20 of the Best Spoofs in Movie History

Like butterflies and pizza, movie genres have a life cycle. First comes the groundbreaking invention, then a few pretty good copycats, then a whole bunch of awful imitations, and finally, the spoof. It takes all the conventions that have become tired and flips them on their heads, hopefully to the delight of fans and haters alike. Often, the genre can then be reborn in a fresher and more self-aware form, but the spoof is a perfectly good endpoint on its own, provided it’s more International Man of Mystery and less Goldmember.

And just as we have favorite genres, we have favorite spoofs. For Redditor pense-y, one stands above the others. “So I was thinking about Hot Shots the other day, which is one of my all-time favorite spoof movies,” they recently told r/Movies, “and was wondering what other people thought was their best one.” They preemptively listed Naked Gun, Spaceballs, Scary Movie and several others for consideration, but Reddit had plenty of their own takes on takes, too.