National Lampoon's European VacationMovies like National Lampoon's European Vacation
- Key Features:
- Comedy, Family vacation, Fish-out-of-water, Culture clash, Slapstick, Road trip, American tourists, Misadventure, Farce, Satire, Dysfunctional family
- Tone:
- humorous, satirical, witty
- Target Audience:
- Comedy fans, Family audiences, Travel enthusiasts
- Emotional Arc:
- Excitement → Frustration → Amusement
National Lampoon's European Vacation

The Griswolds win a vacation to Europe on a game show, and so pack their bags for the continent. They do their best to catch the flavor of Europe, but they just don't know how to be be good tourists. Besides, they have trouble taking holidays in countries where they CAN speak the language.
National Lampoon's European Vacation
Clark Griswold is on a quest to take his family to the Walley World theme park for a vacation, but things don't go exactly as planned.

The Griswold family hits the road again for a typically ill-fated vacation, this time to the glitzy mecca of slots and showgirls—Las Vegas.

It's Christmastime, and the Griswolds are preparing for a family seasonal celebration. But things never run smoothly for Clark, his wife Ellen, and their two kids. Clark's continual bad luck is worsened by his obnoxious family guests, but he manages to keep going, knowing that his Christmas bonus is due soon.

Hoping to bring his family closer together and to recreate his childhood vacation for his own kids, a grown up Rusty Griswold takes his wife and their two sons on a cross-country road trip to the coolest theme park in America, Walley World. Needless to say, things don't go quite as planned.

It's vacation time for outdoorsy Chicago man Chet Ripley, along with his wife, Connie, and their two kids, Buck and Ben. But a serene weekend of fishing at a Wisconsin lakeside cabin gets crashed by Connie's obnoxious brother-in-law, Roman Craig, his wife, Kate, and the couple's two daughters. As the excursion wears on, the Ripleys find themselves at odds with the stuffy Craig family.

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.

Jack Chester, an overworked air traffic controller, takes his family on vacation to the beach. Things immediately start to go wrong for the Chesters, and steadily get worse. Jack ends up in a feud with a local yachtsman, and has to race him to regain his pride and family's respect.

When Scott learns that his longtime cyber-buddy from Berlin is a gorgeous young woman, he and his friends embark on a trip across Europe.

The Stevens think that they've won an all-expenses-paid trip to an island that's halfway around the world. When their house is destroyed, their food stolen, and their bacon eaten, the Stevens family breaks apart in front of all their friends on live national television, while the island itself is only a short distance away from Sacramento!

Superenalotto winner Pasquale Esposito with his family, two penniless students from Emilia and the Colombo and Covelli families, who accidentally rent the same chalet, will spend the Christmas holidays in Cortina d'Ampezzo.

A family together with their grandpa go on a vacation, when their new car won't stop and it nearly escapes crashing into a hundred cars.

When a straight-laced couple that has fun with a rowdy couple on vacation in Mexico return to the States, they discover that the crazy couple they met in Mexico followed them back home and decide to play tricks on them.

While on detention, a group of misfits and slackers have to write a letter to the President explaining what is wrong with the education system. There is only one problem, the President loves it! Hence, the group must travel to Washington to meet the Main Man.

Nate Johnson, a Los Angeles man estranged from his wife and three children, decides to reconnect with his family by taking them with him on a road trip to Missouri for a big family reunion.

Mr. Bean wins a trip to Cannes where he unwittingly separates a young boy from his father and must help the two reunite. On the way he discovers France, bicycling and true love, among other things.

The adventures of married couple Henry and Nancy Clark, vexed by misfortune while in New York City for Henry's job interview.

Holidaymakers arriving in a Club Med camp on the Ivory Coast are determined to forget their everyday problems and emotional disappointments. Games, competitions, outings, bathing and sunburn accompany a continual succession of casual affairs.

This coarse bedroom farce takes place at the St. Moritz ski resort over a Christmas vacation. Among the couples whose lives intersect are a widowed artist honeymooning with his second wife, a gay man traveling with his son and his lover (and hiding each from the other), a snobbish couple from Milan who have been forced to share a suite with a pair of crass Romans, etc.

The mayor of Sunny Dale see a chance to get rid of the Flodder family: They send the asocial bunch for an international exchange to New York. There they get confused with a Russian delegation of medical doctors while the street worker Werner who accompanies them becomes imprisoned.

