Film

His Girl Friday

Howard Hawks took a hit stage comedy about newspapermen and cast a woman as the ace reporter, then had everyone talk over each other as fast as humanly possible. The result is a marriage comedy disguised as a workplace comedy disguised as a screwball chase, and it moves like it's late for a deadline. Ninety-two minutes, not one of them wasted.

TMDb rating3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love screwball comedy where the dialogue overlaps and sprints, and where a battle of wits between two sharp-tongued exes is more thrilling than any plot twist.

Skip it if you want a gentle, slow-building romance; the talk is relentless, the pace rarely lets up, and the rapid-fire banter can feel exhausting if you prefer quiet moments.

What it asks of you: Ninety-two minutes of fast, overlapping dialogue with almost no breathing room, so you need to stay alert and keep up with the chatter from start to finish.

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

If you liked this

Bringing Up Baby1938

Same director, same star, same appetite for chaos — Hawks and Grant two years earlier, with a leopard standing in for a divorce settlement. If you liked the rhythm, this is the rhythm turned up further.

But It's even more relentlessly silly, with no newsroom cynicism to ground it — pure farce, and farce isn't for everyone.

Bringing Up Baby poster

The Philadelphia Story1940

Grant again, same year, same basic shape — a sharp-tongued ex-wife, a fiancé who doesn't stand a chance, dialogue that never slows down for you to catch your breath.

But Cooler and more glamorous than warm; the class comedy of manners can feel starchier than Hildy and Walter's newsroom scrap.

The Philadelphia Story poster

Broadcast News1987

The same triangle updated to a TV newsroom decades later — a brilliant woman, a decent man, and the wrong man she can't quite stop wanting, all talking a mile a minute.

But It trades screwball speed for something more melancholy and self-aware; the laughs land softer and the ending doesn't wrap up neatly.

Broadcast News poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from His Girl Friday

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Notorious1946

Both put Cary Grant opposite a woman he wants to control through affection rather than force. His Girl Friday plays that dynamic as delight — the chase is the fun. Notorious plays the identical dynamic straight, as dread. Same actor, same era, same question about love as leverage, entirely different genre and temperature.

Six years later, same star, same charm — but Hitchcock strips the jokes away and shows you what Walter Burns's manipulation looks like when it isn't funny. Grant plays a man who uses a woman's love as an instrument, coldly, and it's terrifying.

But There's no banter to soften it and no comic reset button; it's a slow, suspicious, genuinely unsettling romance rather than a screwball one.

Notorious poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by

Working Girl, Some Like It Hot, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, It Happened One Night, The Post, The Philadelphia Story, Under Fire, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The Newsroom, Gilmore Girls, Murphy Brown, Broadcast News, Deadline - U.S.A., Bringing Up Baby, Adam's Rib, My Man Godfrey, Arsenic and Old Lace, Ball of Fire, When Harry Met Sally..., The Lady Eve, The Awful Truth, The Thin Man, Destry Rides Again, Press Gang, Sports Night, Sweet Smell of Success, The Shop Around the Corner, Ninotchka, Ace in the Hole, Bombshell, Chicago, Much Ado About Nothing, Designing Women, Woman of the Year, Intolerable Cruelty, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War?, Buck Privates, Trouble in Paradise, Set It Up, Holiday, Gold Diggers of 1933, Twentieth Century, To Have and Have Not, The Women, I Was a Male War Bride, The Palm Beach Story, The Hudsucker Proxy, You've Got Mail, Pat and Mike, Design for Living, Being the Ricardos, The Paper, My Little Chickadee, Pride and Prejudice, Bachelor Mother, A Night at the Opera, Pillow Talk, The Great McGinty, Nothing Sacred, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Bullets Over Broadway, You Bet Your Life, Stage Door, Moon Over Parador, Monkey Business, Miss Scarlet, Libeled Lady, Mr. and Mrs. North, Desk Set, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Born Yesterday, Bombshell, Monogatari Series, The Whole Town's Talking, Nothing but the Truth, The Major and the Minor, My Favorite Wife, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, In the Navy, The Talk of the Town, It Ain't Hay, Johnny Come Lately, Seven Days' Leave, Locked Down, The Front Page, The Farmer's Daughter, It Happened Tomorrow, She's Funny That Way, Easy Living, It Started with Eve, Bedtime for Bonzo, Red Dust, Room Service, The Front Page, Pocketful of Miracles, The Prizefighter and the Lady, After Office Hours, The Royal Family of Broadway, The More the Merrier, Kitty Foyle, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Stormy Weather, They Met in Bombay, Laws of Attraction, My Sister Eileen, It's a Wonderful World, Spy Smasher, Comrade X, Women Are Trouble, The Daring Young Man, Road to Singapore, Romantic Comedy, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, The Marrying Man, La Conga Nights, The Doctor Takes a Wife, Stella, Dance, Fools, Dance, Lipstick Jungle, Moon Over Miami, Love on a Budget, It Happened on Fifth Avenue, The Time, The Place and The Girl, I'm No Angel, Topper Takes a Trip, Song of the Thin Man, Platinum Blonde, Let's Make It Legal, Scandal Sheet, The Lemon Drop Kid, The Awful Truth, The Kid from Spain, Female, Teacher's Pet, A Slight Case of Murder, My Dear Secretary, Illicit, It's in the Bag!, Quality Street, I Love You Again, Maisie, The Inspector General, The Musketeers, The Magnificent Dope, In Society, I Love a Bandleader, Practically Yours, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops, The Greeks Had a Word for Them, Standing Room Only, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Larceny, Inc., Accent on Youth, Sunny, Check and Double Check, Between the Lines