16 comedy shows on Amazon Prime Video that’ll have you in stitches

It’s easy to get Netflix tunnel vision when embarking on an epic telly session, but you’d be a fool of Kraken proportions to discount Amazon Prime Video’s growing library of gems. As this collection of Stuff favourites shows, Amazon’s streaming service has become particularly adept at laughter generation. And remember; all of these movies and TV shows are already included in your Prime subscription, so sit back and prepare to engage your face’s smile apparatus with these comedy masterpieces…

BEETLEJUICE

When Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis’ married couple perish in a tragic accident, they become ghosts in their former home – but try as they might, they can’t scare away the new occupants. They’re just not cut out for the haunting business. Enter Michael Keaton’s Betelgeuse, a spook for hire that promises to rid them of the troublesome humans – at a price. Tim Burton’s comedy is rich with the dark, creepy wonder we’ve come to expect from his movies, but it’s also raucously funny to boot.

TRANSPARENT

Amazon spent a long time trying to “do a Netflix” by creating its very own blockbusting TV shows, and Transperent was the moment it got it right. For a start, this is really bold – it tells the story of a sixtysomething divorcee announcing to his three grownup kids that he’s always felt different and is now going to live as a woman. Sounds heavy, and it sort of is, but it’s also darkly funny, with a degree of wit and sharpness that’s still rare even in this golden age of TV.

AIRPLANE!

Released way back in 1980, Airplane! is a parody of the various disaster movies popular at the time – but unlike most parodies (Scary Movie, we’re looking at you), it manages to be consistently hilarious. In fact, it’s regularly rated one of the best comedy films of all time, standing alone as a pioneering classic – and a movie that still nails its cues almost 40 years later.

SEINFELD

Rejoice, for “the show about nothing” has finally come to a UK streaming service; now Prime customers have the perfect excuse to plough through all nine seasons of Jerry Seinfeld’s beloved sitcom. An inventive, absurd and hilarious examination of the trivialities of modern life, never relying on slapstick or coddling viewers with cheap sentimentality, Seinfeld is quite simply a must-watch for all fans of comedy.

PARKS AND RECREATION

The show that propelled Amy Poehler to Golden Globe-presenting notoriety and Chris Pratt to blockbuster ultra-stardom has its wit and one-liners honed to perfection. Taking Modern Family’s warmth, mixing it with Arrested Development’s absurdity and building it around The Office’s mockumentary formula, it centres on the inconsequential workdays of the least consequential department (Parks and Rec) of the council of madeup middle- American town of Pawnee, Indiana.

ATTACK THE BLOCK

Aliens descend on Earth with bad intentions. Aliens land in a South London housing estate. Aliens find out that South London housing estates hold their own kind of dangers. By refusing to cast judgement – either good or bad – on the actions of its teenage protagonists, it leaves you free to make up your own mind. Though you’ll probably be too engrossed in the action to bother.

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE

Napoleon Dynamite is a man of many talents – dancer extraordinaire, time machine builder, friend to llamas and all-round poster boy for the semi-mythical 1980s. In case you missed the t-shirts that are still knocking about years after this movie was released, the plot (such as it is) revolves around Napoleon’s pal Pedro running for class president, and there’s also girl trouble and dysfunctional family thrown in to season the mix.

WAYNE’S WORLD

There’s an entire generation of people who didn’t grow up with Wayne’s World. If you know some unfortunate who’s never had the pleasure, plonk them (and yourself) down in front of Mike Myers’ finest hour and a half. Introduce them to the Mirthmobile, gun racks, Grey Poupon, the Suck Kut and Alice Cooper in Milwaukee (which is actually pronounced “Mill-e-wah-que”). The world will be a better place for it.

SON OF RAMBOW

On the face of it a simple tale of two schoolboys trying to make their own version of Sly Stallone’s debut Rambo film First Blood – the spelling mistake in the film’s title is deliberate – Son Of Rambow ends up being about so much more. There’s religion, in the form of the shadowy Plymouth Brethren church, bullying, friendship, ’80s schooldays, the early days of VHS, foreign exchange trips, those endless summer holidays we used to enjoy and lots, lots more. Brilliant.

CATASTROPHE

A hot steamy hook-up while you’re out of the country for work – probably the dream of anyone that’s ever seen the inside of an airport business lounge. Finding out you’ve got said hook-up pregnant? Not so much. That’s pretty much the gist of Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan’s comedy, which is equal parts hysterical and cringeworthy, yet still manages to pull on your heartstrings, too.

IN THE LOOP

This big screen spin-off of The Thick Of It takes everything that makes the Brit political satire so special and shoves it over the Atlantic to wreak havoc. As you’d expect, it plays out mostly like a longer episode of TTOI, with added star factor courtesy of James Gandolfini. But excellent though the late Sopranos actor is, it’s Peter Capaldi’s Malcolm Tucker who steals the show – as always.

THE LEAGUE

Fantasy football doesn’t sound ripe for comedy, especially when you take into account that the football being referred to is the American version that involves very little foot-to-ball action, but you soon realise that in The League fantasy football is just a vehicle for hilariously OTT, non-PC sledging. The characters are so likeable, and their behaviour so outrageous and childish, that even the odd episode that isn’t an all-out banger is still a chucklesome pleasure.

KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS

Long before Star Wars, Alec Guinness was a genuine giant of British cinema. He spent the ’50s making a string of bask-in-his-brilliance classics, kicking off that run by playing eight members of the same aristocratic family in this 1949 comedy, a perfect Sunday afternoon joy.

FOUR LIONS

Co-written by the comedic dream team of Chris Morris and Peep Show creators Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, this jihadi-themed satire is still disturbingly relevant (and equally chuckleworthy) in 2018. Like the politicians in Bain and Armstrong’s In the Loop, the Four Lions are a team of bigoted buffoons who stubbornly cling to an extreme belief (suicide bombing ‘moderates’) in the face of mounting evidence of their idiocy and their agenda’s contradictions.

THEY LIVE

John Carpenter’s horror-action-comedy is a joyful late 80s romp starring pro wrestler Roddy Piper as an ordinary man who, via a pair of special shades, gains a powerful insight into the reality of the world – it’s ruled by grotesque aliens who’ve enslaved the unwitting populace via the media. A biting satire on advertising, yes – but also a wonderful guilty pleasure action movie.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD

The first (and we think best) of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s “Cornetto trilogy”, this horror-comedy leans more towards guffaws than gore – although it’s not without its moments of guts-out violence or drama.Packed with smart references, sight gags (Wright’s quick-fire editing is a highlight) and scorching one-liners, Shaun of the Dead is far more than your average laugh-packed horror comedy. There’s a real heart and soul to it too, and it’s easy to see why Pegg and Wright have become such hot properties in Hollywood since its release.