Funny BonesMovies like Funny Bones
- Key Features:
- Comedian, Father-son relationship, Search for identity, Family legacy, Ambition, Failure, Dark comedy, Show business, Nostalgia
- Tone:
- serious, cynical, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Comedy fans, Drama enthusiasts, British cinema lovers
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Disillusionment
Funny Bones

Tommy Fawkes wants to be a successful comedian. After his Las Vegas debut is a failure, he returns to Blackpool where his father—also a comedian—started, and where he spent the summers of his childhood.
Funny Bones
Set in the Mojave Desert, the film follows a broken-down comedian playing clubs across the Southwest, working his way to Los Angeles to meet his estranged daughter.

Unemployed cartoonist Gord Brody moves back in with his parents Jim and Julie and younger brother Freddy. When his parents demand he leave, he retaliates by spreading rumors that Jim is sexually abusing Freddy.

Kenneth (who likes to call himself Kay) begins to realise he's just another wannabe bad boy... even less than a loser in fact. After quitting his job at Laimsbury's, Kay vows to become a respected gangster... or cry trying. A pulls-no-punches, coming-of-age story, centering on one directionless hopeless "shotter", who finds his true worth in the face of urban adversity.

Two college grads return to their hometown, where a hypothetical question -- whose dad would win in a fight? -- leads to mass mayhem.

Simon Birch and Joe Wenteworth are boys who have a reputation for being oddballs. Joe never knew his father, and his mother, Rebecca, is keeping her lips sealed no matter how much he protests. Simon, meanwhile, is an 11-year-old dwarf whose outsize personality belies his small stature. Indeed, he often assails the local reverend with thorny theological questions and joins Joe on his quest to find his biological father.

Sheffield, England. Gaz, a jobless steelworker in need of quick cash persuades his mates to bare it all in a one-night-only strip show.

British comedian Jimmy Carr unleashes his deadpan delivery and wickedly funny one-liners to a sold-out audience at the UK's Hammersmith Apollo.

Archie Rice, an old-time British vaudeville performer sinking into final defeat, schemes to stay in show business.

An aging comic icon, Jackie Burke, has seen better days. Despite his efforts to reinvent himself and his comic genius, the audience only wants to know him as the former television character he once played. Already a strain on his younger brother and his wife, Jackie is forced to serve out a sentence doing community service for accosting an audience member. While there, he meets Harmony, the daughter of a sleazy Florida real estate mogul, and the two find inspiration in one another, resulting in surprising consequences.

After spending 12 years in prison for keeping his mouth shut, notorious safe-cracker Dom Hemingway is back on the streets of London looking to collect what he's owed.

What does it mean to be a successful comedian? How far can the boundaries of taste be pushed to get a laugh? Four top comics, Ricky Gervais, Louis C.K., Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, discuss and debate their craft.

While in his teens, Donny fathered a son, Todd, and raised him as a single parent up until Todd's 18th birthday. Now, after not seeing each other for years, Todd's world comes crashing down when Donny resurfaces just before Todd's wedding.

When former comedian Mark McCarthy is faced with a rare form of cancer, he hires a young, impressionable cameraman to document his crude and comical lessons on what it means to be a man for his unborn son.

After growing up poor in Salmonella, Vincenzo Cortino installs himself as the preeminent, if bumbling, Mafia don of the New World. But now he must pass on power to one of his two sons: either level-headed veteran Anthony or vituperative loose cannon Joey.

With his signature pitch-black sense of humor, Ricky Gervais takes the stage at the London Palladium in this provocative stand-up comedy special.

An honest, goodhearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills.

Two boys, still grieving the death of their mother, find themselves the unwitting benefactors of a bag of bank robbery loot in the week before the United Kingdom switches its official currency to the Euro. What's a kid to do?

A hapless carnival performer masquerades as the court jester as part of a plot against a usurper who has overthrown the rightful king of England.