A pair of aliens arrive on Earth to prepare for invasion, but crash instead. With enormous cone-shaped heads, robotlike walks and an appetite for toilet paper, aliens Beldar and Prymatt don't exactly blend in with the population of Paramus, N.J. But for some reason, everyone believes them when they say they're from France.

Stig-Helmer takes another vacation with his norwegian friend Ole. This time it's time for a skiing vacation in the Alps. Of course, Stig-Helmer has never learnt downhill skiing, but he attends a ski school. And together they manage to charm two women also on vacation.

Two guys whose love lives are a wreck look forward to finding ladies on the high seas. Unfortunately, they've mistakenly been booked on a gay cruise.

Two Italians are on holiday in Aspen in Colorado. The first one is Lorenzo whose daughter is crazy about Luke Perry (Beverly Hills 90210 actor) and wants to meet him at all costs. The second one wants to win back his wife who has left him because of his gambling problem.

Lloyd and Harry are two men whose stupidity is really indescribable. When Mary, a beautiful woman, loses an important suitcase with money before she leaves for Aspen, the two friends (who have found the suitcase) decide to return it to her. After some "adventures" they finally get to Aspen where, using the lost money they live it up and fight for Mary's heart.

In this sequel to Les Bronzes (1978) summer has passed, but that doesn't mean the fun has to end for Bernard, Nathalie, Gigi, Jerome, Popeye, Jean-Claude, and Christiane.

A group of friends are planning how to spend their summer vacation. One plans to go to the Seychelles with his American girlfriend. At the airport she dumps him for another guy. He has no money so he steals a backpack and goes camping. Somehow he meets a pretty girl and convinces her to share his tent. But a famous singer sees the girl and wants her too. He convinces the luckless guy to act like a fool and the girl leaves him and goes with the singer to the French Rivera.

Though Eddie's fired right at Christmastime, his boss sends him and his family on a South Pacific vacation, hoping Eddie won't sue him after being bitten by a lab monkey. When the Tuttle family winds up trapped on a tropical island, however, Eddie manages to provide for everyone and prove himself a real man.

Somewhere behind the early 1960s cold-war iron curtain, the Hollander family cause an international spying incident when Walter photographs a sunset in a sensitive region. In order to stay out of jail, the Hollanders take refuge in the American Embassy, which is temporarily being run by the absent Ambassador's diplomatically incompetent son, Axel.

One little ancient British village still holds out against the Roman invaders. Asterix and Obelix are invited to help. They must face fog, rain, warm beer and boiled boar with mint sauce, but they soon have Governor Encyclopaedius Britannicus's Romans declining and falling. Until a wild race for a barrel of magic potion lands them in the drink.

Banker Roger Hobbs wants to spend his vacation alone with his wife, Peggy, but she insists on a family vacation at a California beach house that turns out to be ugly and broken down. Daughter Katey, embarrassed by her braces, refuses to go to the beach, as does TV-addicted son Danny. When the family is joined by Hobbs' two unhappily married daughters and their husbands, he must help everyone with their problems to get some peace.

Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt return as heads of the Baker family who, while on vacation, find themselves in competition with a rival family of eight children.

On a long-awaited trip to Europe, a New York City cop and his hairdresser wife scramble to solve a baffling murder aboard a billionaire's yacht.

Obelix falls for a new arrival in his home village in Gaul, but is heartbroken when her true love arrives to visit her. However, the lovers are kidnapped by Romans; Asterix and Obelix set out to rescue them on a dangerous journey that will involve gladiators, slavers and beauracracy - and a personal encounter with the Emperor himself, Julius Caesar...

Several characters coincide during the Christmas holidays in the winter season of Saint Moritz.

Asterix crosses the channel to help second-cousin Anticlimax face down Julius Caesar and invading Romans.

Like every August, journalist Sandro, his family and acquaintances vacation on the island of Ventotene. This time, however, they find out the house next door has been rented to a lower middle class family, whose crass nature and values soon clash with their own intellectual and progressive background.

Astérix and Obélix have to win the Olympic Games in order to help their friend Alafolix marry Princess Irina. Brutus uses every trick in the book to have his own team win the game, and get rid of his father Julius Caesar in the process.

A group of students from the San Crispino school for boys take a holiday in the United States, traveling from New York to Los Angeles. Young Father Don Buro has great difficulty controlling the youngsters, especially trouble making ex-student Peo, and finds himself distracted by the attractive single mother of one of the boys.

