Film

Bedazzled

Name: Bedazzled
Genre: Fantasy, Comedy, Romance
Released: 1967
Cast: Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Eleanor Bron, Raquel Welch, Alba

Other titles called Bedazzled: the 2000 film.

Fairy tale
Comedy
Light-hearted

Bedazzled is a 1967 British comedy where a sad sack sells his soul to the Devil for seven wishes, then immediately botches every single one trying to impress a woman. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's sharp, absurdist dialogue carries you through a parade of elaborate fantasy sequences—some brilliant, some baffling. It's for people who love whimsy with real bite and don't mind when comedy gets deliberately weird.

TMDb rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like comedy that runs on sharp, deadpan wordplay and a gleefully mean streak, where the joke is always the gap between a man's wishes and his cringing reality.

Skip it if you need your comedies to move briskly or lean on slapstick; this one is talky, stagey and content to let a scene sit and sour.

What it asks of you: It runs about an hour and forty minutes and asks you to stay with its dry, episodic rhythm, where each wish is a small sketch that lands on the sting rather than on warmth.

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

If you liked this

Faust1926

Murnau's Expressionist masterpiece explores the same Faustian bargain with stunning visual invention and genuine dread. It's the template that Bedazzled playfully demolishes—seeing both shows why Cook and Moore's version is so funny.

But Silent, deeply serious, and visually dense in ways that demand your full attention. The pacing will feel glacial if you're used to modern comedy.

Phantom of the Paradise1974

Brian De Palma's operatic rock horror-comedy about ambition, obsession, and supernatural deals. It has Bedazzled's genre-bending energy and same willingness to be genuinely dark one moment and ridiculous the next.

But It's darker and nastier than Bedazzled, and the rock-opera framework means the tonal whiplash can feel unmoored rather than playful.

The Devil's Carnival2012

Darren Lynn Bousman's low-budget musical-horror riff on Faust and Dante. It's theatrical, unafraid to be campy, and has the same obsessive logic where each fantasy sequence can run delightfully off the rails.

But Made for nothing, and you'll see it on screen. The performances are broad, the effects are ropey, and some of the songs are genuinely awkward.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Magus1968

Both use fantasy and games to explore loneliness and desire. Both are built on the gap between what the protagonist wants and what he actually needs. Both trust the audience to stay confused.

A Cambridge student is manipulated by a mysterious millionaire through elaborate games and illusions on a Greek island. John Fowles adapted his own dense novel; it's baroque, sexually confused, and deeply concerned with the gap between performance and reality—Bedazzled's darker, more serious twin.

But Nearly three hours, baroque to the point of opacity, and the psychosexual games can feel dated or creepy depending on your patience. Many find it pretentious; some find it brilliant.

The Lavender Hill Mob1951

Ealing comedy at its peak—clever heist plot, stellar supporting cast, and Alec Guinness playing an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation. The same British comic precision that makes Bedazzled tick.

But Straighter than Bedazzled, more of a conventional plot. If you're watching for surreal comedy flourishes and weird fantasy sequences, you'll get a traditional caper instead.

The Guard2011

Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle in a dark comedy about a rural Irish policeman and an FBI agent. Sharp dialogue, genuine laughs, and the willingness to be crude and intellectual at the same time.

But More grounded than Bedazzled and less visually inventive. The fantasy sequences are replaced by extended conversations, which won't be for everyone.

A Man Called Ove2015

Tom Hanks as a cantankerous widower who reluctantly helps a new neighbor. It has the same structure as Bedazzled—a misanthrope slowly learning to care—but plays it with warmth rather than anarchic humor.

But It's earnest and sentimental where Bedazzled is jagged and absurdist. The comedy is gentle; the sentiment is heavy.

All About My Mother1999

Almodóvar's melodrama about grief, theater, and female friendship. Like Bedazzled, it luxuriates in artifice and performance as a way to survive disappointment—but with genuine heartbreak underneath the theatricality.

But In Spanish, deadly serious, and very long. You're not getting laughs; you're getting complex emotions and a very different kind of magic.

The Happiness of the Katakuris2002

Takashi Miike's genre-hopping musical-horror-comedy about a family running a bed-and-breakfast where guests keep dying. It has Bedazzled's commitment to sudden tonal shifts and elaborate musical sequences that don't quite make sense—and that's the point.

But Japanese, violently inconsistent in tone, and willfully strange in ways that can exhaust rather than delight. It doesn't try to cohere; some viewers find that liberating, others infuriating.

Hellzapoppin'1941

Both films are more interested in comedy and weirdness than plot coherence. Both delight in derailing their own narratives. Both believe that a joke landing is more important than a story making sense.

An Olsen and Johnson slapstick-vaudeville film that breaks the fourth wall, disrupts its own plot, and treats narrative structure as a joke. It's anarchic, relentlessly silly, and acts like the constraints of cinema are suggestions.

But Pre-war American slapstick; the pacing is chaotic, the gags are broad, and the women are afterthoughts. It's deliberately formless in ways that can feel like there's nothing there to hold onto.

Under Milk Wood1972

Both are about ordinary people's inner lives and fantasies bleeding into reality. Both treat sexual longing and disappointment with equal parts comedy and genuine compassion. Both are small, idiosyncratic films from the 1960s-70s that trust very unconventional structures.

Richard Burton narrates Dylan Thomas's poetic-comic vision of a Welsh coastal village and its inhabitants' secret lives. It's whimsical, bawdy, and deeply felt—small, strange, and utterly itself. A dream as much as a story.

But Slow, dreamlike, and mostly just people talking in Welsh accents about desire and death. There's almost no plot. If you need things to happen, you'll be frustrated.