Best Irreverent Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of irreverent cinema — measured across 1,253 indexed frames from 17 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Irreverent films over-index on computer monitor, sand and beard — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
The Hangover (2009)
Todd PhillipsDP Lawrence SherIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Angelenos Doug Billings and Tracy Garner are about to get married. Two days before the wedding, the four men in the wedding party - Doug, Doug's two best buddies Phil Wenneck and Stu Price, and Tracy's brother Alan Garner - hop into Tracy's father's beloved Mercedes convertible for a 24-hour stag party to Las Vegas. Phil, a married high school teacher, has the same maturity level as his students when he's with his pals. Stu, a dentist, is worried about everything, especially what his controlling girlfriend Melissa thinks. Because she disapproves of traditional male bonding rituals, Stu has to lie to her about the stag, he telling her that they are going on a wine tasting tour in the Napa Valley. Regardless, he intends on eventually marrying her, against the advice and wishes of his friends. And Alan seems to be unaware of what are considered the social graces of the western world. The morning after their arrival in Las Vegas, they awaken in their hotel suite each with the worst hangover. None remembers what happened in the past twelve or so hours. The suite is in shambles. And certain things are in the suite that shouldn't be, and certain things that should be in the suite are missing. Probably the most important in the latter category is Doug. As Phil, Stu and Alan try to find Doug using only what little pieces of information they have at hand, they go on a journey of discovery of how certain things got into the suite and what happened to the missing items. However they are on a race for time as if they can't find Doug in the next few hours, they are going to have to explain to Tracy why they are not yet back in Los Angeles. And even worse, they may not find Doug at all before the wedding.
- 2
The Internship (2013)
Shawn LevyDP Jonathan BrownIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Billy (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) are salesmen whose careers have been torpedoed by the digital world. Trying to prove they are not obsolete, they defy the odds by talking their way into a coveted internship at Google, along with a battalion of brilliant college students. But, gaining entrance to this utopia is only half the battle. Now they must compete with a group of the nation's most elite, tech-savvy geniuses to prove that necessity really is the mother of re-invention.
- 3
Meet the Spartans (2008)
Jason Friedberg, Aaron SeltzerDP Shawn MaurerIMDb 2.8TMDB 4.1See in full on FrameThrower →
The heroic Leonidas, armed with nothing but leather underwear and a cape, leads a ragtag group of thirteen Spartans to defend their homeland against the invading Persians (whose ranks include Ghost Rider, Rocky Balboa, the Transformers, and a hunchbacked Paris Hilton). No one is safe when the Spartans take on the biggest icons in pop culture!
- 4
The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019)
Thurop Van OrmanDP Tom Bruno Jr.IMDb 6.4TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
After saving Bird Island from an all-out green-pig invasion in The Angry Birds Movie (2016), the isle's always cranky local hero, Red, still finds himself doing battle with Pig Island. As the prank war between pigs and birds is raging, massive icy projectiles coming from the feathery tyrant Zeta's ice-capped Eagle Island threaten the security of both havens, unless Red and King Leonard agree to form a difficult but honest truce. Now, Red, Bomb, Mighty Eagle, Chuck, and his brilliant sister, Silver, have to join forces with Leonard's mighty porcine team to thwart the megalomaniac Zeta's bold schemes for world domination. However, is Red capable of change?
- 5
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Jon FavreauDP Matthew LibatiqueIMDb 6.9TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →
Robert Downey Jr.as Tony Stark
Gwyneth Paltrowas Pepper Potts
Don Cheadleas Lt. Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes
With the world now aware of his dual life as the armored superhero Iron Man, billionaire inventor Tony Stark faces pressure from the government, the press, and the public to share his technology with the military. Unwilling to let go of his invention, Stark, along with Pepper Potts, and James "Rhodey" Rhodes at his side, must forge new alliances - and confront powerful enemies.
- 6
Terry GilliamDP Giuseppe RotunnoIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
John Nevilleas Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen
Eric Idleas Desmond / Berthold
Sarah Polleyas Sally Salt
The fantastic tale of an 18th century aristocrat, his talented henchmen and a little girl in their efforts to save a town from defeat by the Turks. Being swallowed by a giant sea-monster, a trip to the moon, a dance with Venus and an escape from the Grim Reaper are only some of the improbable adventures.
- 7
Conan The Barbarian (1982)
John MiliusDP Duke CallaghanIMDb 6.9TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →
Beyond the mists of time, having witnessed the brutal death of his blacksmith father and the massacre of the entire village by the murderous followers of Thulsa Doom, the undead evil wizard and servant of the serpent-god, Set, Conan, the orphaned young Cimmerian, is condemned to a life of slavery. Chained to the perpetual Wheel of Pain, the helpless boy grows into a man, and after years of rigorous training as a fierce gladiator, Conan, now an unstoppable mountain of muscle, regains his precious freedom. But, with the image of the blood-soaked raid etched on his mind, Conan teams up with Subotai, the Hyrkanian thief, and Valeria, the Queen of the Bandits, and embarks on a peril-laden journey to the mysterious Mountain of Power, and the impregnable Snake Cult Temple. Will Conan avenge his parents?
- 8
The Party (2017)
Sally PotterDP Alexey RodionovIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →
To celebrate her long-awaited prestigious post as a Shadow Minister for Health and, hopefully, the stepping stone to party leadership, the newly-appointed British opposition politician, Janet, is throwing a party for friends at her London flat. Of course, in this select and intimate soirée, apart from Bill, Janet's self-denying academic husband, the elegant hostess has also invited a motley crew of elite, hand-picked guests: There's April, the sourly cynical American best friend; her unlikely German husband, Gottfried; there's also Jinny and Martha; and finally, Tom, the smooth banker in the impeccable suit. But inevitably, before dinner is served, the upbeat ambience will shatter to pieces, as festering secrets start surfacing, turning the otherwise happy event into the perfect domestic war-zone. Undoubtedly, after this night, things will never be the same again.
- 9
The Lobster (2015)
Yorgos LanthimosDP Thimios BakatakisIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
A love story set in a dystopian near future where single people are arrested and transferred to a creepy hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal and released into the woods.
- 10
Mel StuartDP Arthur IbbetsonIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →
The world is astounded when Willy Wonka, for years a recluse in his factory, announces that five lucky people will be given a tour of the factory, shown all the secrets of his amazing candy, and one will win a lifetime supply of Wonka chocolate. Nobody wants the prize more than young Charlie, but as his family is so poor that buying even one bar of chocolate is a treat, buying enough bars to find one of the five golden tickets is unlikely in the extreme. But in movieland, magic can happen. Charlie, along with four somewhat odious other children, get the chance of a lifetime and a tour of the factory. Along the way, mild disasters befall each of the odious children, but can Charlie beat the odds and grab the brass ring?
What irreverent films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a irreverent frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — computer monitor is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- computer monitor3.5×
- sand2.3×
- beard1.9×
- boy1.8×
- blazer1.7×
- glasses1.6×
How irreverent films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate irreverent from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 19%high keyvs 12% baseline
- 31%nightvs 42% baseline
- 30%low keyvs 39% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Destination Wedding (2018) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,253 frames from 17 films carrying the irreverent label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/irreverent
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