"Laughter is the best medicine" is a phrase that has been said so many times over the years that it feels like a cliché by now. The phrase is said perhaps more often than it should be, but the difference between this phrase and other overused phrases is that this one can be true. When we as human beings are feeling down, many of us naturally turn to something that is going to make us feel a sense of joy again. It could be reading, knitting, going for a run, or really any other hobby that a person may enjoy, but most of the time we turn to something that will make us laugh.

People have been using different forms of comedy for centuries, and one of the most modern and convenient forms of comedy is in the form of a movie. Since the ability to make motion pictures has been available, people have been making comedies. Some of the earliest comedies put to screen go as far back as the late 1910s with short films from Buster Keaton. It goes without saying that comedy has evolved over the years, but the need for laughter has never changed. If you are in need of some extra laughs in your life, then here are ten comedies that just get better with age:

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10 Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Bringing Up Baby
RKO Radio Pictures

In the '30s and '40s, screwball comedies ruled the comedy landscape. Deriving from the physical comedic routes of slapstick comedy, the screwball subgenre distinguished itself from other forms of comedy by turning the focus of the plot into a battle of the sexes. Featuring fast-paced banter between the male protagonist and the female protagonist, the screwball saw its characters consistently trying to deceive each other with elaborate schemes.

While not every screwball comedy from that time period has aged well, Bringing Up Baby certainly has. Featuring two of the most sought-after names of the Golden Age, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn star respectively as a paleontologist in need of a million-dollar donation to his museum and a flighty heiress who happens to have a pet leopard named Baby. The two endure a series of absurd adventures in Huxley's (Grant) quest to secure the museum donation, all while looking after Baby. It's an all-around fun time that will certainly leave you in a better mood than you were in before.

9 Duck Soup (1933)

Groucho Marx in Duck Soup, one of the best comedy movies
Paramount

Similar to Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers were pioneers of screen comedy. From the 1920s through the 1940s, the three brothers put out successful comedy after successful comedy. Given their fast-paced and extremely goofy nature, the Marx Brothers have created some of the silliest comedies of all time.

Their most well-known comedy is almost certainly Duck Soup, which centers around an all-out fictional war between Freedonia and Slyvania. The trio of brothers were masters of the physicality of slapstick comedy, which led to this film having many over-the-top interactions with other characters, snappy dialogue, and ridiculous set pieces to create the fictional battles taking place. With the fast-paced dialogue, the jokes simply never stop coming. So even if a joke is missed or doesn't quite stick its landing, there are about 100 more jokes that are bound to be said within the next scene.

8 Some Like it Hot (1959)

Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in drag in Some Like it Hot
United Artists

Billy Wilder made many great movies during his career in Hollywood, and one of his best is his 1959 comedy, Some Like It Hot. Similar to his 1960 film The Apartment, Some Like It Hot was considered risqué for the time. The choice to have stars Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dress up as women for the majority of the film was a very bold move in the late '50s. That bold move paid off as much of the film's enjoyment comes from its risky choices as well as the comedic dynamic between Lemmon, Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe.

The movie follows two Chicago musicians who desperately want to flee town after witnessing a mob hit, so they disguise themselves as women to assume the roles of saxophone and bass players for an all-girls band heading down to Florida. Chaos inevitably ensues as the two men try to keep up their charade and avoid the mob boss, Spats Colombo, at all costs. The synopsis alone is an indication that this film is bound to be a weirdly hilarious good time, no matter how much time has passed since it was first released.

7 It Happened One Night (1934)

The Wall of Jericho in It Happened One Night, one of the best comedy movies ever made
Columbia Pictures

One of the original screwball comedies, Frank Capra's It Happened One Night follows a renegade reporter named Peter Warne (Clark Gable) who is trailing a runaway heiress named Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) on a bus heading to New York from Florida for a breaking story. They end up stuck on the road with each other when the bus driver accidentally leaves them stranded at one of the stops along the way.

The battle here between Peter and Ellie over who is truly in charge of the duo encompasses everything about this subgenre of comedy that people love all these years later. It has wit, charm, convoluted schemes, and perfectly executed banter that leaves the viewer wishing there was more. Peter and Ellie argue and bicker like an old married couple, but that is what draws you in. Their effortless banter creates endless laughs.

6 The General (1926)

The General movie with Buster Keaton 1926
Buster Keaton Productions

It's nearly impossible to mention classic comedies without mentioning a Buster Keaton film. He started in the late 1910s with short films and by the time the 1920s rolled around, he started to transition to full-length films. Perhaps the most iconic of his comedic endeavors was The General.

