13 Shameless New Comedies That Just Don’t Care If You’re Offended

Writer-director-star Bill Burr (above right) plays a 50-something Gen X dad who refuses to abide by the new rules of what is and isn’t OK to say — no matter how many problems it creates for his growing family.

Burr calls out a holier-than-thou school administrator with one of the crudest words in the English language, shares some thoughts on Caitlyn Jenner, and bullies a young colleague to rap along, uncensored, to N.W.A.

Of course, he also learns some valuable lessons. But Old Dads never goes completely soft, and proves it isn’t afraid to violate recent comedy norms with a few hard-R moves — like packing a crucial scene with exotic dancers, just because.

Old Dads is now streaming on Netflix.

One of our favorite new comedies, Emerald Fennell’s magnificent Saltburn is a pitch-black comedy about the very, very rich and their sense of untouchability.

It’s graphic, often cruel, and unapologetically dark. You’ll wonder who you should be rooting for from beginning to end, and if you’re one of those viewers who demands likable characters, this really isn’t the movie for you.

At times Saltburn has an almost gleeful amorality you could spend a lot of time objecting to and dissecting. Or just let yourself be seduced.

Saltburn is now on Amazon Prime.

Joy Ride, the acclaimed debut by director and co-writer Adele Lim, revolves around four friends who visit China in search of one of their birth mothers.

Some of the best jokes in this joyously explicit ensemble comedy revolves around a tattoo on a body part we aren’t even allowed to write the name of here.

Strays is the R-rated story of a dog (voiced by Will Ferrell) who gets a pack together to seek revenge on his former owner. Critic Peter Rainer of FilmWeek calls it the “dog movie equivalent of Bad Santa. Very scatological and obscene, but very funny.”

One of our favorite recent Google searches about this new comedy is: “Is Strays OK for kids?”

Probably not.

Another animal-themed film, Cocaine Bear, shamefully glamorizes drug use by bears, in addition to making it seem fun and exciting to attack campers and national treasure Felicity (Keri Russell).

We kid. We like this movie a lot, and appreciate its unapologetic darkness. And of course the late Ray Liotta (above).

You may not think it belongs on a list of new comedies, but you’ll probably laugh. At least you can appreciate the hilarious audacity of the storytelling: Cocaine Bear is based on a true story, but spins far out from the real facts.

Director Kristoffer Borgli’s pitch-black Norwegian comedy relentlessly mocks people who will do anything for social media attention — and the fact that their phony schemes work.

It tells the story of Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp), who is so jealous of her boyfriend’s successful art show that she fakes a rare, disfiguring illness that gains her the attention of Oslo tastemakers.

Also: People who like Sick of Myself will probably also like the next social-media satire on our list.

A smart, ruthless satire of Hollywood and social media, Rotting in the Sun stars the film’s director and co-writer, Sebastián Silva, who plays a fictionalized, depressed, drugged-out, very self-destructive version of himself.

When meets social media influencer Jordan Firstman (also playing a version of himself) on a gay beach, they go down a reckless path before the older Silva rejects Firstman for his supposed vapidity. But he soon gets pulled back into a collaboration.

Rotting in the Sun is explicit enough that some people will check out very early. Which is fine, not everything is for everyone.

Critics pilloried this throwback comedy from director Peter Farrelly, who returned to his comedic roots after directing and co-writing the Best Picture winner Green Book. Yes, it’s filled with gross-out jokes — John Cena plays an alcoholic Atlantic City actor named Rod whose whole act is doing song parodies involving self love.

But: It’s also one of the sweetest movies we’ve seen in years, with its heart very much in the right place. It’s about three childhood pals (Zac Efron, Jermaine Fowler, Andrew Santino) who struggle to grow up and use a fictional friend named Ricky Stanicky to avoid responsibility.

Then, through a series of mishaps, they’re forced to recruit Cena’s Rod to play Ricky and… things go better than you might expect. We laughed a lot and felt very happy afterwards.

We also noticed that for all its silly jokes, Ricky Stanicky has a strikingly tight script and some of the most inclusive casting we’ve ever seen. Shameless as it is, it has plenty to be proud of. (And it takes the shameless prize for casting Shameless star William H. Macy in a very funny role.)

Bottoms is about “teen girls who start a fight club so they can try to impress and hook up with cheerleaders,” explains writer-director Emma Seligman.

It breaks a lot of rules about what kind of violence it’s considered decent to present onscreen — the girls really do fight, and don’t always win — and resists recent play-it-safe rules that dictate that LGBTQ+ characters have to be saintly or victimized or both.

“I think every human deserves to see a relatable, complicated, nuanced version of themselves on screen. And I don’t think that I’ve seen it enough for me to feel recognized,” says Seligman.

The oldest movie on this list of new comedies is also our favorite. It’s about a failed former star of the adult motion picture industry, Mikey Saber (Simon Rex), who returns to his Texas hometown, where he thinks he’s found his new meal ticket in a high school senior named Strawberry (played by Suzanna Son, who was 26 at the time.)

Their relationship is completely wrong and Mikey is a pretty terrible person, but director Sean Baker (who also made the excellent Tangerine and The Florida Project) goes for laughs and real emotion instead of reassuring the audience by scolding his sketchy lead character.

Red Rocket is a wild, just-go-with-it movie about dreams and delusions that doesn’t tell you how to think. It just lets you laugh and shake your head at its glorious audacity.

Also, by not pandering for respectability, Sean Baker is getting it anyway: His new film, Anora, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and looks like a strong Oscar contender.

The idea of this movie is a hard stop for many social-media scolds: Jennifer Lawrence plays a 32-year-old restaurant worker and ride-share driver who needs money to pay her property-tax bills and save her house — so she answers an ad to “date” an extremely reserved 19-year-old played by Andrew Barth Feldman.

It’s full of incredibly awkward scenes in which she tries to seduce him, often against his will, but it’s very funny and has a good heart.

“I think it’s time for a good old-fashioned laugh and it really is hard to make a comedy where you’re not offending people,” the actress, who also serves as a producer on the film, told the UK’s Sky News Wednesday. “Everybody in some sense will be offended by this film — you’re welcome.”

Also? Feldman does a piano performance of a beloved ’80s hit that is an absolute showstopper. No Hard Feelings is currently streaming on Netflix, so you can keep rewinding.

If you’re saying Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t a comedy — of course it is. It has more jokes per minute than almost any movie in recent memory, and just happens to surround them with outlandish violence.

It’s not only filled with jokes, but pretty filthy jokes, which is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Merc with a Mouth Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds.) This time around he’s paired with ex-X-Man Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), playing straight man to his manic unpredictability.

And also, if anyone claims comedy is dead: it’s earned $1.3 billion so far, making it the No. 2 movie of 2024, as well as the top-grossing R-rated movie ever. So yes, you can still make megahit new comedies. As long as they have superheroes and lots of action.

You also enjoy this list of the 12 Rad ’80s Movies Only Cool Kids Remember or this very wholesome list of 1950s Movies That Are Still a Total Delight.

Main image: Red Rocket.