Best Comedy Directors

From Billy Wilder to Mel Brooks to the Coen brothers to Edgar Wright. The directors who have most-shaped American film comedy.

Comedy is the genre most-likely to be discounted in serious director surveys. The directors below have produced bodies of work that, by any honest assessment, are among the most-significant in their respective generations — even when the prestige of the form has not always been recognised in the awards-prize tradition.

Our picks across film history.

The picks

  • Billy Wilder — Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity. The most-decorated comedy director in Academy history.
  • Mel Brooks — The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs. One of three EGOT winners in history.
  • The Coen brothers — Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Burn After Reading, O Brother Where Art Thou? Comedy alongside their crime work.
  • Edgar Wright — Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim, Baby Driver. The British comedy director who learned American genre.
  • Christopher Guest — Spinal Tap (as writer), Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind. The mockumentary master.
  • Judd Apatow — The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Trainwreck. The dominant American comedy producer-director of the 2000s and 2010s.
  • Charlie Chaplin — City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, The Gold Rush. The most-influential silent-era filmmaker.
  • Buster Keaton — The General, Sherlock Jr., Steamboat Bill Jr. The other major silent-era comedy figure.
  • Howard Hawks — Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Ball of Fire. The screwball master.
  • Preston Sturges — The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story. The 1940s screwball-comedy peak.

What separates the great comedy directors

Almost every great comedy director has, by close observation, two specific qualities. First, attention to character — the comedy emerges from who the people are rather than from gag construction. The Coen brothers' films are funny because Marge Gunderson is a specific person; The Big Lebowski works because the Dude is a specific person. Second, pacing — comedy is, structurally, a timing art form, and the directors who can manage the rhythm of a scene at the level required for comedy to land are unusual.

The directors who fail in comedy — and the failures outnumber the successes by significant margin — are typically those who treat comedy as decorative. They write a serious scene and add jokes to it. The successful comedy directors construct scenes whose comedic shape is intrinsic to their dramatic shape; the comedy and the drama are not separable layers.