The film takes place during the civil war, which sets the stage for some of the most unbelievable stunts and gags performed in a movie. Besides the fact that a full-sized train gets thrown off a bridge, Keaton dodges cannonballs, flips railroad ties, and maneuvers around this moving locomotive without so much as a thought of his own safety. The film also paved the way for chase movies and has been a blueprint for pretty much every cartoon and live-action comedy that has followed.

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5 The Graduate (1967)

The final scene from The Graduate
Embassy Pictures

This dark comedy was the movie that launched Dustin Hoffman's career in Hollywood. The Graduate follows a single young man who recently graduated from college and has virtually no idea what to do with his future. He does, however, find himself torn between choosing to be with his older lover or her daughter.

It was considered a bit risqué at the time to have this young man begin an affair with an older woman and ultimately choose her daughter instead, but the film manages to feel timeless nonetheless. It's one of the earlier entries into the coming-of-age genre of film, and also one of the first films to use a radio song as the main song of the film by using The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. Even after 56 years, the film is still just as darkly funny as it was then.

4 Charade (1963)

Charade Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn
Universal Pictures

Often referred to as the most Hitchcockian film that wasn't a Hitchcock film, Charade stars effortlessly charming Cary Grant and Hollywood icon Audrey Hepburn in a comedy mystery that takes them on a whirlwind adventure throughout Paris. The film follows a jet-setting woman named Regina (Hepburn) who is pursued by three strange men after her husband's murder but turns to handsome stranger Peter (Grant) for help, but it turns out that his own agenda is difficult to decipher.

This cat-and-mouse game is led superbly by Grant and Hepburn who have magnetic chemistry on-screen. Their comedic chops bounce perfectly off one another, allowing the film to progress naturally. None of the comedy feels forced and the charming leads complement each other well. It's the type of movie that you want to watch over and over again despite knowing what happens, and it's funny every time you watch it.

3 The Lady Eve (1941)

The Leads of 1941's The Lady Eve
Paramount Pictures

After returning from a year-long trip studying snakes in the Amazon, the rich but unsophisticated Charles Pike meets con artist Jean Harrington on a boat. The two fall in love, but due to a misunderstanding, they end the relationship on bad terms. To get back at Charles, Jean disguises herself as a British woman named Eve to tease and torment him.

The Lady Eve utilizes the battle of the sexes characteristic of the screwball comedy to its fullest extent. The point of a screwball is to see the female and male protagonists at each other's throats as they try to one-up each other. Some of the best moments in a screwball comedy occur when one of the protagonists doesn't even realize the other is playing them, which is what happens here. It's a timeless characteristic of comedy that is still used today.

2 Bell, Book, and Candle (1958)

bell book and candle-1
Columbia Pictures

James Stewart and Kim Novak made quite the pair in the '50s, first starring in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and then in the magical comedy, Bell, Book, and Candle. The movie follows Gillian (Novak), a modern-day witch who likes her neighbor but despises his fiancee. Therefore, she casts a spell on him to make him love her instead. However, she actually falls in love with him for real.

The film definitely served as inspiration for other witch-related movies such as Practical Magic, and also showed the beatnik culture of Greenwich Village of the time that parallels with the unconventional lives of the witches in the movie. What is really the selling point of the film is the unconventional dynamic between Gillian and Shepard (Stewart). A witch interacting with a regular businessman is guaranteed to have bizarre, magic-enhanced shenanigans ensue.

1 Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

The Cast of Arsenic and Old Lace
Warner Bros.

Cary Grant got his start in comedy, so he is naturally involved in many of the Golden Age's funniest comedies. His quick comedic timing, charismatic personality, and full-body comedy enabled him to be one of the most recognizable people in comedy, even today. His comedic chops are on full display in Arsenic and Old Lace, an over-the-top black comedy about a dysfunctional family that includes a homicidal brother, a delusional uncle, and two unmarried aunts who poison lonely men and bury them in the cellar.

Grant stars as Mortimer Brewster, a playwright who makes a trip home to his relatives to let them know he got married. Most of the film takes place in the Brewster family's living room, where Mortimer continues to discover secret after secret that his oddball family has been keeping from him. The dysfunctional, chaotic dynamic between the weird family makes for a hilarious black comedy that will have you laughing even when the movie is over.