Have You Seen Mel Brooks’ 7 Best Movies?
If there were ever a Mount Rushmore of legendary comic performers, you’d better believe Mel Brooks has earned a distinguished spot on that prestigious monument, slapdash between Bugs Bunny and Rodney Dangerfield.
A fearless comedian whose contributions to the world of pop culture cannot be overstated, Brooks remains a pioneering voice in the sardonic spoof genre, permanently cementing the satirical comedy film within mainstream cinema. Today, fans, critics, and film scholars alike continue to applaud Brooks for his many decorated films over the years, each of which have gone on to secure coveted iconic status in the contemporary film industry.
Of course, like every filmmaker, certain movies directed by Brooks continue to linger on in our collective imaginations far more favorably than other, lesser entries in his filmography. From swashbuckling historical epics to cartoonish anti-Westerns, here are some of Mel Brooks’ absolute greatest movies, ranked in order from worst to best.
7. History of the World, Part I (1981)
Arguably Brooks’s most ambitious project, History of the World, Part I whisks viewers away to some of the most defining eras in human history, from the earliest days of the Stone Age up to the French Revolution’s infamous Reign of Terror. Rather than outwardly lampooning a specific genre, History of the World allows Brooks to play around with more historical subject matter – albeit through a humorously anachronistic lens. Employing a cast of faithful collaborators like Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman, and Cloris Leachman, Brooks delivers a laugh-out-out Hollywood epic unlike any other. (Save for Hulu’s History of the World, Part II, of course.)
6. Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)
Mel Brooks has always looked to mainstream cinema as a source of inspiration, whether analyzing his Star Wars-oriented spoof Spaceballs or his 1993 Robin Hood satire, Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Mocking the many film adaptations of England’s medieval outlaw that came before it (most especially 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood and 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves), Men in Tights delights at every opportunity to deride the legend of Robin Hood, from Roger Rees’s perpetually tongue-tied Sheriff of Rottingham to Cary Elwes’ cartoonishly suave Robin of Loxley. It may not be quite as sharp as Brooks’s earlier films, but Men in Tights will almost assuredly appease longtime fans of Brooks’s illustrious filmography.
5. High Anxiety (1977)
Just as Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles found Brooks satirizing a specific genre, High Anxiety finds Brooks tackling a well-known director’s entire filmography. A careful homage to the works of the legendary Alfred Hitchcock, High Anxiety unfolds like a tongue-in-cheek Looney Tunes short that uses Freudian psychoanalysis as its main source of inspiration. With references to some of Hitch’s best films, High Anxiety affords Brooks a chance to blend comedy with light thrills, many of which come courtesy of such classic films as Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds, among many others.
4. Spaceballs (1987)
Among Brooks’s most recognizable films, Spaceballs finds the director working with his most focused parody subject yet: George Lucas’s classic 1977 sci-fi film, Star Wars. Incorporating numerous references to Lucas’s beloved space opera series, Spaceballs comes packed to the brim with inventive subversions of Star Wars’ most beloved characters, settings, and situations. While nowhere near as clever as Brooks’s earlier films, Spaceballs’ straightforward subversion of Star Wars makes it a comedy we can’t help but chuckle at, be it at the expense of Rick Moranis’s pint-sized Darth Vader knock-off (Dark Helmet) or Joan Rivers’s dry-witted C-3PO caricature (Dot Matrix).
3. The Producers (1967)
The feature-length directorial debut for Brooks, The Producers seldom gets mentioned in the same breath as Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles, or Young Frankenstein as the filmmaker’s most popular movie. In spite of this, The Producers remains an early crowd-pleasing favorite among Brooks’s most dedicated fans, showing the director’s deft understanding of perverse humor and controversial comedic subject matter. Led by an always fantastic Gene Wilder and an equally superb Zero Mostel, every moment of The Producers’ hour and 20-minute runtime is guaranteed to leave viewers doubled over with tears in their eyes and massive smiles on their faces.
2. Blazing Saddles (1974)
If there’s one thing everyone knows about Mel Brooks, it’s that the world-class comedian has never shied away from controversy or taboo subject matter. (In fact, one can argue that he made his entire career out of it.) Case in point with Brooks’s masterful 1974 Western comedy, Blazing Saddles. Taking aim at the various cliches surrounding the traditional Western film, Brooks manages to break every rule in the book when it comes to Blazing Saddles’ incendiary brand of comedy. Poking fun at everything from classic John Wayne films to the Western genre’s troubling depiction of race, Blazing Saddles continues to live on as an otherwise flawless entry in Brooks’s filmography, as well as a defining entry in the spoof genre that Brooks helped popularize.
1. Young Frankenstein (1974)
It’s hard to describe any movie as “perfect,” with even the most successful movies tending to bear some glaring weaknesses when regarded with renewed scrutiny. Young Frankenstein is not that kind of film, serving instead as a nuanced example of an altogether perfect movie. Partnering for the third and final time with his most notable collaborator Gene Wilder, Brooks hands in his most singularly impressive work with 1974’s Young Frankenstein, a rip-roaring spoof of Universal’s classic 1930s horror films. With everything falling seamlessly into place in regards to the film’s contents, every aspect of Young Frankenstein is worthy of continued celebration, from Wilder’s over-the-top portrayal of the wild-eyed Dr. Frankenstein to the scene-stealing performances of fellow cast members like Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, and Gene Hackman.
