Playlists > Best Dramatic Performances By Comedians

Best Dramatic Performances By Comedians
Description:

Most comedians start their careers doing Stand Up. However, some of the more gifted attempt to crossover to “legitimate” theater with varied results.

Here is a list of films where comedians managed to harness their energy to create some of the most memorable dramatic roles to ever grace the silver screen.

  1. Whoopi Goldberg, The Color Purple
  2. Lily Tomlin, Nashville
  3. Sarah Silverman, I Smile Back
  4. Bette Midler, The Rose
  5. Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
  6. Ben Stiller, Greenberg
  7. Jamie Foxx, Ray
  8. Mo’Nique, Precious
  9. Jim Carrey, The Truman Show
  10. Jenny Slate, Obvious Child
  11. Richard Pryor, Blue Collar
  12. Steve Martin, The Spanish Prisoner
  13. Robin Williams, The Fisher King
  14. Art Carney, Harry & Tonto
  15. Jerry Lewis, The King of Comedy
  16. Peter Sellers, Being There
  17. Goldie Hawn, The Sugarland Express
  18. Adam Sandler, Funny People
  19. Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
  20. Mary Tyler Moore, Ordinary People
  21. Albert Brooks, Drive
  22. Lucille Ball, Lured
  23. Patton Oswalt, Big Fan
  24. Tracey Ullman, Household Saints
  25. Kristen Wiig, Welcome to Me
  26. Roberto Benigni, Life Is Beautiful
  27. Billy Crystal, Mr. Saturday Night
  28. Steve Carell, The Big Short
  29. John Leguizamo, Summer of Sam
  30. Cloris Leachman, The Last Picture Show
  31. Marlon Wayans, Requiem for a Dream
  32. Maya Rudolph, Away We Go
  33. Jason Segel, The End of the Tour
  34. Seth Rogen, Steve Jobs
  35. Dane Cook, Mr. Brooks
  36. Chris Tucker, Silver Linings Playbook
  37. Christopher Guest, Girlfriends
  38. Dan Aykroyd, The House of Mirth
  39. Will Ferrell, Everything Must Go
  40. Jackie Gleason, The Hustler

