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Duck Soup poster

Movies that feel likeDuck Soup (1933)

Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.

If you loved Duck Soup, the closest films we have are Stalag 17 (1953), The General (1926) and Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (1966). All three share Duck Soup's witty and playful feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is The Awful Truth (1937).

🍅 91% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Leo McCareywittyplayfulbleak
7 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Criterion Channel

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If Duck Soup hit the spot, these will too

Stalag 17 poster
Stalag 17
1953 · dir. Billy Wilder
🍅 91%★ 7.9comedy · drama · war

Common ground in both: spy and black and white

The difference: Leans harder into drama than Duck Soup does

After two American prisoners are killed by guards in the act of escaping from a German POW camp in World War II, barracks black marketeer J.J. Sefton is suspected of being an informer.

The General poster
The General
1926 · dir. Clyde Bruckman
🍅 92%★ 8.1comedy · war · romancePrime Video

Both keep coming back to the same thing: spy

The difference: Sits closer to romance than Duck Soup does

During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.

Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! poster
★ 7.8comedy · war

Witty and playful in the same breath

The difference: Made in the 1960s, in a different era of the craft

During World War II, two French civilians and a downed British Bomber Crew set out from Paris to cross the demarcation line between Nazi-occupied Northern France and the South. From there they will be able to escape to England. First, they must avoid German troops – and the consequences of their own blunders.

To Be or Not to Be poster
To Be or Not to Be
1942 · dir. Ernst Lubitsch
🍅 96%★ 8.1comedy · war · romanceMax

Both lean on bleakness more than on comedy

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.

Mediterraneo poster
Mediterraneo
1991 · dir. Gabriele Salvatores
🍅 80%★ 7.4comedy · romance · war

Witty war in both cases

Greek Sea, World War II. An Italian ship leaves a handful of soldiers in a little island; their mission is to spot enemy ships and to hold the island in case of attack. The village of the island seems abandoned and there isn't a single enemy in sight, so the soldiers begin to relax a little. Things change when their ship is hit and destroyed by the enemy, and the soldiers find themselves abandoned there.

Good Morning, Vietnam poster
Good Morning, Vietnam
1987 · dir. Barry Levinson
🍅 90%★ 7.3comedy · drama · war

Comedy built on play, twice over

A disk jockey goes to Vietnam to work for the Armed Forces Radio Service. While he becomes popular among the troops, his superiors disapprove of his humor.

The Men Who Stare at Goats poster
The Men Who Stare at Goats
2009 · dir. Grant Heslov
🍅 51%★ 6.2comedy · warStarz

War with a pulse of bleakness, in both cases

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

A reporter in Iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's New Earth Army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.

Three Kings poster
Three Kings
1999 · dir. David O. Russell
🍅 94%★ 7.1action · comedy · war

Witty comedy, and it commits to that

A group of American soldiers stationed in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War find a map they believe will take them to a huge cache of stolen Kuwaiti gold hidden near their base, and they embark on a secret mission that's destined to change everything.

All Quiet on the Western Front poster
All Quiet on the Western Front
1930 · dir. Lewis Milestone
🍅 98%★ 8.1drama · war

Common ground: black and white

The difference: Easier on the wit than Duck Soup

When a group of idealistic young men join the German Army during the Great War, they are assigned to the Western Front, where their patriotism is destroyed by the harsh realities of combat.

Hot Shots! poster
Hot Shots!
1991 · dir. Jim Abrahams
🍅 83%★ 6.7action · comedy · war

War with a pulse of play, in both cases

The gang that created Airplane! and The Naked Gun sets its sights on Top Gun in this spoof. Topper Harley is a talented but unstable fighter pilot with an axe to grind: clearing the family name. His mission is to avenge his father and save a mission sabotaged by greedy weapons manufacturers. He also gets involved in a relationship with Ramada Thompson, a woman with an unusually talented stomach. Hot Shots! makes fun of a variety of other films, from Dances with Wolves to The Fabulous Baker Boys.

Lifeboat poster
Lifeboat
1944 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 90%★ 7.6war · drama

A streak of bleakness through both

During World War II, a small group of survivors is stranded in a lifeboat together after the ship they were traveling on is destroyed by a German U-boat.

The Awful Truth poster
The Awful Truth
1937 · dir. Leo McCarey
🍅 94%★ 7.6comedy · romance

Both are Leo McCarey's work, and they rhyme

Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.

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The best-reviewed films that share Duck Soup’s defining feeling.