With the recent release of Thor: Love and Thunder seemingly doubling down on the comedy factor, we decided to take a look back at some of the funniest superhero movies of the 21st Century. While the exact origins of the idea of superheroes is widely debated, its known that, in the USA, they became particularly popular from the 1930s onwards with the advent of comic books. Superheroes were a prime feature of these comic books, with people using the medium as a way to escape reality, indulging in their wildest fantasies. To varying degrees, comedy played a big part in those early comic books and early adaptations of these superhero comics made for TV and film continued this comical theme (look at the early Adam West Batman series as an example).
There was certainly a period in the late-90s during which superhero movies certainly became darker in tone, with new grittier iterations of Batman soaring in popularity and lesser-known superheroes like Blade and Darkman receiving the Hollywood treatment. Marvel seemed to bring light-heartedness back into the superhero genre with Iron Man, with Tony Stark's (played by Robert Downey Jr.) dry sense of sarcastic, sardonic humor being pushed to the forefront. While the darker side of the superhero genre still flourishes with movies like Logan and Joker, humor and heroes are almost synonymous these days with some of the biggest blockbuster hits also being some of the funniest (see Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarök). Below, we count down the 10 funniest superhero movies of the 21st Century.
10 Shazam!
Shazam! exceeded expectations, both at the box office and with critics. The premise lends itself to all sorts of humorous situations as it explores what would happen if a teenager could transform into an adult at any time they wanted, and not just any adult, but one who possesses an array of awesome superpowers. The movie effortlessly blends humor and heart and appeals to all of our inner desires to be our own superhero.
9 Super
Small indie flick Super might not be as well-known as the other titles on this list, despite boasting an impressive cast including Elliot Page, Kevin Bacon and The Office's Rainn Wilson, and being directed by James Gunn, who has gone on to become almost synonymous with comic book movies following the success of Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad. Super certainly pushes the boundaries of what might be considered common decency. While not actually based on an existing comic book, it is about a man who turns to comic books for inspiration to become his own, superpower-less, vigilante hero. Scott Weinberg of Cinematical described it as, "Chock full of insanely graphic violence, awash in thoroughly un-PC perspectives” — it is an incredibly funny film that needs to be seen to be believed.
8 Ant-Man
Ant-Man might not be an all-out comedy like many of the other movies on the list, but it’s certainly not without its funny moments. A lot of this comes from the casting of Paul Rudd in the lead role. Rudd is effortlessly amusing and brings his trademark humor and laid-back comedy to the role. Aside from Rudd, the concept of a superhero that can shrink down to the size of an ant lends itself to numerous sight gags, which are taken full advantage here in this MCU movie that was a huge commercial and critical success and spawned multiple sequels that followed a similar formula of mixing action, emotion, and comedy.
7 The Suicide Squad (2021)
In 2016, Warner Bros. and DC attempted to pull off one of its most ambitious projects to date, the highly anticipated Suicide Squad movie featuring a host of its most popular characters including Harley Quinn, The Joker and some less known like Deadshot. It had brought in some of Hollywood’s biggest players to star in the movie including Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie and Cara Delevingne. Unfortunately, the movie did not meet expectation and was widely regarded as a disappointing uneven mess.
Fast-forward to 2021, and the studio made another attempt at bringing the notorious Suicide Squad to the big screen in a kind of reboot / sequel titled The Suicide Squad. This time, they brought in James Gunn who had already had previous success with the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Focusing far more on his unique brand of edgy comedy and aiming it more towards adults, the movie was a huge hit with critics this time around.
6 Guardians of the Galaxy
Disney
Comedy and superheroes seem to be the perfect coupling for Gunn, seeing as it’s his third entry on this list. Prior to directing Guardians of the Galaxy, Gunn had helmed the far more adult-targeted movies Super (as mentioned earlier) and the cult favorite horror comedy Slither. He was known for his edgy and often controversial sense of humor, so putting him in charge of a family-aimed movie and one of Marvel’s biggest and most ambitious projects to date was somewhat of a gamble.
It was a gamble that paid off, however, as Gunn kept his trademark quirky sense of humor but managed to tone it down where needed to meet the target audience without ever losing any credibility. The result is a laugh out loud intergalactic superhero comedy with fantastic writing and direction from Gunn and stellar performances from an ensemble cast featuring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper.
5 Incredibles 2
One of the rare examples of a movie, animated or otherwise, that arguably supersedes the original. There’s no denying that Pixar choosing to enter into the superhero genre with a movie — which acts just as much as a sharp satire of sitcom-like suburban life as it does an homage to the great comic book heroes of Marvel and DC that have come before them — was a stroke of genius. Incredibles 2 focused its attention on what made the original so enjoyable. There was more time spent on focusing on the heroes’ home lives and more Jack Jack. This, combined with the improvement in technology, resulting in sharper animation, makes it one of the greatest and funniest superhero movies of all time.
4 Kick Ass
The 2010 superhero film Kick-Ass, directed by Matthew Vaughn and based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita, tells the story of a teenage boy played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who attempts to become a real-life superhero, calling himself "Kick-Ass". Starring Nicolas Cage channeling old school Adam West as fellow vigilante Big Daddy and Chloe Moretz as his foul mouth ultra-violent 11-year-old daughter, Hit Girl, the film features gratuitous violence a plenty, coupled with a whole heap of pitch black comedy. Kick Ass is definitely a must-watch for those who like their comic book movies to be utterly hilarious and on the more extreme side of things.
3 Deadpool
Ryan Reynolds has admitted being a super fan of the character Deadpool and has long championed for Marvel to produce a faithful adaptation of the comic book, meta fourth wall-breaking, cussing and ultra-violence and all. Finally, in 2016, the world was treated to Deadpool and ate it up in abundance. In a role Reynolds was born for, he broke the fourth wall, sliced and diced, and cussed and cursed his way through an action-packed white-knuckle ride that left audiences desperate for more, which they got with a sequel in 2018 and rumblings of a threequel currently in development.
2 The Lego Batman Movie
2014’s Lego Movie took the world by surprise in being an absolutely hilarious and fun-filled movie appealing to children and adults of all ages. It was certainly a hard act to follow; it was a stroke of genius, then, to team up with DC and license their most recognizable characters and turn them into Lego. By keeping to the same stunning animation style and adopting the same sense of humor, and combining that with a fantastic voice cast consisting of Will Arnett as The Dark Knight alongside Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes and Mariah Carey, the world was treated to one of the funniest superhero movies of all time in The Lego Batman Movie.
1 Thor: Ragnarök
Thor is a very popular Marvel superhero with tons of potential, so it only made sense that sooner or later he would be getting his own standalone movie. In 2011, Thor was unleashed into the world, and while the box office returns and critical opinions were fairly good, it was nothing special, especially considering some of Marvel’s recent success stories. It was enough, however, to warrant a sequel, which was met with a lukewarm reception.
Instead of giving up on the character, Marvel decided to reassess how to approach the next film and brought in New Zealand director Taika Waititi, who up until then had been responsible for quirky indie comedies like the vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows and the action-comedy Hunt for the Wilderpeople. The result was Thor: Ragnarök, which finds Waititi’s unique brand of humor sprinkled all over it, in what turned out to be a match made in heaven as the franchise transitioned from your average run-of-the-mill comic book adaptation to a hilarious, laugh-out-loud, rollicking ride that was an enormous hit with critics and audiences alike and finally elevated Thor to the type of heights Marvel always had in mind.