A mature podiatrist, his girlfriend and her teenage children travel Ibiza to live a crazy holidays.

A dysfunctional couple head to a remote lakeside cabin under the guise of reconnecting, but each has secret designs to kill the other. Before they can carry out their respective plans, unexpected visitors arrive and the couple is faced with a greater danger than anything they could have plotted.

An incredibly dull-witted family unknowingly stumble upon an illegal weapons deal while on the trail of their "stolen" garbage.

The gang's vacation to Paris takes a wrong turn when Scooby and Shaggy miss their flight and end up on a skydiving expedition in the Himalayas. To make matters worse, upon arrival they must outrun the Abominable Snowmonster.

For three college guys, it’s senior year and the co-ed experience has left them high and dry. Their solution: A road trip to Mardi Gras, where beautiful babes are happy to lift their shirts and open containers are always welcome. But after dressing in drag, breaking into Carmen Electra’s hotel room, starring in a scandalous sex show and accidentally exploding a feces bomb in a swank hotel lobby, will the Mardi Gras magic kick in and their wildest fantasies come true?

The vicissitudes of three couples of newlyweds from the celebration of weddings to their respective honeymoons.

Missing the train is very bad. Seeing it leave with your children and those of your friends you had to accompany on vacation is a whole other story ... that of the crazy pursuit from Turin to Sicily of a father and grandfather as different as they are unreliable.

Some criminal EU ministers plan to turn Denmark into a gigantic fair ground and holiday paradise. Egon gets his hand at some important documents which could both make him rich and take care of Denmark's future.

Anna and Thomas want to get married in the South Tyrolean Alps. However, Stephan's daughter Antigone and the family clan bring so much chaos to the planned idyll that it's not just the wedding that is on the rocks.

In order to boost circulation of his newspaper, Lord Rawnsley announces an air race and offers £10,000 to the first person who can fly across the English Channel. But one of the participants, Percy, plots to sabotage his competitor's planes. Will Percy triumph?

Christian Bodin and his mother Maria Bodin are set on an adventure for the Land of Smiles. They meet many zany characters and face several obstacles along their journey in Thailand.

Captain Crowther's lot is not a happy one! Five of his crew have to be replaced and at such short notice before the voyage begins there isn't much to choose from. Not only does he get the five most incompetent shipmates ever to sail the seven seas, but the passengers turn out to be a rather strange bunch too. The SS Happy Wanderer will never be the same.

Eleven-year-old Alexander and his family embark on a dream Spring Break vacation to Mexico City only to have all their plans go terribly wrong when they discover a cursed idol.

Plastic surgeon Michel Saint-Josse is on his way to Spain where he hopes to spend a stress-free holiday in a luxury hotel with his teenage daughter Vanessa. When his car breaks down near a camping, Michel accepts the offer of help from an extrovert gigolo camper named Patrick Chirac. Whilst their car is being repaired, Michel and Vanessa agree to stay in Patrick’s well proportioned tent, not knowing that, thanks to a series of mishaps, it will be their home for several days...

When mild-mannered Martin Harvey finds out that he has inherited a vintage yacht, he decides to take his family on a Caribbean vacation to retrieve the vessel. Upon arriving on a small island and realizing that the ship is in rough shape, Martin and his family end up with more than they bargained for as the roguish Captain Ron signs on to sail the boat to Miami. It doesn't take long before Ron's anything-goes antics get the Harveys into plenty of trouble.

Amy Tyler has planned the perfect surprise vacation for her boyfriend Josh Merit. But the real surprise is on her when he breaks things off on their anniversary. Stuck with reservations in her ex-boyfriend's name, Amy's two best friends suggest if Amy can't change the tickets ... why not change the guy?

When marauding Romans capture - and catapult - their pal Getafix into lands unknown, the shrewd and cunning Asterix and his able sidekick Obelix spring into action! But their journey leads them to a strange and dangerous new world, where they must face a tribe of Indians, a stampeding herd of buffalo and a medicine man with designs on their magic potion!

Egon and his two cronies managed to sneak a fortune with them to Spain. Here they live a life in a whirl of pleasures, but they are not truly happy. While Egon always has the money chained to him, Bøffen still manages to steal them. Egon ends up in jail once again, and when he comes out, he has a brilliant plan.

Donald and the chipmunks, Chip and Dale, are after each other again, this time when they come upon Donald vacationing in a trailer. When he goes swimming, they fool him by moving the diving board and end up wrecking his car.