Famous and wealthy funnyman George Simmons doesn't give much thought to how he treats people until a doctor delivers stunning health news, forcing George to reevaluate his priorities with a little help from aspiring stand-up comic Ira.

An undertaker who hasn't had any 'customers' in a long time is forced to pay one year's back-rent. To get money he starts to kill people, which brings absurd results.

The clumsy and unfunny clown Richard "Stitches" Grindle entertains at the 10th birthday party of little Tom, but the boy and his friends play a prank with Stitches, tying his shoelaces. Stitches slips, falls and dies. Six years later, Tom gives a birthday party for his friends at home, but Stitches revives to haunt the teenagers and revenge his death.

Con man Ray is going after one last heist – a stash of rare coins – when his estranged son Timmy unexpectedly shows up. Ray is too preoccupied with his robbery to spend time with his son, so Timmy blackmails him into acting like a father, hiding the coins and promises to return them only after Ray takes him to amusement parks and baseball games.

When stubborn, spotty Kevin and his equally hopeless best friend Perry go on holiday to the party island Ibiza, they see it as their big chance to become superstar club DJs and, more importantly, to lose their virginities. But they aren't prepared for the interference of top DJ Eyeball Paul, not to mention the embarrassment factor of Kevin's long-suffering parents.

Haunted by memories of his father murdering a family, Arlis Sweeney prefers to keep to himself, focusing his energy on his work. One day, the traumatic past that eats away at him returns when he meets Kay Davies, a woman connected to the bloody event. Against all odds, Arlis and Kay fall in love; however, when his father, Roy, reappears in his life -- with the coldhearted Ginnie in tow -- Arlis must deal with his past demons.

A card shark and his unwillingly-enlisted friends need to make a lot of cash quick after losing a sketchy poker match. To do this they decide to pull a heist on a small-time gang who happen to be operating out of the flat next door.

Unemployed and unemployable, Tony is a sympathetic recluse with severe social problems, an addiction to VHS action films and a horrible moustache. Occasionally he snaps and murder is the result…

A comedian's relationship with his family crumbles when his career begins to take off.

The last wish of the dying "Monk" is for his foster child, Harald, to find his real son, Ludvig. But the latter is currently in a Swedish prison cell...

Svend and Bjarne work for a butcher in a small Danish town. Fed up with their boss' arrogance, they decide to start their own butcher shop. After dismal beginnings, an unfortunate accident happens which coincides with a large order of meat. One hasty decision leads to another and soon the business thrives. In the meantime, Bjarne has to deal with his twin brother who has been in coma for years following a gruesome car accident.

A comedy following the tragic life of the legendary Frankie Wilde. The story takes us through Frankie's life from being one of the best DJs alive, through a subsequent battle with a hearing disorder, culminating in his mysterious disappearance from the scene.

A kid from the Midwest moves out to Hollywood in order to follow in his parents footsteps -- and become a porn star.

You can’t choose your family – which is why Conrad limits his visits with his parents to an absolute minimum. When venomous, irritable Carl injures himself seriously in a fall, his reluctant son Conrad and the butt-of-all-jokes Jonas has no choice but to move back into his old childhood room. Three generations under one roof: a chance for reconciliation – or a total disaster?

Sickan, Vanheden and Rocky try to rob the Berns nightclub one night, but Vanheden has made the mistake to invite his constantly drunk cousin, the old dynamiter Dynamite-Harry and he ruins the plan. Sickan is arrested, and has to spend 10 months in a small, locked room. When he is released, he has a new plan, but Rocky and Vanheden have decided to go straight. Together with Dynamite-Harry, Sickan plans to rob a cold store, managed by their arch-enemy, Wall-Enberg.

After serving a 12-year sentence for killing the man that slept with his wife, a man ponders whether he should try and reconcile with his family, or take revenge on those who turned him in.

A woman seeking revenge for her murdered father hires a famous gunman, but he's very different from what she expects.

