Film

Bananas

Name: Bananas
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1971
Cast: Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalbán, Nati Abascal, Jacobo Morales

Other titles called Bananas: the 2009 film.

Comedy
Light-hearted

Woody Allen's absurdist political comedy about a neurotic New York product tester who stumbles into revolutionary war in a fictional Latin American country. It's anarchic, deliberately silly, and moves at a breakneck pace—less interested in coherent plotting than in stringing together jokes about capitalism, masculinity, and Allen's own romantic inadequacy. Essential viewing for Allen completists; essential avoidance for anyone who finds his persona exhausting.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like the early, scrappy Woody Allen, where jokes come fast and cheap and politics is a punchline, closer to Marx Brothers anarchy than anything tender.

Skip it if you want tight plotting, since this one wanders gag to gag, its political satire is broad, and it often plays like sketches stitched together.

What it asks of you: Brisk at eighty-two minutes, it hops quickly from one gag to the next, asking for light attention rather than sustained focus, and rarely lingering on anything.

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

If you liked this

Annie Hall1977

Allen's masterpiece and the template for American romantic comedy. Witty, tender, structurally inventive, and genuinely about something—a relationship that matters. You'll understand why people loved him before the documentaries.

But It's been quoted to death and imitated endlessly. Watching it now feels like hearing a song that's been on every playlist; the impact dulls against familiarity.

Manhattan1979

Gordon Willis's black-and-white cinematography is so beautiful it makes you forget to resent the protagonist's moral blindness. Gershwin. New York in its glory. A film that looks like it costs more than it does, about people worth less than they think.

But The central romance is deeply uncomfortable once you know the age gap, and the film doesn't reckon with that. It wants you to admire the man it depicts.

The Grand Budapest Hotel2014

Wes Anderson channels Allen's neurotic energy through his own visual precision. A heist film disguised as a meditation on loss, friendship, and the decline of European civility. Funny and achingly sad, in perfect proportion.

But The visual artificiality is so pronounced it can feel cold. Some find Anderson's style precious rather than moving.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Bananas

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Stalker1979

Both films are about the gap between what we want and what will actually satisfy us; both suggest that desire itself is the joke, just told at different volumes.

Tarkovsky's glacial science-fiction film about a guide leading people through a mysterious zone to a room that grants wishes. It's the opposite of Bananas in every register—patient, grave, philosophically serious—but it's also about the absurdity of desire and how we rationalize our wants. Both films suggest that meaning is something we invent.

But It's 163 minutes long and almost nothing happens. If you hate slowness, if you need plot momentum, if you watch films for entertainment rather than contemplation, this will feel like punishment.

Zelig1983

Allen as a man who physically morphs into whoever he's around—a perfect visual metaphor for his own chameleonic comedy. The fake newsreel format is brilliant; the ambition outweighs the execution in the best way.

But It's a one-joke premise stretched to feature length, and the joke requires patience. Some people will check out after ten minutes.

Crimes and Misdemeanors1989

Allen's darkest and most intellectually serious film: a rabbi losing his faith, a man who commits murder and gets away with it, and Allen himself playing a bumbling filmmaker. It argues that morality might be optional. That matters.

But The tonal shifts from cosmic dread to sitcom romance are jarring. The ending is bleak in a way that can feel like adolescent nihilism.

Sleeper1973

A sci-fi comedy that moves faster than the speed of sense. Allen wakes up 200 years in the future and immediately starts complaining about it. Pure physical comedy mixed with absurdist invention; it doesn't need to make sense because it's having too much fun.

But The pacing is exhausting if you're not in the mood for it. You have to surrender to the velocity or it becomes annoying.

A Serious Man2009

The Coen Brothers make an Allen-adjacent film about a man whose life collapses for no discernible reason. Jewish neurosis meets cosmic indifference. Darkly funny, visually austere, and absolutely uninterested in resolution or comfort.

But It's aggressively bleak and deliberately unresolved. If you watch films for catharsis or answers, this will frustrate you.

After Hours1985

Scorsese's one full-tilt comedy: a man's night in Manhattan spirals into surreal nightmare. Fast, cruel, genuinely disorienting. What Bananas wants to be when it grows up—the same chaos, but with real stakes.

But It's much darker than it looks. The humor comes from watching someone suffer, which is funny until it becomes actively unpleasant.

The Hudsucker Proxy1994

Coen Brothers screwball that recaptures the energy of 1930s comedies—rapid-fire dialogue, physical gags, an earnest simpleton in a corrupt world. It's fun in a way modern comedy rarely permits itself to be.

But The style is so heightened it can feel mannered. If you don't buy into the artifice immediately, you'll spend the whole film at arm's length.

Mrs. Doubtfire1993

Both deploy an outrageous central conceit—man pretends to be someone else, chaos ensues—but Bananas treats it as pure nonsense while Doubtfire treats it as the setup for sentimentality. They're answering the same question differently.

Robin Williams as a divorced man who disguises himself as a female nanny to be near his kids. It's played as heartfelt family comedy rather than absurdist farce, but the premise is as ridiculous as anything in Bananas—the difference is the film believes in the emotion underneath. Worth watching to understand how the same engine can power both comedy and genuine pathos.

But It's saccharine and hits emotional beats that feel manufactured. The gender politics are muddled in ways the film doesn't acknowledge. It wants you to feel good in a way that can feel unearned.

Come and See1985

Both are films about systems collapsing into violence and madness, but one treats it as a joke and one treats it as a war crime. The contrast illuminates what choices a filmmaker makes with tone and register, and why those choices matter.

A Belarusian film about a boy conscripted into Soviet forces during WWII, descending into the horror of war. It's the anti-comedy: grotesque, unflinching, devastating. Watching it after Bananas will recalibrate your entire sense of what cinema can do with chaos and cruelty. It's a necessary corrective—proof that anarchic energy has consequences when the subject matter demands it.

But It's one of the most disturbing films ever made. Images you won't unsee. If you're watching for pleasure, this isn't it; it's medicine that tastes like poison and works anyway.