Every single performer in Hollywood is a gifted comic, didn’t you know? That’s been the theory behind Saturday Night Live and its guest hosts for 38 years, and it’s also the theory behind films like the new Movie 43, a series of interrelated sketches featuring such unlikely laugh-generators as Hugh Jackman, Naomi Watts, Richard Gere, Gerard Butler, Halle Berry, Terrence Howard, and Kate Winslet playing alongside such proven jokers as Anna Faris, Elizabeth Banks, Johnny Knoxville, Stephen Merchant, Seann William Scott, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Emma Stone, and Chris Pratt.
Of course, the other noteworthy thing about Movie 43 is that it managed to cast so many well-known stars. The idea seems to be that, if one famous face acting ridiculous is funny, then two dozen of those will be super-mega-funny. But as the history of all-star comedies suggests, when the cast list expands, so does the extravagance and spectacle; in some cases, you don’t know whether to laugh or merely to marvel at the excess.
Here, then, are ten all-star comedies that dance on the line between too funny and too much. Starting with the celeb-studded movie that launched the trend in the first place…