When Egon Olsen gets out of Vridlose State Prision once again, his friends Benny and Kjeld do not want to know about his new ingenious plan: they are actually WORKING in a shop! Thus, he has to think of something else to get his hands on the money of some international gangster.

Two gay men living in St. Tropez have their lives turned upside down when the son of one of the men announces he is getting married. They try to conceal their lifestyle and their ownership of the drag club downstairs when the fiancée and her parents come for dinner.

Didier Travolta is a 40-year-old disco music fan who has no job, lives with his mother, and has a son he hasn't seen for a while. The mother of his son refuses to send him their son for the holidays unless he can offer him a real vacation, not just going to bars of the French port city of Le Havre. Penniless, the only way he can see his son is by winning a dance contest organized by his friend Jackson, with the prize of a vacation to Australia for two.

Angelo "Snaps" Provolone made his dying father a promise on his deathbed: he would leave the world of crime and become an honest businessman. Despite having no experience in making money in a legal fashion, Snaps sets about to keep his promise.

Oliver meets the irreverent and unpredictable Anna only months after his father Hal Fields has passed away. This new love floods Oliver with memories of his father, who, following the death of his wife of 44 years, came out of the closet at age 75 to live a full, energized, and wonderfully tumultuous gay life – which included a younger boyfriend.

A look at the work of two stand-up comics, Jerry Seinfeld and a lesser-known newcomer, detailing the effort and frustration behind putting together a successful act and career while living a life on the road.

Lewis and Clark, aka The Sunshine Boys, were famous comedians during the vaudeville era, but off-stage they couldn't stand each other and haven't spoken in over 20 years of retirement. Willy Clark's nephew is the producer of a TV variety show that wants to feature a reunion of this classic duo. It is up to him to try to get the Sunshine Boys back together again.

Upon learning that their mother has been lying to them for years about their allegedly deceased father, two fraternal twin brothers hit the road in order to find him.

After years abroad in Italy, Shadi returns to his native Nazareth. But this is no spectacular homecoming. He's back somewhat begrudgingly to honour his "wajib" (or duty) to hand out invitations to his sister's wedding with his father. The simmering tension between the two — who are often stuck in a car, more often than not in traffic — builds, exposing the sometimes-comic chasms that exist between men who live in different worlds but share an unshakable bond.

When Adolf Hitler reawakens at the site of his former bunker in present-day Berlin, he is mistaken for a comedian and quickly becomes a media phenomenon.

An average television repairman must care for the newborn triplets of his former hometown sweetheart—now a famous movie star—so her career will not suffer.

After 6 years together, Mike's girlfriend leaves him, so he travels to LA to be a star. Six months on, he's still not doing very well— so a few of his friends try to reconnect him to the social scene and hopefully help him forget his failed relationship.

Richie and Eddie are in charge of the worst hotel in the UK, Guest House Paradiso, neighbouring a nuclear power plant. The illegal immigrant chef has fled and all the guests have gone. But when a famous Italian filmstar, Gina Carbonara, who is in hiding from a fiance she doesn't want to marry, arrives at the hotel, things get very interesting!

A former youth boxing champion, Jimmy McCabe is a man in search of hope but looking in all the wrong places. When he hits rock bottom he turns to his childhood boxing club and the only family he has left: gym owner Bill corner man Eddie and promoter Joe. Back in training, years after anyone thought he was a contender, he risks his life, as he tries to stand tall and regain his place in the world.

A snobbish investor and a wily street con-artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.

Aspiring filmmakers Mel Funn, Marty Eggs and Dom Bell go to a financially troubled studio with an idea for a silent movie. In an effort to make the movie more marketable, they attempt to recruit a number of big name stars to appear, while the studio's creditors attempt to thwart them.

Tom loves Sophie and Sophie loves Tom. But Tom and Sophie are of differering classes. Can they find a way through the mayhem to be true to love?

In the aftermath of a nuclear disaster, a starving family find hope in a charismatic hotel owner. Lured by the prospect of a free dinner, they discover that the evening's entertainment blurs the lines between performance and reality. Will they wind up the spectators or the spectacle?

