25 top comedies of all-time

23 Rushmore (1998)
Dir Wes Anderson (Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams)

Quintessential quote: ‘Best play ever, man.’

Some films create an entire world, one which has its own rules and its own geography but which feels entirely real, a place you could go. ‘Rushmore’ is one of the greatest of these. Its world – the grounds and environs of Rushmore Academy – is at once familiar and strange, populated by bored millionaires and Scottish vagabonds, lost aquatic heroes and their grieving lovers, gruff headmasters and winsome Asian teens and, of course, Max Fischer, arguably the most complex, original, loveable but infuriating movie creation of the past three decades. Yes, there’s a little ‘Harold and Maude’ here, a little Hal Hartley there. But even as it approaches its quarter century, ‘Rushmore’ still feels blindingly original and entrancingly unique. The best film of the ’90s? Very possibly. TH