Film

Funny Ha Ha

Andrew Bujalski's debut captures the specific paralysis of post-college drift with documentary precision and genuine warmth. Marnie muddles through temp work, dubious crushes, and the disorienting gap between who you thought you'd be and who you actually are. It's funny without trying, intimate without performing intimacy—less about plot than the texture of aimlessness among people figuring it out.

TMDb rating3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love low-key, awkward comedies of drifting twenty-somethings where the humor lives in hesitant conversations and long pauses that nobody quite knows how to fill.

Skip it if you want a clear plot, brisk pacing or big laughs; this one moves slowly, improvises its rhythm, and often lets scenes sit in uncomfortable silence.

What it asks of you: Ninety minutes of patience with a loose, shaggy structure, a camera that lingers on small hesitations, and a mood that stays deliberately unpolished from start to finish.

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

If you liked this

Before Sunrise1995

Linklater captures the exact frequency of how smart people talk when they're drawn to each other but don't yet know what that means. Conversation as the whole story, regret-tinged and alive.

But Deliberately paced. If you need external plot momentum rather than the physics of two people talking, this will feel static.

Before Sunrise poster

Mistress America2015

Greta Gerwig's film about young women navigating ambition, friendship, and self-invention with sharp comedy and real affection. Captures post-college chaos with style and specificity.

But Bounces between tones—occasionally too pleased with its own cleverness. The central relationship can feel unresolved in ways that frustrate rather than illuminate.

Mistress America poster

Damsels in Distress2012

Whit Stillman's take on young women and their earnest, messy attempts to matter. Formal, witty, genuinely concerned with how young people talk themselves into and out of things.

But Very stylized and arch. If you need naturalism and want characters to feel like people you know, the theatrical register might keep you at arm's length.

Damsels in Distress poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Carnage2011

Both are about the distance between intention and behavior; how we perform for each other and what happens when the performance cracks.

Roman Polanski's chamber piece about two couples meeting after their sons fight. Like Funny Ha Ha inverted: where Bujalski shows people failing to connect, Carnage shows how quickly civility collapses. Both about the gap between who we think we are and who we become under pressure.

But Theatrical and mannered; feels like a stage play, not a movie. Also escalates into dark territory rather than staying with drift.

Carnage poster
More like this (7)

Tiny Furniture2010

Lena Dunham's debut about post-college paralysis and humiliation, shot in her mother's loft. Raw, comedy-dark, and unafraid to make its protagonist genuinely annoying sometimes.

But Extremely cramped and claustrophobic by design. Some find it self-indulgent rather than insightful; the protagonist can exhaust your patience.

Tiny Furniture poster

It Comes at Night2017

Low-key, atmospheric anxiety about how people fail each other under pressure. Trey Edward Shults makes dread from small moments and misunderstandings—similar emotional register to Bujalski's restraint.

But This is a horror film, and if you go in expecting realism you'll hit genre beats that feel false. Also genuinely bleak in ways unrelated to drift or comedy.

It Comes at Night poster

Drinking Buddies2013

Joe Swanberg's improvised film about two brewery coworkers who might be in love, or might just be comfortable. Naturalistic enough to feel like watching real people; funny in ways the scene doesn't announce.

But Deliberately formless. If you want a film to tell you what it's about or where it's going, this will feel like nothing happens.

Drinking Buddies poster

Obvious Child2014

Gillian Robespierre's comedy about a young woman having an abortion and figuring out her life. Genuinely funny while treating its subject with both honesty and lightness.

But Some find the comedy undercuts the seriousness; others feel the seriousness derails the fun. Tonal balance is divisive.

Obvious Child poster

Frances Ha2013

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig on young adulthood as beautiful, chaotic failure. Black-and-white precision about imprecise lives. Energetic where Bujalski is still, but the same DNA.

But Frances is more flamboyant than Marnie; if you prefer characters who suffer quietly, this extroversion might feel like too much self-awareness about dysfunction.

Frances Ha poster

You Hurt My Feelings2023

Julia Louis-Dreyfus navigates marriage and creative disappointment with intelligence and comedy. Adult characters dealing with the gaps between ambition and reality, kindness and honesty.

But Primarily about people older than Marnie; the concerns are mature-marriage-specific. If you want post-college chaos specifically, this aims elsewhere.

You Hurt My Feelings poster

Krisha2016

Both use non-professional or semi-professional actors; both find profound humanity in people adrift. Bujalski finds comedy in the void; Aster finds tragedy. Same void, opposite temperatures.

Ari Aster's debut: a semi-autobiographical film about his sister's addiction and a family struggling through it. Naturalistic, devastating, shot on a budget in his actual house. Post-college aimlessness with actual consequences.

But Not a comedy or romance. Genuinely difficult to watch—addiction, relapse, and family fracture without sentimentality or easy resolution. Longer than Funny Ha Ha, slower.

Krisha poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by

Tiny Furniture, Rich Hill, Chuck & Buck, Greenberg, Comedian, The Comedy, Shiva Baby, Enid, 12:08 East of Bucharest, What We Did on Our Holiday, The Puffy Chair, Cherish, Chelsea Girls, Cyrus, Good Dick, The Hollars, I’m Twenty Something, The Romantics, A Million Ways to Die in the West