Film

Nunsense

A scrappy musical comedy about nuns staging a fundraising revue to bury their sisters who died in a convent cooking accident. It's broad, silly, anarchic fun—the kind of thing that doesn't take itself seriously for a second. Made for people who love a good pun, physical comedy, and the kind of theatre that's unafraid to be a little trashy and a lot joyful.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like shameless, big-hearted musical comedy where the jokes come fast, the costumes are loud and the songs are built to make you grin at the sheer nerve of them.

Skip it if you want a tight, polished film with subtle humor, since this is broad, stage-bound and often cheerfully silly to a fault, with a few numbers that land flatter than others.

What it asks of you: Roughly an hour and forty-five minutes of mostly one room and one show, so it rewards going along with its stagey rhythm and not hunting for realism.

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

If you liked this

Sister Act1992

Whoopi Goldberg leads a convent of nuns through joy and hijinks with genuine warmth beneath the comedy. The musical numbers land harder, the heart is bigger, and it found the sweet spot between silly and sincere that makes it timelessly watchable.

But It's a mainstream hit that plays everything safer than Nunsense does. If you want anarchic chaos over feel-good structure, this will feel a little too polished.

Sister Act poster

Mamma Mia!2008

Pure joy translated into dance and song. A cast who genuinely seem to be having the time of their lives performs ABBA hits across a Greek island. It's shameless, enthusiastic, and utterly uninterested in your cynicism.

But The plot is essentially decorative. If you need story to hang onto, the wafer-thin setup will annoy you before the first musical number ends.

Mamma Mia! poster

Hairspray2007

John Waters' spirit channelled through a big-hearted musical about integration, acceptance, and dancing in 1960s Baltimore. It has genuine charm, serious points to make, and musical numbers that earn their place.

But It's actually trying to say something meaningful, which is a different vibe from Nunsense's committed silliness. More earnest, less pure chaos.

Hairspray poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Diner1982

Both are ensemble pieces about a community performing themselves for each other—finding meaning and connection through shared chaos rather than plot.

A film about ensemble chaos, deadpan humour, and misfits finding community through sheer commitment to each other's company. The connection is structural: both are fundamentally about a ragged group keeping themselves together through performative chaos and genuine affection for the absurdity they share.

But It's a character study that meanders, with no plot spine to hold you. If you need narrative momentum, this will feel like eavesdropping on people you don't care about yet.

Diner poster
More like this (7)

The Producers1968

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick recreate their Broadway roles in a gloriously trashy musical about putting on the worst show ever. It celebrates bad taste as an art form with real affection and comic timing that never flags.

But The energy is relentless and the humour is pitched at a very specific frequency. If you don't connect with that particular brand of theatrical excess, it will exhaust you.

The Producers poster

Hedwig and the Angry Inch2001

A punk-rock musical about identity, transformation, and love that's genuinely transgressive and genuinely moving. John Cameron Mitchell is astonishing, and the songs are unforgettable. It swings wildly between hilarious and heartbreaking.

But The tone shifts dramatically and the subject matter is heavy. This is not comfort viewing—it has real stakes and real pain underneath the glitter and attitude.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch poster

Kinky Boots2005

A musical built on genuine kindness and acceptance, following a shoe factory owner and a drag performer building a business together. It's funny, it's got killer songs, and it has real tenderness at its core without being saccharine.

But The story beats are fairly predictable. If you've seen enough musicals, you'll know exactly where it's going, which can blunt the impact.

Kinky Boots poster

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde2003

Reese Witherspoon's Elle Woods takes on Congress with unshakeable optimism and chihuahua support. It's absurd, energetic, and utterly committed to being ridiculous without apology. Pure entertainment for anyone who loves commitment to the bit.

But The plot is thin and the satire lands unevenly. Some of the humour hasn't aged well, and the logic of the story collapses under any scrutiny at all.

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde poster

Xanadu1980

A genuinely strange musical with Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly that defies easy categorization—it's a love story, a fantasy, a roller-skating fever dream. It's visually audacious and committed fully to its own weirdness in a way few films are.

But The story makes almost no sense, and what's on screen is frequently baffling. Some find that liberating; others find it bewildering and frustrating.

Xanadu poster

The Carol Burnett Show1967

Nunsense is spiritual descendant of variety show energy—a revue structure where the gag is simply talented people having a blast performing for you.

Variety sketches and musical numbers with Carol Burnett and company—anarchic, live-feeling, unafraid to fail. This is what made Nunsense possible: decades of sketch comedy and musical theatre proving that audiences hunger for performers who aren't pretending to be anyone but themselves having fun.

But Many sketches run long and the hits-to-misses ratio is uneven. It's episodic and demands patience; you can't binge it the way you watch a tight film. Some feel dated now.

The Carol Burnett Show poster

8 Women2002

Both are female-ensemble pieces that treat the theatrical revue as the entire point—where the performance itself IS the story, and surface pleasure matters more than narrative coherence.

A French musical-mystery with eight actresses (Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, others) in a snowbound house, solving a murder through extravagant song-and-dance numbers. It's visually sumptuous, formally audacious, and utterly committed to its own artifice as entertainment.

But It's arch and stylized in ways that can feel distancing. The pleasure is primarily aesthetic; emotional investment is not the point. If you need story logic, this will drive you nuts.

8 Women poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Recommended by

A Madea Christmas