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Aristocrats, The
ThinkFilm Inc.


6.5

based on 39 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 79 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Jason Alexander, Robin Williams, Gilbert Gottfried, Jon Stewart, Emo Philips, Chris Rock, Penn Jillette, and Teller

Comedy veterans and co-creators Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza capitalize on their insider status and invite over 100 of their closet friends (who happen to be some of the biggest names in entertainment, from George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Carey to Gilbert Gottfried, Bob Saget, Paul Reiser and Sarah Silverman) to reminisce, analyze, deconstruct and deliver their own versions of the world's dirtiest joke, an old burlesque routine, too extreme to be performed in public, called "The Aristocrats." (ThinkFilm)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Documentary
DIRECTED BY:	Paul Provenza
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 24, 2006 Video: January 24, 2006 Theatrical: July 29, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	92 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

Nominated, Grand Jury Prize (Documentary), 2005 Sundance Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

In the wake of everything we've seen on TV and in movies in recent decades, it's amazing that something as harmless as language can still stupefy us. As The Aristocrats demonstrates, there is real humor in the confrontation of taboos.

The Hollywood Reporter James Greenberg

Obscene, disgusting, vulgar and vile, The Aristocrats might be the funniest movie you'll ever see.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

At the very least, The Aristocrats provides a survey of some of the best comic minds in the business.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

What keeps the film from becoming obnoxiously redundant is the conviviality of the comedians. These are funny people even when they're not telling the joke.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

You'll either be screaming with laughter - or be incredibly offended.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Sure, this movie is proudly profane, but it's also funny.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The Aristocrats -- the movie, not the joke -- is a working demonstration of the pleasures of the profane.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The Aristocrats has a lot of laughs, but as it giggles and blasphemes its way into areas not so far removed from the scandalous landscape of the Marquis de Sade, the movie, funny as it is, becomes exhausting and a bit depressing.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A raucous insider documentary that invites the viewer to share a secret held exclusively by comics for untold generations.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The picture itself is so ebullient and celebratory that it practically beams with perverted innocence.

Film Threat Bob Westal

An essential for all serious humor fans who don't mind verbal grossness of the most extreme sort.

New York Magazine Ken Tucker

Gloriously filthy, ramshackle, endearing documentary.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

It works on the mind as well as the funny bone and the gag reflex.

The New Yorker David Denby

After we’ve heard three or four versions of the joke, the words no longer shock. They describe not acts but fantasies, and the movie becomes a celebration of the infinite varieties of comic style.

Slate David Edelstein

There is a special kind of pleasure in hearing jokes that have no redeeming social value. I'd like to think that this IS their social value-an invitation to free the mind.

Newsweek David Ansen

It's hands down the funniest of the year, both pushing the boundaries of bad taste and exploring how those boundaries keep shifting.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

A celebration of the naughty joke and the courage it takes to tell one.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Under normal circumstances, nothing kills a joke faster than trying to explain it. Yet here, such examination is the film's strong suit and provides much-needed respite, quite frankly, from the exhaustion of constant laughter.

Empire Chris Hewitt

Guaranteed to offend, but also guaranteed to leave you in spasms of laughter.

USA Today Claudia Puig

A documentary that dissects the essence of comedy as well as showcases outrageous improvisational humor.

Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt

But though you'll laugh your head off, the whole film kind of morphs into a blur, with one poop/sex/abuse joke after another. It's exhausting, really. And save for the very best tellings, you do start to wonder: What's so funny?

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A one-joke documentary stretched, with surprising success, to full length.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

For anyone interested in the art of comedy, it's a veritable primer on the vagaries of humor.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The structure of the film mirrors the changes in the joke which in turn reflect the moral of the story -- hey, it's all a matter of perspective.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Killer-funny documentary.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

A surprisingly fresh and funny feature-length look at an unrelentingly filthy vaudeville gag that's been passed down from comic to comic like an urban legend, often changing with every telling.

LA Weekly Dave Shulman

Delicious fun, indeed, but it doesn't really require a large screen. Please send me a copy of the DVD.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

What fascinates is, first, that these comics treat the joke the way jazz musicians might treat a theme that each of them plays differently; and, second, that the passage of this joke from one comic to another is like the bonding of a profession.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Though a fine specimen of cultural anthropology, The Aristocrats is too shapeless to be satisfying as a film.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The Aristocrats might have made a nice short subject. At 87 minutes, it's like the boozy salesman who corners you with the Pinocchio torture.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

The Aristocrats lies halfway between two potentially great films: it's neither a smartly austere succession of jokesmiths with all the critique left to the audience, nor a deconstructionist essay on "crossing the line" and the language of comedy itself.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

There's something about professional comedians breaking down what's funny for civilians that gets annoying after a while.

