Film

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

The beloved British comedy duo take their champagne-soaked madness to the big screen. Edina and Patsy flee London after accidentally causing chaos at a fashion party, ending up on the French Riviera concocting increasingly desperate schemes to stay rich and fabulous forever. It's exactly what you'd expect: vain, boozy, ridiculous, and surprisingly tender about friendship.

TMDb rating2.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you already love the sound of two vain, sozzled women behaving badly and want the sitcom's sharp, unapologetic cruelty stretched onto a film-sized canvas.

Skip it if you've never met Edina and Patsy, since the jokes lean on years of history and the characters' selfishness can feel grating rather than funny without it.

What it asks of you: Ninety-one minutes of nonstop, sharp-edged gags with little breathing room; you need to keep up with rapid-fire banter and accept characters who rarely learn anything.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Devil Wears Prada2006

Meryl Streep's icy fashion editor is the spiritual ancestor of Edina's social climbing. Sharp, beautifully constructed comedy about the absurdity of high-fashion culture, with genuine heart beneath the designer labels.

But It's gentler and more earnest than AbFab. If you wanted nastier satire with less redemption, this plays it relatively straight.

The Devil Wears Prada poster

Bridesmaids2011

Unhinged female friendship as the emotional core, trash-talking banter that's genuinely funny, and a willingness to let women be vain, drunk, and messy without apology. Melissa McCarthy steals it completely.

But It's American and bound by different rules. Less about fashion snobbery, more about actual consequences. The tone is warmer and less bitchy.

Bridesmaids poster

In Good Company2004

An older woman navigating vanity, career, and her place in a world that's moved on. Scarlett Johansson and Dennis Quaid are unexpectedly tender together, and the film finds both comedy and melancholy in aging.

But It's a romantic dramedy, not satirical. Sincere in ways AbFab never is. If you want mean-spirited glamour mockery, you won't find it here.

In Good Company poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Absolutely Fabulous1992

Same characters at their absolute best, before the film tried to scale up what worked in thirty minutes to feature length. The source material, essentially.

This is where the show peaks: Edina and Patsy at maximum delusion, the writing tightest, the supporting cast perfectly calibrated. Every episode is quotable madness. It captures everything that makes the characters transcendent before they became predictable.

But It's British television from the '90s—cheap-looking sets, laugh track, very much of its moment. The first two series are rougher, the later ones derivative. You have to commit to the era.

Absolutely Fabulous poster
More like this (8)

Zoolander2001

Hilariously stupid people taking themselves seriously in a world obsessed with surface. Ben Stiller's blank beauty and Owen Wilson's wandering attention are perfectly calibrated comic performances in absurdist haute couture.

But The plot barely exists. It coasts on character and the willingness to repeat jokes. If you need narrative momentum, you'll be frustrated.

Zoolander poster

Mamma Mia!2008

Pure escapism and celebration disguised as film. ABBA, the Greek islands, middle-aged women refusing to apologize for joy. Meryl Streep belting 'The Winner Takes It All' is worth the ticket alone.

But It's aggressively joyful and sincere. There's no cynicism or edge. If you need your entertainment to have a biting intellect, this will feel saccharine.

Mamma Mia! poster

Trainwreck2015

Amy Schumer's self-destructive lifestyle comedy with genuine stakes. It's messy and funny about women who drink too much and make bad choices, written with actual intelligence about why people sabotage themselves.

But Schumer's style is combative and sometimes crude. The emotional beats are heavier. It's less about fashion snobbery and more about real psychological damage.

Trainwreck poster

Clueless1995

The template for fashionable female comedies. Alicia Silverstone's Cher is selfish and hilarious, the script sparkles, and it satirizes consumption and vanity while being genuinely charming. Endlessly rewatchable.

But It's a teen film from the '90s. If you need sophisticated adults behaving badly, the high-school setting might feel lightweight.

Clueless poster

The First Wives Club1996

Three middle-aged women—Bette Midler, Barbara Hershey, Goldie Hawn—take their revenge on cheating exes with style. It's about reclaiming power, friendship, and refusing to disappear. Genuinely funny and surprisingly emotional.

But The revenge plot is fairly soft. It wants you to root for them without earning it fully. The tone tilts toward celebration rather than real bite.

The First Wives Club poster

Ghostbusters II1989

Bill Murray returns to the role with cynical exhaustion, paired with perfectly professional support from the ensemble. It's silly and affectionate about its own ridiculousness, never taking the supernatural seriously for a second.

But It's a sequel that doesn't improve on the original. The special effects are dated. It coasts on charm rather than craft—sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

Ghostbusters II poster

Heavenly Creatures1994

Both are about women who live in a self-created bubble, reality-resistant and spiritually symbiotic. But Heavenly Creatures asks what happens when the fantasy can't sustain you—it's the dark mirror to AbFab's refusal to grow up.

Two teenage girls in New Zealand create a fantasy world of obsessive intensity to escape reality. Visually dazzling, psychologically complex, genuinely disturbing. It's about friendship as delusion and the cost of shared fantasy. Peter Jackson at his most inventive.

But It's based on a real murder. The tone is dark and unsettling, not comedic. If you need lightness or distance from the material, this will feel invasive and heavy.

Heavenly Creatures poster

After Life2019

Both feature middle-aged characters behaving badly as a defense against the world, using style and performance as armor. But where Edina and Patsy run toward fantasy, Gervais's character runs toward nothing—and finds something anyway.

Ricky Gervais as a widower finding reasons to live through human connection and gallows humor. It's devastatingly sad and genuinely funny, never trading punch lines for emotional truth. Season one especially balances cynicism with unexpected tenderness about aging.

But It's deliberately bleak. The comedy comes from dark places. If you need your laughs uncomplicated by grief and mortality, this will feel like you're being punished for smiling.

After Life poster

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