Comedy film

A comedy film is a kind of film in which the primary focus is placed on the use of humour. These films are intended to elicit laughter from the audience via enjoyment, and they most frequently do this by exaggerating features to create a funny impact. A joyful ending is usually seen at the conclusion of these types of films (black comedy being an exception). Humor is one of the oldest genres in cinema, and it is derived from classical comedy in theatre. Some of the first silent films were comedies, since slapstick comedy depends on visual representations rather than sound, and it is one of the most popular forms of entertainment today. Because burlesque settings and speech could both cause laughter when sound pictures became more widespread in the 1920s, comedy films saw an upswing in their popularity during this period.

The emphasis on individual actors and actresses is considerably greater in comedy than in other film genres, with many former stand-up comedians making their way into the film business as a result of their success. In addition to being frivolous tales with no other goal than to entertain, many comedic films also include political or social criticism of some kind (such as The King of Comedy and Wag the Dog).

According to the Screenwriters Taxonomy, cinema genres are essentially determined by the atmosphere, characters, and narrative of a film; as a result, the terms "drama" and "comedy" are too wide to be called genres. A more accurate classification would be that comedy films are a "Type" of film, with at least a dozen distinct sub-types of comedy films included in the taxonomy.