The Marx Brothers (physical comedy genius Harpo, pre-eminent straight man Zeppo, irascible Chico, and wisecracking Groucho Marx) are legends of cinematic comedy. Having honed their act on the vaudeville stage, the brothers came to Paramount Pictures just as silent films were giving way to “talkies.”
There, and later at MGM without Zeppo, the Marx Brothers perfected a high-energy brand of comedy that’s still influential to this day. Groucho’s witty one-liners alternate with Harpo’s antic slapstick as the brother’s move through an increasingly ridiculous plot, typically driven by Chico’s scheming, a formula familiar to fans of modern-day comedy.
Below we rank all the Brothers’ movies, from the forgettable to the timeless.
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13 Love Happy
MGM
This noir-esque crime caper was the Marx Brothers’ final film, and there was some fatigue and repetition on display. In it, Groucho’s detective and Harpo’s shoplifter each race against a femme fatal (played by Ilona Massey) to recover a cache of diamonds stolen from the last czar of Russia.
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12 Monkey Business
Paramount
Each brother has a separate adventure on board an ocean liner bound for New York in this 1931 film. There are few stand-out moments in the movie, at least compared to the elaborate set pieces and hilarious routines of the other Marx Brothers films, but it’s a pleasant and enjoyable watch throughout.
11 Room Service
RKO
The Marx Brothers love hotels. A transitory, compartmentalized space where people from various walks of life can come together, for better or worse, the Brothers would return to them time and again. Room Service isn’t the best of these, but it does provide some interesting variations on the theme.
10 The Big Store
The Marx Brothers go into Private Eye mode in this film, rooting out the culprits behind a scheme to defraud a department store. The highlights come from Douglas Dumbrille as the duplicitous store manager and Margaret Dumont as the store’s owner, a reminder that one of the Brothers’ great skills was casting comedic foils and getting the most from them.
9 A Night in Casablanca
This post-WWII movie finds the Marx Brothers, and particularly Groucho’s hotel manager Ronald Kornblow, taking on the Nazis. Riffing on Casablanca and its imitators, this isn’t the best Groucho-runs-a-hotel story from the Brothers, but it is a good bit of fun.
8 At the Circus
With their chaotic energy, theatrical background, and perpetual showmanship, the circus is a natural home for the Marx Brothers. This film, while it marks the beginning of the Brothers’ slow decline, allows that natural fit to bring out moments of greatness, including Harpo’s reliably gorgeous harp playing. Musical sequences were popular in Marx films, and a couple of the best are featured here.
7 A Day at the Races
The madcap energy of A Day at the Races is evident even in the briefest of plot descriptions: Groucho plays Hugo Hackenbush, a veterinarian posing as a psychiatrist who’s forced into trying to save the sanitarium he works in by fixing a horse race. The film might not pay off all the comedic potential encapsulated in that storyline, but it does get the most of it.
6 The Cocoanuts
As the owner of the Hotel de Cocoanuts, Groucho’s Hammer must contend with the hijinks of Harpo and Chico while trying to persuade the wealthy Mrs. Potter (the always incredible Margaret Dumont, ever the straight-woman to the Marx Brothers) to keep the hotel out of bankruptcy. The first of the Brothers’ movies, their vaudeville-honed formula is already well in place in this fast-paced, groundbreaking 1929 comedy.
5 Animal Crackers
The Marx Brothers’ approach to comedy relied heavily on formulas, with their genius shining through in the details and variations that could be applied to these. One of the most enduringly popular of these, and the one most likely to be known to people who haven’t seen the movies, involves the sophisticated wealthy dowager thrust into the midsts of the Brothers’ madness. A lot of credit for that goes to Margaret Dumont, who plays that role here and in other films, and each time proves herself every bit the Marxes’ equal.
4 Go West
The Marx Brothers meet the Western. This film is a late entry to the Marx Brothers canon and almost undoubtedly their last good film, but still captures the frantic joy of their best work in moments. The plot and overall pacing are less than stellar here, but the madcap runaway train climax, punched up by an uncredited Buster Keaton, remains one of the best sequences from any of their movies.
3 Horse Feathers
When the president of Huxley College retires, he’s replaced by the esteemed but imbecilic Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff, played by Groucho. Soon chaos ensues. The formula here is standard Marx Brothers, with skits, gags, and musical performances not so much carrying the plot as disrupting it at every turn.
Not only are the Marx characters hugely disruptive, the Brothers themselves were as well, refusing to conform to any standards of character or plot development. They were putting on shows, little manifestation of comic anarchy, and Horse Feathers is one of their best.
2 A Night at the Opera
A perfect distillation of a Marx Brothers movie, A Night at the Opera has it all: Groucho one-liners so clever and closely packed that the audience is sometimes finally getting and laughing at a line from three jokes before; long, elaborate set-pieces culminating in a climactic sequence set amongst the Verdi opera “Il Trovatore;” and extended musical performances from Harpo and Groucho that highlight just how integral music had always been to their films. The romance-mystery at the heart of the story is, as usual, just a red herring for the unhinged ‘Marxist’ delight.
1 Duck Soup
Duck Soup tells the politically satirical story of the fictional country of Freedonia, struggling and desperate, turning in its hour of need to Groucho’s Rufus T. Firefly for help, and the madness that ensues. Duck Soup has only the barest elements of plot, allowing it to present the gags, routines, and rapid-fire dialogue exchanges in the most concentrated form of any Marx Brothers movie. The film’s subject, the absurdity of modern politics, remains as timelessly topical as ever, though few have ever mined it for laughs as well as the Marx Brothers.