Creator: RoboPhone
Posted: 5 years ago
 
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Movie: The Color Purple ( 1986 )
A black Southern woman struggles to find her identity after suffering abuse from her father and others over four decades.
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Movie: Nashville ( 1975 )
Over the course of a few hectic days, numerous interrelated people prepare for a political convention.
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Movie: I Smile Back ( 2015 )
Addicted to drugs and alcohol, a housewife's self-destructive behavior starts to take its toll on her husband and two young children.
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Movie: The Rose ( 1979 )
The tragic life of a self-destructive female rock star who struggles to deal with the constant pressures of her career and the demands of her ruthless business manager.
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Movie: Lost in Translation ( 2003 )
A faded movie star and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo.
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Movie: Greenberg ( 2010 )
A man from Los Angeles, who moved to New York years ago, returns to L.A. to figure out his life while he house-sits for his brother. He soon sparks with his brother's assistant.
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Movie: Ray ( 2004 )
The story of the life and career of the legendary rhythm and blues musician Ray Charles, from his humble beginnings in the South, where he went blind at age seven, to his meteoric rise to stardom during the 1950s and 1960s.
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Movie: Precious ( 2009 )
In New York City's Harlem circa 1987, an overweight, abused, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that she can re-route her life in a better direction.
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Movie: The Truman Show ( 1998 )
An insurance salesman is oblivious of the fact that his entire life is a TV show and his family members are mere actors. As he starts noticing things and uncovers the truth, he decides to escape.
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Movie: Obvious Child ( 2014 )
For aspiring comedian Donna Stern, everyday life as a female twenty-something provides ample material for her relatable brand of humor. On stage, Donna is unapologetically herself, joking about topics as intimate as her sex life and as crude as her day-old underwear. But when Donna winds up unexpectedly pregnant after a one-night stand, she is forced to face the uncomfortable realities of independent womanhood for the first time. Donna's drunken hookup - and epic lapse in prophylactic judgment - turns out to be the beginning of an unplanned journey of self-discovery and empowerment.
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Movie: Blue Collar ( 1978 )
When three workers try to steal from the local union, they discover the corruption of the union instead and decide to blackmail them.
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Movie: The Spanish Prisoner ( 1998 )
An employee of a corporation with a lucrative secret process is tempted to betray it. But there's more to it than that.
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Movie: The Fisher King ( 1991 )
A former radio DJ, suicidally despondent because of a terrible mistake he made, finds redemption in helping a deranged homeless man who was an unwitting victim of that mistake.
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Movie: Harry and Tonto ( 1974 )
When his apartment building is torn down, a retired lifelong New Yorker goes on a cross-country odyssey with his beloved cat Tonto.
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Movie: The King of Comedy ( 1982 )
Rupert Pupkin is a passionate yet unsuccessful comic who craves nothing more than to be in the spotlight and to achieve this, he stalks and kidnaps his idol to take the spotlight for himself.
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Movie: Being There ( 1980 )
After the death of his employer forces him out of the only home he's ever known, a simpleminded, sheltered gardener becomes an unlikely trusted advisor to a powerful tycoon and an insider in Washington politics.
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Movie: The Sugarland Express ( 1974 )
A woman attempts to reunite her family by helping her husband escape prison and together kidnapping their son. But things don't go as planned when they are forced to take a police hostage on the road.
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Movie: Funny People ( 2009 )
When seasoned comedian George Simmons learns of his terminal, inoperable health condition, his desire to form a genuine friendship causes him to take a relatively green performer under his wing as his opening act.
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Movie: Dreamgirls ( 2006 )
A trio of black female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s, facing their own personal struggles along the way.
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Movie: Ordinary People ( 1981 )
The accidental death of the older son of an affluent family deeply strains the relationships among the bitter mother, the good-natured father, and the guilt-ridden younger son.
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Movie: Drive ( 2011 )
A mysterious Hollywood action film stuntman gets in trouble with gangsters when he tries to help his neighbor's husband rob a pawn shop while serving as his getaway driver.
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Movie: Lured ( 1947 )
A serial killer in London is murdering young women he meets through the personal columns of newspapers. He announces each of his murders to the police by sending them a cryptic poem. After a dancer disappears, the police enlist an American friend of hers, Sandra Carpenter, to answer advertisements in the personal columns, and lure the killer.
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Movie: Big Fan ( 2021 )
A hard-core New York Giants fan struggles to deal with the consequences when he is beaten up by his favorite player.
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Movie: Household Saints ( 1993 )
Unsettling drama about three generations of Italian-American women struggling to get by in post-World War II New York's Little Italy.
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Movie: Welcome to Me ( 2015 )
Alice suffers from borderline personality disorder, but she has what she needs in life. She has an apartment, she has a best friend, and she has tapes of every Oprah Winfrey show. And now, after winning the lottery, she also has 83 million dollars. What she doesn't have is an outlet for the whole world to know who she really is. The TV station cut her off when she tried turning her lottery announcement into a frank discussion of her sexual experiences, but with her money in hand, she's off to LA to convince two struggling TV producer brothers to produce her own TV show. Whatever it costs, she's going to do it. From swan entrances to dog neutering, she is going to introduce the world to Alice. But is the world ready for Alice?
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Movie: Life Is Beautiful ( 1997 )
When an open-minded Jewish librarian and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor, and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp.
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Movie: Mr. Saturday Night ( 1992 )
The life of Buddy Young, a comic legend in flashbacks but an old man looking for work in the present.
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Movie: The Big Short ( 2015 )
In 2006-7 a group of investors bet against the US mortgage market. In their research they discover how flawed and corrupt the market is.
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Movie: Summer of Sam ( 1999 )
Spike Lee's take on the "Son of Sam" murders in New York City during the summer of 1977 centering on the residents of an Italian-American Northeast Bronx neighborhood who live in fear and distrust of one another.
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Movie: The Last Picture Show ( 1971 )
In 1951, a group of high schoolers come of age in a bleak, isolated, atrophied West Texas town that is slowly dying, both culturally and economically.
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Movie: Requiem for a Dream ( 2000 )
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep.
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Movie: Away We Go ( 2009 )
A couple expecting their first child travels the U.S. seeking the perfect "family home." They have misadventures and find fresh connections with relatives and old friends who help them discover "home" on their own terms for the first time.
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Movie: The End of the Tour ( 2015 )
The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.'
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Movie: Steve Jobs ( 2015 )
Steve Jobs takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution, to paint a portrait of the man at its epicenter. The story unfolds backstage at three iconic product launches, ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac.
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Movie: Mr. Brooks ( 2007 )
A well-respected businessman is sometimes controlled by his murder and mayhem-loving alter ego.
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Movie: Silver Linings Playbook ( 2012 )
After losing his job and wife, and spending time in a mental institution, Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper) winds up living with his parents (Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver). He wants to rebuild his life and reunite with his wife, but his parents would be happy if he just shared their obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles. Things get complicated when Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), who offers to help him reconnect with his wife, if he will do something very important for her in exchange
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Movie: Girlfriends ( 1978 )
In New York City, Susan Weinblatt and Anne Munroe are longtime roommates and friends. Susan is a struggling photographer who wants to get out of the wedding and bar mitzvah racket, those jobs which she primarily gets through her friend, Rabbi Gold, to selling the photographs she wants to take, but she realizes that she has to pay the rent. Anne is an aspiring poet and academic who looks to Susan as her primary guidance. As they move into a new apartment, Anne drops the news that she will not be moving in as she is getting married to her boyfriend, Martin. This news is bittersweet for Susan who is somewhat happy for her friend, but isn't sure if she likes all that Martin now represents to her. Both Susan and Anne will have to make professional and personal adjustments to their new situations, especially in what it means for not having the other as a constant in each their lives. While Anne has a "Martin", Susan has no one currently to replace all that Anne has been in her life. So Susan goes through a series of new professional and personal relationships all in trying to find her way, while the two of them have to decide how and if to maintain their friendship in light of all these changes.
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Movie: The House of Mirth ( 2000 )
A woman risks losing her chance of happiness with the only man she has ever loved.
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Movie: Everything Must Go ( 2011 )
When an alcoholic relapses, causing him to lose his wife and his job, he holds a yard sale on his front lawn in an attempt to start over. A new neighbor might be the key to his return to form.
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Movie: The Hustler ( 1961 )
An up-and-coming pool player plays a long-time champion in a single high-stakes match.