As one-half of the original founders of Funny Or Die alongside previous co-hort Will Ferrell, writer and director Adam McKay carved out a serious comedy career, crafting sincere hit after hit that pinpointed and lovingly raised a glass to American stupidity and general silliness. Through Ferrell, McKay had a vessel to shape characters that were blowhard clods who were overly proud of themselves for doing very little. He even appeared as the now-iconic Dirty Mike in The Other Guys.
Taking a sharp right (but left-wing) turn, McKay began to apply his humor to more politically leaning pieces with The Big Short, a movie detailing the 2008 financial crash, and Vice, about former Vice President Dick Cheney. McKay's later works managed to make real and difficult recent events both watchable and enjoyable, while also presenting the subject matter in a measured, comedic and sobering way, without feeling like it had been dumbed down. With Don't Look Up dominating Netflix, we unpack Adam McKay's greatest hits.
8 Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly (Boogie Nights), and Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) took on the high-speed world of Nascar, quite possibly McKay's easiest target, . Showing the early on-screen chemistry between leads Ferrell and Reilly, the two pop off of one another in an otherwise relatively basic comedy movie that doesn't say very much about a pair of stereotypical hicks made good. The supporting cast for Talladega Nights is insane though, with Amy Adams, Michael Clarke Duncan, Gary Cole, and Jane Lynch all featured.
7 Don't Look Up (2021)
In another scathing look at current day politics and culture, Don't Look Up mocks (judges) how media is addressing the very real threat of looming disaster for planet Earth. With its title alone referencing the Henny Penny/Chicken Little fable, and a blindness to something just above our heads as a comet comes crashing towards the Earth. Leonardo DiCaprio (a genuine climate change speaker outside of film) here plays a science professor, with an unconfident disposition, alongside Jennifer Lawrence as his younger student, who are each tasked with merely convincing the people in charge that this is certain destruction. McKay gets another opportunity to mock modern-day government here, but unfortunately Don't Look Up is overlong (a running theme in McKay's work) by a good forty minutes, and struggles to understand its own theme, coming off as muddled in its message. Its packed cast also makes it feel merely flashy and actually over-produced for the content at hand. With that said, it's so reassuring to see that movies which address important themes and are aimed at a worldwide audience can indeed be successful.
6 Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is a more-than-worthy sequel in its own right, if you can get behind just how silly it can really get. Showing sparks of McKay's biting political satire here, bumbling and outdated news anchor Ron Burgundy inadvertently creates 24-hour news. One could argue that a lot of this is merely a repetition of jokes from the former film, but considering how much of a joke machine the original really is, it was only ever going to be hard to follow up, and is still a delight to see it continue.
5 Vice (2018)
The second in McKay's more serious outings (following The Big Short), Vice took a look at the life of former Vice President, Dick Cheney (played by an unrecognizable Christian Bale). With a damning look at real-world U.S. politics and procedures, Vice kept McKay's sly, biting sense of humor under the hood to keep this biopic very believable and watchable. In a strange twist of fate, immediately after shooting had finished, McKay suffered heart problems in a gym session; McKay was inadvertently saved by Christian Bale who, having researched for the role of Cheney, was aware of early symptoms of a heart attack. For Deadline, the director said: "I called Christian a week later and said, either you or Dick Cheney just saved my life [...] After asking again and again for 10 minutes if I was really alright, we just started laughing.”
4 The Other Guys (2010)
The Other Guys of the title refers to the desk jockeys Will Ferrell and a pitch-perfect Mark Wahlberg), who file police paperwork behind the scenes while the major players on the force get all the glory. In a moment of utter stupidity, when said top cops unfortunately die, Ferrell and Wahlberg are given the opportunity to step up. Quickly embroiled in to a makeshift plot about a money cover up, The Other Guys, at a run time of two hours, is an unfocused and flabby addition to McKay's work, with some admittedly extremely funny moments. Best running joke is Eva Mendes playing Will Ferrell's "plain wife". Fun fact, McKay himself plays "Dirty Mike," the man responsible for destroying Ferrell's car, and Dirty Mike and the Boys remains a surprisingly popular phrase and search term to this day.
3 Step Brothers (2008)
As far as the word "anarchic" goes, Step Brothers defines it. Step Brothers asks what would happen if the parents of two middle-aged man-child layabouts got together and forced their sons to get along. Step Brothers is McKay at his most deliriously juvenile, as both Ferrell and the hilarious John C. Reilly are allowed to let loose and essentially "play". The two are so wildly perfect for one another that it's baffling to think that they're not actually related. After Step Brothers, bunk beds were never viewed the same way again.
2 The Big Short (2015)
The Big Short explains the 21st-century stock market crash, with Ryan Gosling acts as a guide to how it all happened and how the rich benefitted from it, in a fascinating look at American greed in the misfortune of others. The Big Short is a classy and polished take on a financial disaster, but presented to an audience in a digestible and non-demeaning way. Most surprising of all was how much of a change of pace this really was for a filmmaker like Adam McKay, who was most known at this point for the very silly Anchorman, or even his short form sketch work on Youtube.
1 Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
Infinitely quotable, Anchorman is the white whale of American comedies of the last 22 years. Bringing together an unbelievable (and somehow up-and-coming at the time) cast who eschewed gender politics by way of newsrooms of the 1970s, this is one of the funniest comedies ever made. Practically every single line is quotable and laugh-out-loud funny. The improvisation from performers at their top of their games is so sharp and well crafted in this no-rules playground that it was then structured in to an actual story via the edit, coming off seamlessly. McKay really could have retired on this alone, it's that good.