The 5 Funniest Will Ferrell Movies – GameRant

From Old School to Anchorman to Step Brothers, Will Ferrell has starred in (and occasionally co-written) some of the funniest movies ever made.
Since the end of his legendary tenure as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, Will Ferrell has brought his unique brand of absurdist humor to the big screen and become a beloved A-list movie star. The beauty of Ferrell’s talent is that he can play all the comedic types: a deadpan “straight man” foil, like Detective Allen Gamble in The Other Guys; the kind of eccentric comic persona that the straight man reacts to, like Chazz Reinhold in Wedding Crashers; and a combination of the two, like Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights. From Old School to Anchorman to Step Brothers, Ferrell has starred in some of the funniest movies ever made.
Ever since Animal House became a box office hit, raucous college campus comedies have been commonplace in American cinema. They usually come off as cheap knock-offs that pale in comparison to the 1978 classic, but Todd Phillips found a unique spin on the subgenre with his 2003 hit Old School. Luke Wilson stars as a heartbroken thirtysomething who avoids being kicked out of his new residence by turning it into a frat house. Old School has all the NSFW antics of an Animal House rip-off, but instead of teenagers who don’t know any better, the protagonists are depressed middle-aged men who do know better and just want to get themselves out of a rut.
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Wilson is the star of Old School, but Ferrell steals the show as Frank “The Tank” Ricard, a newlywed struggling to settle into married life who unleashes his inner party animal when his friend starts a fraternity. Frank takes center stage in all the movie’s most hilarious moments, whether he’s drunkenly streaking through town or taking a tranquilizer dart to the neck.
After Anchorman and Talladega Nights were both met with widespread acclaim, Ferrell and his co-writer Adam McKay received their first mixed reviews for Step Brothers. But the duo’s third collaboration has since been reappraised as an underappreciated cult classic. Its humor might have been too broad for the critics’ tastes, but it has a huge fan following.
Ferrell reunited with his Talladega Nights co-star John C. Reilly for the ludicrous tale of two 40-year-old men who still live at home having to learn to get along when their single parents get married. From the homemade bunk bed disaster to the “Boats ‘N’ Hoes” music video to the tuxedo-clad job interview montage to the a cappella rendition of “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” Step Brothers is full of unforgettable moments.
On paper, Elf sounds like it shouldn’t work. The premise of a grown man who believes he’s one of Santa’s elves seems far too strange to become a beloved holiday classic. But it works beautifully, thanks to Ferrell’s unwavering commitment to the bit. Elf is a hilarious fish-out-of-water comedy in which a man raised at the North Pole travels to New York City to meet his curmudgeonly biological father. James Caan makes a great deadpan foil for Ferrell as Buddy’s long-lost dad, while Zooey Deschanel is a similarly deadpan foil as his love interest.
Not only does Elf wring plenty of laugh-out-loud gags out of its uniquely oddball story; it also perfectly captures the Christmas spirit. As a result, Elf has become a staple of Christmastime movie nights.
Ben Stiller directed his own lead performance as the eponymous male model in Zoolander, a spot-on satire of the vapidity of the fashion industry. Ferrell gives a scene-stealing supporting turn as Jacobim Mugatu, the unscrupulous fashion mogul who brainwashes Derek Zoolander in a ridiculous plot to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Whether he’s angrily throwing a scolding latte in his downtrodden assistant’s face or presenting a scale model of a school that Derek mistakes for the school itself, Mugatu always gets a huge laugh whenever he appears on-screen.
Ferrell and McKay first brought their absurdist sensibility to the big screen in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Anchorman is the kind of movie that doesn’t try to do anything more than make its audience laugh. It has ludicrous running gags like Ron’s inexplicable communications with his dog Baxter, quotable one-liners like “I’m in a glass case of emotion!” and “60% of the time, it works every time,” and random non-sequiturs like the news team battle royale (followed by the self-aware “That escalated quickly!” discussion that changed comedy).
Anchorman is often ranked alongside Airplane!, Ghostbusters, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail as one of the greatest comedies ever made – and deservingly so. There’s no other movie quite like it and it never gets old.
MORE: The Original Script For Anchorman Was Even Wilder
Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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