Best Spoof Movies of All Time
And why we no longer have parody movies like we used to
In a distant past, some decades ago, spoof films were seen as a way to turn the tables on a serious film and poke fun at familiar tropes for the comic relief. Spoof films that's often counted as part of the mock genre or pastiche were attempts to dismantle the established genres, challenge the normative tropes and speak as the "low-brow" humour to critique films.
But today, hardly any new films attempt to do that. Why are they simply forgotten? Especially, at a time when all of us could share a good laugh...
Classics like Airplane!, the American comedy released in 1980, Top Secret!, This Is Spinal Tap, and The Naked Gun made audiences laugh with absurdity and clever genre deconstruction. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, films like Scary Movie helped bring parody into the mainstream again. But since the early 2010s, the traditional spoof movie has been struggling with only a handful of them made in 2020s including Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, a mockumentary by Sasha Baron Cohen and some lesser know ones that hardly were on Indian audiences' radar including Daniel Radcliff starrer Weird: The Al Yankovic Story that released in 2022.
For most part, spoofs in the early 2000s were seen as shared cultural events that you could enjoy on a random dull night by yourself and with your buddies. But today, the meme culture has taken over that responsibilities making us share a laugh at a series of gags knowing they reference the same films and shows we've all seen. As if a substitute for spoofs
So, while we are talking about it, here's a list of the best spoof movies of all time! If you haven't watched it, now is the time since 2026 is the new 2016 and spoof films were at their peek then:
Austin Powers
Where: Netflix
Austin Powers is a series of American satirical spy comedy films created by Mike Myers, who stars as the British spy Austin Powers as well as his arch-nemesis, Dr. Evil.
Hail Caesar!
Where: Prime Videos
Starring George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Jonah Hill, and Channing Tatum, Hail Caesar! , is a satire and comedy about the 195os Hollywood studios system. The story follows Eddie Mannix, a fixer for Capitol Pictures in Hollywood, deals with a pregnant starlet, gossip columnists and a kidnapped movie star, even as he considers an attractive job offer, all in a single day.
Airplane! (1980)
Where: Prime Videos
Ain't no way, a list with best parody films of all time could be complete without the masterclass that the 1980 American film Airplane! . According to a review, the film has been critiqued as, "Though unabashedly juvenile and silly, Airplane! is nevertheless an uproarious spoof comedy full of quotable lines and slapstick gags that endure to this day."
Tropic Thunder
Where: Prime Videos
Tropic Thunder is a 2008 satirical action comedy film directed by Ben Stiller, who wrote the screenplay with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr. , Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise in a parody film that revolves around a film's crew is in Southeast Asia shooting a movie when one of the actors, Tugg, is kidnapped by a local thug. They are forced to be together till they find Tugg while being stalked by drug dealers.
The Interview
Where: Netflix
Starring Seth Rogen(Aaron Rapoport) and James Franco (Dave Skylark), the film released in 2016 as journalists set up an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, played by Randall Park.
Not Another Teen Movie
Where: Netflix
Not Another Teen Movie is a 2001 American teen parody film directed by Joel Gallen about a gridiron hero at John Hughes High School sets out to turn a bespectacled artist into a prom queen in this outrageous parody.
The Dictator
Where: Netflix
Sasha Baron Cohen starrer film The Dictator follows a misogynistic tyrant who ends up on the streets of New York, powerless, unrecognisable and working in an organic food co-op.
Johnny English
Where: Prime Videos
An intellectually challenged yet confident spy, Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) is a bureaucratic employee of the British Secret Service, who dreams to be a charming agent. After all the MI5 agents are killed following an attack, English decides to operate all the missions of the department single-handedly.