealing with funerals
• M*A*S*H, in which the medical staff of a Korean War field hospital engage in silly mischief to alleviate the horror of the bloody carnage of the wounded they must treat
• Man Bites Dog, a mockumentary turning the tables on news and documentaries
• Meet the Feebles, about a group of animal-puppet performers who suffer terrible human vices.
• Monsieur Verdoux, about a suave serial killer who commits his crimes to support his familiy.
• Prizzi's Honor, in which a Mafia hitman and hitwoman fall in love
• Pulp Fiction, about the misadventures of thugs.
• Roger & Me, in which director Michael Moore follows the tragically ridiculous decline of Flint, Michigan and its effects after General Motors CEO Roger Smith closed the city's autoplants and threw 40,000 people out of work.
• The Ruling Class, about an insane British nobleman who thinks he's Jesus Christ
• Snatch, another Guy Ritchie film, essentially a sequel to LSATSB but with totally new characters & story
• To Die For, about murder and pedophilia.
• Trainspotting, about the adventures of a group of heroin addicts.
• Wag the Dog, a story about a "war" designed to salvage the election for a president who had sex with a young woman.