Film

The Hangover

Name: The Hangover
Genre: Comedy
Released: 2009
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Heather Graham

Comedy
Light-hearted
Relentless

Three groomsmen wake up in a trashed Vegas suite with a tiger, a baby, and no memory of the night before — and no groom. It's a mystery structured backwards: the fun already happened, and the movie is the increasingly deranged process of reconstructing it. Filthy, propulsive, and much funnier than its many imitators ever managed.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love comedies built like a puzzle, where every bizarre clue from the night before pays off and the chaos stays tightly controlled, with Zach Galifianakis's deadpan oddball energy as the cherry on top.

Skip it if you want warmth from your comedy, since the three leads are mostly getting into trouble and the humour leans on sharp, sometimes mean-spirited jokes rather than affection for its characters.

What it asks of you: It moves at a brisk clip across about a hundred minutes, with little downtime, so you need to keep track of small details as the story doubles back on itself.

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

If you liked this

Superbad2007

Same raunchy, panicked energy but transplanted to one last teenage night before college — filthy, sweet, and one of the funniest friendship comedies of its decade.

But Teenage horniness-as-plot is a different register than adult debauchery; some find it cruder without the mystery hook.

Old School2003

Todd Phillips before The Hangover, with grown men regressing into frat-boy chaos out of pure boredom and midlife panic. Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell are unhinged in the best way.

But Looser and more sketch-like than plot-driven — less mystery, more escalating set pieces.

Wedding Crashers2005

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn crash weddings for sport and get pulled into consequences far bigger than they bargained for — same charming-disaster-man energy, weddings instead of bachelor parties.

But More romantic-comedy-shaped underneath the raunch; the back half softens considerably.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

After Hours1985

Same engine decades earlier: a night of small bad decisions compounding into disaster, told by a director who understood escalating panic as pure comedy long before Vegas got involved.

Scorsese's nightmarish comedy about one man's ordinary night in downtown Manhattan spiraling, absurdity by absurdity, into total chaos he can't escape. Funny, anxious, and beautifully controlled.

But No hangover, no plot to reconstruct — it's real-time dread rather than morning-after mystery, and considerably weirder.

Bridesmaids2011

The female-fronted answer nobody asked for and everybody needed — a wedding spiraling into disaster, anchored by Kristen Wiig at her most gloriously unraveled.

But More emotionally grounded and less pure-mayhem than Hangover fans might expect going in.

Due Date2010

Todd Phillips and Zach Galifianakis reunite for a road-trip disaster movie with the same rhythm of one calm man dragged through escalating chaos by one chaos-agent friend.

But Two-hander instead of ensemble, and meaner-spirited in places — Downey Jr.'s character is often just furious.

Step Brothers2008

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as grown men behaving like feral children — pure, gleeful, quotable stupidity if you want the volume turned all the way up.

But Plotless by design; if you liked the mystery structure here, this offers none of that scaffolding.

Very Bad Things1998

The bachelor-party-gone-wrong template, but pitch-black — a stripper dies in Vegas and the friends' cover-up spirals into something genuinely nasty. The tonal ancestor nobody credits.

But This is a bleak, cynical film with real body-count stakes, not a comedy that lets anyone off the hook.

21 & Over2013

From two Hangover screenwriters — a 21st birthday bender spirals into one long lost night with the same structure of escalating bad decisions and dawning dread.

But Feels like a smaller, cheaper cousin rather than its own thing — the comparison isn't flattering.

Dumb and Dumber1994

An older, gentler kind of stupid — two idiots on a cross-country disaster, proof that a great odd-couple comedy doesn't need Vegas or a mystery to work.

But Family-friendlier and far less raunchy; the comedy is broader slapstick rather than shock-based.

Uncut Gems2019

It's the Hangover's structural cousin with the comedy surgically removed: one impulsive night compounding disaster after disaster, but played entirely for anxiety instead of laughs.

Adam Sandler as a jeweler whose one reckless bet spirals into a single unbearable day of mounting chaos — the same structure, but strip out the jokes and leave only the dread.

But There's no fun here, no punchline waiting at the end — it's suffocating by design, and deliberately exhausting to sit through.

The Trip2011

Same male-friendship-under-pressure comedy, same real actors riffing off each other, but turned down from gonzo Vegas mayhem to low-key, improvised, almost meditative bickering.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, mostly improvising as barely-fictionalized versions of themselves, bicker and impersonate their way across a restaurant tour of northern England. Gentle, sly, quietly hilarious.

But Nothing happens by Hangover standards — no crisis, no mystery, just two funny men talking, which some will find slight.