The 10 Funniest James Stewart Movies, Ranked

In James Stewart’s career, some of the greatest actors in Hollywood have emerged, who were also most renowned for their acting abilities. He has featured in many well-known films and starred in several others too. Many classic Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, a number of westerns as well as most movies that casted him as a serious type proves that he was successful.

On the flipside though, he is also known to be comedic genius as his numerous roles affirm-just look at his filmography from 1930 and 1940s alone. So these can be counted among his top comedy movies all showing the lighter side of James Stewart but are put below from less funny to funniest ones.

‘Bell, Book and Candle’ (1958)

Bell, Book and Candle is a film that was released in the same year as Vertigo, another well-known film by Alfred Hitchcock. Bell, Book and Candle also boasts James Stewart and Kim Novak as its main actors just like Vertigo did, but otherwise it is quite different from this thriller. A witch living in modern times casts a spell on her neighbor to make him fall in love with her; following which magical mishaps will of course ensue.

Despite some substantial star power at this point for Stewart and Novak (plus Jack Lemmon’s), a cat called Pyewacket manages to outshine them all in Bell, Book and Candle. It may be less important within his overall catalogue of films than others maybe but there are moments when it turns into a pretty unusual supernatural romantic comedy that delivers some reasonably dumb fun.

‘Come Live with Me’ (1941)

Come Live with Me is a film that came out just one year after James Stewart won his sole Academy Award, which is slightly less popular than some of his other comedies, but it can still be regarded as an impressive 1940s release. Its setup covers pre-World War II happenings; nevertheless, in the end, it takes an unexpected lighthearted twist about a Viennese refugee whose marriage of convenience to a writer in America is sought.

Hedy Lamarr (not Hedley) stars as the refugee and Stewart stars as the writer with good chemistry between them both which helps to raise an otherwise simple story that in all likelihood played out exactly how audiences imagined back as far as 1941. Come Live With Me is so basic it becomes complicated and yet this sort of old-fashioned Golden Age Hollywood stuff indeed hits the spot for some people looking for something like this and at least offers a pretty good time to those viewers.

‘Vivacious Lady’ (1938)

By the end of the 1930s, James Stewart’s fame had soared, resulting in his dominance as a leading man of 1940s. Vivacious Lady was one of those crucial steps on that path to popularity and it was a romantic comedy which featured him again with Ginger Rogers and had the scandalous plot revolving around an illicit affair between a teacher in botany and a singer who worked at night clubs.

Vivacious Lady is not long hence it doesn’t drag too much nor become overly complicated, making it a good representation of what rom-coms were like back then/then made/released, but still feels like fun when viewed today. One reason is seeing two Hollywood stars come together, namely Rogers and Stewart, plus this being one of the first films where he played a lead role.

Also Read: War Pony

‘After the Thin Man’ (1936)

The Thin Man series had a much longer life than expected, starting in the 1930s and ending in the 1940s. It consisted of six movies with the first one, The Thin Man released back in 1934 being the best. After the Thin Man is among its successors as it combined comedy and mystery genres, centering on a married couple of detectives Nick and Nora Charles who again become involved into another crime.

A particular case lies at heart of After the Thin Man that deals with a vanished husband surrounded by a number of suspicious characters who might have been connected to him. Stewart is one of them as shown by this movie which was an early indication of his ability to portray partially sinister characters (although the whole film was hilarious) which he would later demonstrate even more vividly during his acting career in subsequent decades.

‘Destry Rides Again’ (1939)

1939 was a famous year for Hollywood, and not just for James Stewart. It happened to be a year when many films that later became classics were released. One of these films was the comic western ‘Destry Rides Again’ which is centered on an Old West town being given a new sheriff who happens to be young and inexperienced played by Jimmy Stewart.

Marlene Dietrich’s most famous films also include Destry Rides Again in which she got top billing as Frenchy — the lady saloon singer. However, Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart worked well as partners, while the movie has an overall good blend of Western and comedy genres; it therefore succeeds on both levels and remains pretty good even after 80 years.

‘You Can’t Take It with You’ (1938)

James Stewart, three times he worked with Frank Capra, and all of the films they worked on together were classics in their own way. One which sticks out most among these three is the famous Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life, excluded from this analysis for being a family drama. However, Capra and Steward also made two movies that can be taken as comedies or dramedies, one of them being You Can’t Take It With You.

For his role in it, Stewart was nominated for Best Picture even though his performances was not as strong as other members of the cast. For example when Alice Ashley meets Tony Kirby after a series of events when her father disapproves she fails to understand why him and her father can never come to an agreement about each other’s lives. You Can’t Take It with You is simple yet satisfying comedy as it is about two families merging due to an unlikely marriage between two members of either family type making it light hearted entertainment which can appeal to many people without going too off limits.

‘Harvey’ (1950)

To some extent, Harvey is a strange film that turns out to work more than you expect as it tells the story of Elwood P. Dowd and his best friend who is an invisible rabbit of unusual size. Conflict is intuitive in the sense that people around Elwood are concerned with this whole thing and thus, throughout the entire story, the title character Harvey might or might not be real.

It’s a film whose peculiar premise has kept it alive in popular culture where it has been alluded to and/or spoofed in movies since 1950s. Admittedly, Harvey lacks subtlety when dealing with issues involving mental health which would be characteristic of any such plot today but it was appropriate for its period and remains enjoyably performed by Stewart who earned him an Oscar nomination.

‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ (1939)

In 1939, Frank Capra and James Stewart teamed up again after You Can’t Take It with You to create Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which in comparison to that movie of 1938 was more a dramedy. Arguably the stronger film of the two, it allows James Stewart even more room to shine, making him portray a man who is brought into the lunacy of politics when he becomes part of Senate.

As an enduring commentary on the functioning of Washington D.C’s political climate; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington surprises more than you would think and still communicates certain truths in its own way. This is an intelligent and extremely well acted movie that can find favor even with those who would normally find political films boring.

‘The Shop Around the Corner’ (1940)

The Shop Around the Corner is a good blend of drama and comedy with an inherent love story. It is well balanced; this particular film highlights James Stewart’s catalogue of works because of his excellent performance. He portrays one member in an improbable pair: two individuals who work together at a gift shop but cannot stand each other, but actually end up being involved in a romantic affair without knowing it as they fall in love through anonymous correspondence.

If that sounds familiar to anyone, it might be because the same essential idea was retooled and brought up to date for the 1990s in You’ve Got Mail… although not quite as good as The Shop Around the Corner did it. Still pure and quick, this 1940 movie remains enchanting even now, and a lot of its humor still stands.

‘The Philadelphia Story’ (1940)

The Philadelphia Story is the funniest of all the James Stewart comedies. This movie also won him an Academy Award. Also, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant were cast with other equally iconic actors.

In the film, Hepburn plays a woman who’s set to get married for a second time, but finds things get complicated when her ex-husband re-enters her life and a tabloid magazine journalist begins covering the wedding preparations.

But it made one think…if this would make for great screwball comedy? No wonder: “ The Philadelphia Story” is a fine specimen of such films that were so popular from 1930-s up to a part of the 1940-s. It remains rapid and mad enough to keep delivering fresh and light-hearted laughter even now, and there’s no denying that as far as cinematic trios go, you can’t do much better than Grant, Hepburn and Stewart.