Village Voice Ben Kenigsberg

The Aristocrats is a veritable talent show itself, albeit one that feels inescapably slight. To rejigger another ancient joke: The food at this place isn't terrible. But the portions are really small.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

You won't be too bored.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Your reaction to the film will depend on your tolerance for scatology -- some of this stuff is very funny, although most of it is grindingly, numbingly awful -- and your interest in standup comics.

TV Guide Ken Fox

But if you stick around for those final credits, you'll also have the opportunity to hear Robin Williams deliver a clean but nonetheless hilarious joke, a reminder of how funny Williams can be when he's not trying so hard.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Gianni Truzzi

It wears thin, but also provides some insight into how comics interact and view their craft. At the very least, it confirms all suspicions that they have way more fun than you.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Mighty monotonous after a while.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

As long as it stayed mainstream dirty it was okay, but when it got into perversions the American Psychiatric Society hasn't even named yet, it left me behind.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 79 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jake gave it a4:
There's really not enough substance to keep it interesting for an hour and a half......and for some reason I didn't find it all that shocking...nothing I hadn't heard before. There are a few funny bits, but really, it was quite disappointing....just more self-indulgent nonsense from Hollywood

Ron N. gave it a6:
First off - anyone that gave this a rating of 2 or lower should be banned from EVER giving another review again. Anyone that thinks this movie was suppose to be funny (for the actual joke) needs to check into rehab ASAP. Also, anyone who's review went down the road of complaining how "The Joke had to be explained" - PLEASE do society a favor - DO NOT HAVE KIDS! Come on folks - it was a documentary – a documentary unlike one that was never put together before. It's not a masterpiece - but it deserves to be treated & graded for what it IS/WAS - instead of some pre-conceived (inaccurate) notion that you had prior to seeing it. It's not something I'd personally see multiple times - but there are pieces of the soundtrack that people have listended to OVER & OVER again.

Glenn C. gave it a9:
Cartman's telling of the joke brought me to where I was afraid I was going to die from laughing. After banging my fist, stomping my foot and squirming into unprecedented convulsions, a sort of transcendent bliss took over and I knew I's survive. But the whole rest of the movie isn't far behind. This is a masterclass in comedy. If you love the craft of comedy and it's greatest practitioners then see this immedietely.

Ethan P. gave it a6:
I can break this movie into three tones: extraordinarily hilarious (when the comedians are trying to be funny and are actually telling the joke)...probably accounts for 30 minutes at most. Insightful (a few really perceptive remarks about the jokes from the comedians)...about 3 minutes. Banal (the same lame thought repeated over and over...the bulk of the movie. Now let's get Drew Carey to say it this way. Now it's time for us to get George Carlin to spin it this way. For us, it's now time to hear Robin Williams say it in a way like this. Mind you, it's not the repetition of the joke that's bad. It's the repetition of the stupid thoughts about the joke that are bad. Let me repeat that in slightly different words. Apparently, the editor was wasted and/or needed 90 mintues of footage. Oh, and the buildup to Gilbert Gottfried's alledgedly best-ever telling of the joke is so asinine. It was probably very funny in the context of 3-weeks-after-9/11. It is not at all funny in the context of this film, wherein his telling of the joke has already been said almost verbatim all throughout the movie. Let me repeat that...

Blisterfish Cafe gave it a1:
This movie sucked. The "Joke" is stupid. It is neither shocking nor insightful. Dull, billious and a waste of time. Nothing to see here...I gave it a "1" because Gilbert made me smile for 63 seconds. Thank you.

C. S. gave it a3:
This movie was painfully average. I didn’t love it and I wasn’t terribly offended - I simply found that while there were some genuinely funny moments, that's all they were - moments. The rest of the film was repetitive and fairly boring - I kept waiting for it to get funnier, but unfortunately I'm still waiting... It’s worth checking out, but there are far better and far funnier picks.

Julie L. gave it a10:
You're going to love this film if you're interested in the craft of comedy, and in the relationships comedians have to other comedians, their intelligence about the craft and their delight in comdey's particular voices and styles. And you'll hate it if you have some kind of agenda about keeping things clean and making comedy serve a social good. Don't bother to see it if you're only interested in the dirty joke, because that's not what this documentary is about. What it's really about the delivery, the voice of the comedian, the style, the beautiful riffs of particular tellers of the joke, the sense of a pattern and the breaking of patters, almost like great improvisational jazz.The stand-up comedians are very honest about the joke's old-fashioned appeal, its roots in vaudeville, the appeal of it, nostagically. Some of their talk wanders over intosweet melancholy, like that of Paul Resie, whose take on the joke is my own favorite. Granted, some of the talk gets mind-bogglingly gross. But the movie is fascinating and funny. Listening to some of the comedians laughing and enjoying each other while telling it - I loved it, and laughed along with them, and learned quite a bit about the sense of voice among comedians.

Aristocrats, The ThinkFilm Inc.

Aristocrats, The
ThinkFilm Inc.