An irritable marketing executive, Neal Page, is heading home to Chicago for Thanksgiving when a number of delays force him to travel with a well meaning but overbearing shower curtain ring salesman, Del Griffith.

A cynical anti-American Hollywood filmmaker sets out on a crusade to abolish the 4th of July holiday. He is visited by three spirits who take him on a hilarious journey in an attempt to show him the true meaning of America.

A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $350,000 he buried in California. What follows is the madcap adventures of those strangers as each attempts to claim the prize for himself.

An insurance agent, in order to save his job, leaves with his family for the trendy Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh, where his boss will also spend the holidays.

Monsieur Bosquier, the owner of a private school, is far from pleased when his eldest son, Philippe, fails his end of year exams. He decides to send his wayward offspring to England to improve his English. In exchange, Philippe’s host, a wealthy whisky distiller, Mac Farrel, will send his daughter, Shirley, to live with the Bosquiers in France. However, Philippe has already decided to spend the summer holidays on a yacht with his friends, so he sends a fellow student, Michonnet, to England in his place. The deception is soon discovered but things go from bad to worse when Philippe and Shirley fall in love and fly to Scotland to get married...

In this feature film version of the popular BBC sitcom, the staff of Grace Brothers go on holiday to Costa Plonka, where they find themselves in the middle of a revolution.

The escaped mental patient and delinquent John W. Burns Jr. replaces Dr. Maitlin on a radio show, saying he's the psychiatrist Lawrence Baird.

Three Italians travel to their hometown to vote for elections: Pasquale is a Southern immigrant living in Munich who's genuinely happy to come back to Italy, even if just for a few days, but the country he dreams of is far from reality; Furio travels to Rome with his family, but his niggling attitude threatens to push his wife Magda over the edge; young Mimmo is also going to Rome, but the trip is repeatedly interrupted by worries about his grandma's health.

Four Italian men are suddenly involved in awkward situations, while they are spending the Christmas holiday, stuck in Amsterdam.

After the Club Med and skiing, what happened to the Bronzés 27 years later? Early response: the same, and worse.

It's the end of the school year. The long-awaited moment of the holidays is arrive. The little Nicolas, her parents and Grandma take the road towards the sea, and settle in for some time at the Hotel Beau-Rivage.

A rich girl steals her dad's Rolls Royce and heads off to Las Vegas to get married. However, her angry parents, a jealous suitor, and a bunch of reward seekers are determined to stop her.

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.

Newly married Marcus and Emily invite Ron and Kyla, who are also newly married with a baby, to join them at a Caribbean resort, where Marcus is meeting with the owners about a construction contract for a Chicago hotel. But when the party begins the couples' relaxing vacation quickly becomes a wild adventure.

Due to a female passenger falling out of her top whilst running for the bus Stan is distracted and crashes the bus resulting in the depot managers car being written off. As a result Stan, Jack and Blakey are fired. Stan and Jack soon get new jobs as a bus crew at a Pontins holiday resort but discover that Blakey has also gotten a job there as the chief security guard.

Slacker duo Beavis and Butt-Head wake to discover their TV has been stolen. Their search for a new one takes them on a clueless adventure across America, during which they manage to accidentally become America's most wanted.

After the 1860s Wild West, a group of misfit settlers - including ex-doctor Phil Taylor, prostitute Belle, and homosexual bookseller Julian - decide they cannot live in their current situation in the west. They hire a grizzled alcoholic wagon master by the name of James Harlow to take them on a journey back to their hometowns in the East.

A trip to New York for a job interview turns into a trip to hell for a small town couple.

Having satisfied their urge for White Castle, Harold and Kumar jump on a plane to catch up with Harold's love interest, who's headed for the Netherlands. But the pair must change their plans when Kumar is accused of being a terrorist. Rob Corddry also stars in this wild comedy sequel that follows the hapless stoners' misadventures as they try to avoid being captured by the Department of Homeland Security.

Werner, Andi and Eckat play dice to determine the next king of the trio. When Werner is crowned king, he decides for all of them to skip work and start for Korsika.

Inspector Clouseau disappears, and the Surete wants the world's second best detective to look for him. However, Clouseau's enemy, Dreyfus, rigs the Surete's computer to select, instead, the world's WORST detective, NYPD Sgt. Clifton Sleigh. Sleigh obtusely bungles his way past assassins and corrupt officials as though he were Clouseau's American cousin.