Talented USO entertainer Dixie Leonard and comedian Eddie Sparks deal with their relationship over the course of 5 decades from World War II to the Vietnam War era to their twilight era in the 90's.

In order to enjoy his retirement, a father takes drastic measures to get his twentysomething, slacker sons to move out and fend for themselves.

Aspiring comic Rupert Pupkin attempts to achieve success in show business by stalking his idol, a late night talk-show host who craves his own privacy.

An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970s Britain.

After a series of traumatic childhood events, a psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind boy becomes a master pinball player and the object of a religious cult.

40-year-old Elling, sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a state institution when his mother, who has sheltered him his entire life, dies. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin, also in his 40s.

Luigi has lived with his mother and little brother since their abusive father Franco left when he was 10. Now a young man brimming with rage, he joins a far-right gang in search of belonging, but Franco's return poisons everything.

Gauthier, a young journalist, learns from his mother that he is the illegitimate son of Guy Jamet, a popular French singer whose heyday stretched unevenly from the 1960’s to the nineties. Guy is currently promoting a new album of old material and heads on tour. Armed with a camera, Gauthier decides to follow Guy, recording his daily routine and his concerts to create a documentary portrait.

The Olsen Gang has finally made it. They are in Mallorca, having fulfilled their dream. Almost, that is. They don't have any money, so Egon has to open a safe at a restaurant to get some. As usual, however, Egon ends up in prision. When they return to Denmark, he has a new plan.

After serving jail time for a mysterious crime, Bill and Karl get out of jail and become preoccupied with figuring out who turned them in to the police. On top of that, the "family business" is on the rocks, and the motley crew of criminals who operate out of Down Terrace aren't feeling terribly trusting of one another. It might look like an ordinary house, but at Down Terrace, the walls are closing in..

A group of holidaymakers head for the Spanish resort of Elsbels for a 4-day visit. When they get there, they find the Hotel still hasn't been finished being built, and the weather is awful. And there is something strange about the staff—they all look very similar. To top it all off, the weather seems to be having an adverse affect on the Hotel's foundations.

The comedic stylings of four sort-of famous funnymen are brought to the big screen courtesy of this 2002 documentary.

Naive Stanley Windrush looks for a career in a family business. Much to his dismay, he finds work at a munitions factory where he has to start from the bottom, while both the management and the labor union use him as a tool in their fight for power.

Jessie is an aging career criminal who has been in more jails, fights, schemes, and lineups than just about anyone else. His son Vito, while currently on the straight and narrow, has had a fairly shady past and is indeed no stranger to illegal activity. They both have great hope for Adam, Vito's son and Jessie's grandson, who is bright, good-looking, and without a criminal past.

Frank and Casper's friendship is put to a test, when Casper decides to leave Denmark to pursue a solo career in Los Angeles. Determined to win his best friend back Frank chooses to follow Casper insuring an eventful trip.

A crew of hardy road workers, led by a bickering Father and Son, must survive the night when they accidentally awaken an ancient Irish vampire.

An old gangster is advised that Freddie Mays would leave jail after thirty years in prison. His mood changes and he recalls when he was a young punk and who joined Freddie's gang—a man he both envied and ultimately betrayed.

With this inventive portrait, director Kirsten Johnson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.

A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him to lie in order to avoid the penalties. His life turns into a mess and he has an opportunity to run away and leave it all behind.

An unlikely friendship develops between a hitman and a suicidal guy who have both checked into the same hotel for different reasons.

Two rich children devise a way to escape their grandfather and visit their mother. Unfortunately for two hapless safe crackers, they become part of the plan.

Low-budget independent filmmaker Nick Reve tries to keep everything together as his production is plagued with an insecure actress, a megalomaniac star, a pretentious beret-wearing director of photography, and lousy catering.

A washed up actor best known for playing the title character in the 1980s detective show "Mindhorn" must work with the police when a serial killer says that he will only speak with Detective Mindhorn, whom he believes to be real.

