Top 10 Thought-Provoking Comedy Documentaries
For our latest Top Docs we had the honour of teaming up with Taskovski Films, the producers and distributors of the some of the best documentaries ever made. Last year, they were behind the release of the brilliant Children of the Snow Land and most recently they released Bruce Lee and The Outlaw, one of our favourites docs of 2020 so far.
Together, we’ve picked ten of our favourite thought-provoking comedies. They may be focused on a charismatic hero, looking back on a bizarre phenomenon or tackling a serious topic through a lighthearted lens.
Not only will these films make you giggle, they’ll also get you thinking.
Make sure you follow Taskovski films on Facebook and Instagram to be the first to hear about their new releases and catch one of the free weekly online screenings they’ve been hosting during lockdown.
American Movie by Chris Smith
Picked by Doc Weekly
American Movie is a 90s cult film everyone should watch before they turn 30. Mark Borchardt, an aspiring filmmaker from the Wisconsin countryside, is set on finishing his low-budget horror movie, despite a barrage of difficulties.
Lack of cash, unreliable help and numerous personal problems plague the project. Despite the assistance of his bumbling, loyal and hilarious friend Mike Schank, Mark struggles to move forward.
The film makes for a beautiful and bittersweet portrait of an ambitious man that all dreamers will find familiarity in.
2. Czech Dream by Vít Klusák, Filip Remunda
Picked by Taskovski Films
Czech Dream documents the largest consumer hoax the Czech Republic has ever seen. Filip Remunda and Vit Klusak, two of Eastern Europe’s most promising young documentary filmmakers, set out to explore the psychological and manipulative powers of consumerism by creating an ad campaign for a hypermarket that doesn’t exist.
Culminating in a fake opening that drew over 3000 genuine eager shoppers, the film was hosted by Michael Moore upon its US release and has an admirer in Morgan Spurlock.
In our books, that makes it a classic!
3. Exit Through The Gift Shop by Banksy
Picked by Doc Weekly
Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the story of how Banksy, the world’s most famous street artist, came to meet Thierry Guetta, a Los Angeles-based Frenchman who obsessively videotapes any graffiti artist he can meet, including Shepard Fairey of OBEY fame and Parisian-based Space Invader.
Thierry’s footage is a unique insight into the phenomenal rise of street art in the early 2000s that becomes an unexpectedly poignant exploration of the line between real and fake, modern art and celebrity, complete with plenty of hilarious moments along the way.
The film includes rare filmed interviews with Banksy himself (wearing a mask of course!) that are well worth a watch.
4. Shutka Book of Records by Aleksandar Manić
Picked by Taskovski Films
Shutka is the largest Roma settlement in the Balkans. At least according to a young local fisherman, the film’s main protagonist. Behold a guide through the streets of Shutka, where every person is a national champion, if not world champion, of something, regardless of what it may be.
In this ever-expanding society, space is made for competing religious representatives such as those participating in a Muslim dervish or the servants of God using the “medium” of Christian tradition. The local homosexual in his colourful wardrobe is no less respected that the greatest pair of lovers – prostitute Kasandra and the elderly Alfonso, who enjoys walking around Shutka in a copy of Tito’s uniform. The city even has its own music industry earning money the old-fashioned way – at weddings, circumcision celebrations (!!) or funerals.
A kaleidoscopic nosedive into the folly of Shutka and its myriad characters, this pick is ideal if you’re yearning to escape your four walls.
5. Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock
Picked by Doc Weekly
In 2004, when two morbidly obese teenage girls sued McDonald’s for their ill health, a debate was struck in America. Close to 40% of all Americans are obese but can you really blame it on anything other than people’s poor choices?
In one of the best known documentaries ever made, Morgan Spurlock attempts to live for a month on a diet of McDonald's foodto find out if the fast food conglomerate can be accused of endangering its customers’ lives. As his body changes, his energy levels plummet and some quirky side-effects come into play, Spurlock also closely examines McDonald’s dubious ethics and explores its methods of indoctrinating young people into its toxic addiction.
6. Mattress Men by Colm Quinn
Picked by Taskovski Films
Mattress Men introduces sixty-something Michael Flynn, attempting to save his struggling Dublin mattress business by reinventing himself as the eccentric online personality ‘Mattress Mick’. He works under the guidance of his good friend Paul Kelly who is burdened with debts and yearns for a full-time contract and more security for his young family.
Find out what happens when Mick’s viral fame goes to his head, testing the two men’s friendship to its limit.
7. Shut Up Little Man! by Matthew Bate
Picked by Doc Weekly
Shut Up, Little Man! is the story of how two hipster college kids turned the surreptitious audio recordings of their argumentative and violent alcoholic neighbours’ fights into a viral phenomenon.
Taking place long before the internet in 1987, the recordings spread across the US as cassette tapes, joining a broader genre of collectors items termed “audio vérités“. Hilariously nonsensical and wrought with one-liners, it isn’t long before filmmakers and their lawyers attempt to secure the rights to the material, which the two main protagonists suddenly decide is theirs to own.
Bate’s film shows impressive impartiality and as the original material’s funny factor begins to fade, a far more serious societal debate on the satirisation of the destitute takes shape.
8. The Gold Spinners by Kiur Aarma, Hardi Volmer
Picked by Taskovski Films
The Gold Spinners is a story about the birth, glory, and disappearance of a peculiar, invisible, and mighty business empire – the film studio Eesti Reklaamfilm, the Soviet Union’s only TV commercial production agency.
In its heyday, Eesti Reklaamfilm, the brainchild of just one man, provided employment for hundreds of people and the adverts it created won the hearts of millions – all the more remarkable when you consider that in the Soviet Union, there were meant to be no goods to advertise…
9. Louis And The Brothel by Louis Theroux
Picked by Doc Weekly
No comedic documentary list would be complete without a nod to Louis Theroux’s expansive, bizarre and at times hilarious catalogue of films. His willingness to put himself in the most awkward of situations paired with a knack of getting under his subjects’ skin makes for some brilliant watching.
Louis And The Brothel, an episode of his series Louis Theroux Specials, reveals day-to-day life in one of America's largest legal brothels. Over the course of six weeks, Louis moves in with owners Lance and Susan, and the working girls at the newly opened Wild Horse Resort and Spa, Reno, in the state of Nevada.
As he quickly becomes entwined in the lives of the prostitutes, Louis soon realises that it's not only the men who are paying a price for sex.
Louis And The Brothel is available online for free in the UK only.
10. Siberian Love by Olga Delane
Picked by Taskovski Films
After living for 20 years in Berlin, Olga Delane returns to her family in Siberia. Her family comment on her modern, single life in the city, and tell her about their own none-too-happy marriages. Their relationships are traditional and practical: the man is the head of the household, the woman takes care of the housekeeping – and in fact, everything else. And what about love? In the end, children and family are what life is about, the interviewees all agree.
At times amusing and moving, this elegantly filmed documentary paints a picture of a hard farming life with little room for romance. But when all the unhappily married uncles and aunts are dancing cheerfully together at a village celebration, Olga is left alone on the sidelines.