Three families compete for a camping spot during a busy Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Lester and Orville accidentally launch a rocket which is supposed to fly to Mars. Instead it goes to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. They are then forced by bank robber Mugsy and his pal Harry to fly to Venus where they find a civilization made up entirely of women, men having been banished.

Three middle-aged wealthy couples take vacations together in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Along the way we are treated to mid-life, marital, parental and other crises.

Three bumbling Army reservists are hustled onto a plane headed for combat in Iraq -- but the fact that the plane drops them in Mexico doesn't stop them from "liberating" what they believe to be the Middle East.

After starting their own detective agency, Nick and Audrey Spitz land a career-making case when their billionaire pal is kidnapped from his wedding.

20 years since their first adventure, Lloyd and Harry go on a road trip to find Harry's newly discovered daughter, who was given up for adoption.

David and Linda Howard are successful yuppies from LA. When he gets a job disappointment, David convinces Linda that they should quit their jobs, liquidate their assets, and emulate the movie Easy Rider, spending the rest of their lives traveling around America...in a Winnebago.

Traveling from New York to Italia, pretty Mary rushes into moody macho lawyer Tito. The girl immediately falls for the guy with the gruffy manners and in an very impertinent way, she leans on him as she gets in trouble: Not only that she gets tied up in her suite by some Gangsters, but also, her new husband is found dead.

A hard-working small business owner and his two associates travel to Europe to close the most important deal of their lives. But what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable – and unimaginable – way, including unplanned stops at a massive sex fetish event and a global economic summit.

Sometimes, when you think you have it all, everything falls apart. That is exactly the story of Jeanne .Just when she is offered the chance to dub famous American actress Jennifer Marshall in a successful American TV Show and her salary is about to triple, Marshall decides to withdraw from the show. So Jeanne makes a crazy decision, fly to Hollywood herself and make Jennifer change her mind about leaving the series...

Brucey, the son of Oscar, calls his father to invite him to his wedding to Felix's daughter next Sunday in California. Oscar and Felix meet again at Los Angeles International Airport and rent a car in order to go to San Malina for the wedding.

When a Soviet submarine gets stuck on a sandbar off the coast of a New England island, its commander orders his second-in-command, Lieutenant Rozanov, to get them moving again before there is an international incident. Rozanov seeks assistance from the island locals, including the police chief and a vacationing television writer, while trying to allay their fears of a Communist invasion by claiming he and his crew are Norwegian sailors.

After Antoine was fired from his job, he became a stay-at-home dad taking care of his four children, while his wife Isabelle restarts her career as a lawyer. For Antoine, the family's upcoming ski vacation is a godsend: he can finally take a break from parenthood and enjoy a luxury ski resort! But just as they are about to step on the train, Isabelle is called back to work for an emergency and Antoine has to deal, on his own, with his four mischievous kids going wild on the slopes and in the fancy hotel, as the trip turns into total chaos…

Radio personalities Larry Abbot and Vickie Pearle are stars of a mystery show. Since they announced their engagement, Larry has been plagued by speech problems and, seeking out an unconventional cure, he returns to his boyhood home, a mansion in the countryside, bringing Vickie along. Larry reunites with numerous family members, but discovers that there are sinister things afoot within the walls of the creepy estate.

Two quarreling teachers vie for the same woman. In the same time the two will have to accompany a class on a trip in Spain.

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

Deuce Bigalow goes to Amsterdam after a little accident including two irritating kids and a bunch of aggressive dolphins. There he meets up with his old friend T.J. Hicks. But a mysterious killer starts killing some of Amsterdam's finest gigolos and T.J. is mistaken for the extremely gay murderer. Deuce must enter the gigolo industry again to find the real murderer and clear T.J.'s name.

Although Tom Leezak and Sarah McNerney come from different worlds, they are both unexpectedly swept off their feet after their first meeting. They quickly fall in love and plan to get married, despite opposition from Sarah's uptight, rich family. After their wedding, the happy couple sets off - with the highest of hopes and ideals about love and marriage - on what they expect will be the perfect honeymoon in Italy. Thanks to a relentless string of bad luck with one disaster after another, and an impromptu visit from Sarah's wealthy one-time ex-lover Peter Prentiss, the newlyweds experience the honeymoon from hell that tests the limits of their young love. Is it worth throwing away their love and marriage?