To save the family business, two ne’er-do-well traveling salesmen hit the road with disastrously funny consequences.

The story of Henry, a stand-up comedian with a fierce sense of humour and Ann, a singer of international renown. In the spotlight, they are the perfect couple, healthy, happy, and glamourous. The birth of their first child, Annette, a mysterious girl with an exceptional destiny, will change their lives.

Nino and Bruno are two comedians who reach the heights of success with their duo act, turning them into huge TV celebrities. However, the hate between them grows fast, as much as their fame.

A gay cabaret owner and his drag queen partner agree to put up a false heterosexual front so that their son can introduce them to his fiancée's conservative parents.

Shaun lives a supremely uneventful life, which revolves around his girlfriend, his mother, and, above all, his local pub. This gentle routine is threatened when the dead return to life and make strenuous attempts to snack on ordinary Londoners.

Retired gambling legend Ken returns to Macau, only to be drawn back into action when his daughter becomes entangled in a global mafia scheme. Using his unmatched skills, he must stop a dangerous plot and protect his loved ones.

Overweight loner Rino spends his days in seclusion, until his dad rents a room to an overtly sexual girl who challenges Rino to break down his walls.

Everybody's favorite stiff is back! Working fools Larry Wilson and Richard Parker have uncovered a dirty, little secret: Their former boss, Bernie Lomax, embezzled $2 million and placed it in a safe deposit box in the Caribbean. Now, the boys are ready to go after the loot, but they can't do it alone -- they need poor Bernie's help. Can the buddies give their ex-boss new life?

With his bronco-busting career on its last legs, Junior Bonner heads to his hometown to try his luck in the annual rodeo. But his fond childhood memories are shattered when he finds his family torn apart by his greedy brother and hard-drinking father.

Hoping to earn his mother's respect, a young hustler-turned-businessman tries to open a brothel with his two useless buddies.

Sam and Lucie Bell are a married couple who seem to have it all: good looks, successful careers, matching motorbikes, and an enthusiastic love life. The only thing they lack is the one thing they want more—a baby.

A father, who can't keep his promises, dies in a car accident. One year later, he returns as a snowman, who has the final chance to put things right with his son before he is gone forever.

Three criminals plan to break out of prison the day before their release in order to carry out a daring jewel robbery, intending to establish the perfect alibi by returning to jail afterwards. First however they must get out, a task made more difficult by a new, stricter prison officer.

Elliot Hopper, a widower with three children, is working on a business deal to get his family out of financial straits when he is suddenly killed in a taxi accident. With the aid of a paranormal researcher, Elliott attempts to complete the deal from the beyond, ensuring his family will be taken care of.

Four sisters – Caroline, Joanna, Paulina, and Vicky – reunite for the Christmas Holiday in a Yorkshire mansion. However, their estranged father, James, joins in for the first time since he left the family behind decades prior. The group attempts to get through the holiday despite comedic misunderstandings, while also uncovering the long-buried secret that tore their family apart, so many years ago.

In 1970s England, three blue-collar friends spend their days joking, drinking, fighting and chasing girls. Freddie wants to leave their working-class world but cool, charismatic Bruce and lovable loser Snork are happy with life the way it is. When Freddie gets a new job as a door-to-door salesman and bumps into his old school sweetheart Julie, the gang are forced to make choices that will change their lives for ever.

An American girl, Daphne, heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her bohemian mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost dad is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.

In Victorian England, a fortune now depends on which of two brothers outlives the other—or can be made to have seemed to do so.

Sam is a young stand-up comedian and au pair struggling with PTSD, who is weighing whether or not to join the search for Brooke, a missing girl she used to nanny.

When his long-lost outlaw father returns, Tommy "White Knife" Stockburn goes on an adventure-filled journey across the Old West with his five brothers.

Retired Englishman George Hall's hypochondria worsens and takes its toll on his family.


