Film

The Man with Two Brains

Name: The Man with Two Brains
Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction, Romance
Released: 1983
Cast: Steve Martin, Kathleen Turner, David Warner, Paul Benedict, Richard Brestoff

Comedy
Light-hearted
Strange

Steve Martin's absurdist 1983 comedy about a brilliant but socially awkward brain surgeon who marries a duplicitous woman, then falls for a disembodied brain in a jar. It's deliberately silly, wildly inventive, and completely uninterested in making sense. Pure cartoon logic in live action—for people who find that liberating rather than annoying.

TMDb rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy a gleefully silly spoof that treats mad-scientist conventions and melodrama with a straight face and a gag in every corner.

Skip it if you want sharp satire or a grounded story, since its humour is broad, leans on its lead's mugging, and piles on sight gags that can feel overcooked.

What it asks of you: Little beyond a willingness to go along with absurdity; at 93 minutes it moves briskly, and the jokes arrive so thickly that you can afford to let a few misfire.

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

If you liked this

Beetlejuice1988

Tim Burton's ghost comedy has the same shameless embrace of the absurd, the same visual gags that build rather than explain themselves, and Michael Keaton's gleeful performance channels Steve Martin's anarchic energy.

But It's more a collection of inspired bits than a tight story, and some of the tricks feel dated now. The middle sags.

After Hours1985

Scorsese's surreal comedy-thriller about a man's night spiralling into chaos shares the film's logic: each scene makes sense alone, but the trajectory is deliberately, hilariously wrong. Griffin Dunne captures that same befuddled brilliance.

But It's darker and more anxiety-inducing than you might want. The humor comes from dread as much as invention.

Eating Raoul1982

A couple murders swingers for profit in this pitch-black satire that's equally committed to its bizarre premise and gets genuine laughs from treating the insane as mundane. Same era, same willingness to be genuinely weird.

But The humor is cruel and the pacing is slack. Some will find it more uncomfortable than funny.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Man with Two Brains

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Pink Panther1963

Both are comedies that trust physical destruction and absurdist logic over coherent plotting. The world bends around the protagonist's incompetence rather than punishing him for it.

Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau: physical comedy at the level of Keaton or Chaplin, where destruction and competence coexist. The film doesn't explain why the chaos happens—it just happens, and we float in it. That's what Martin's film is doing, too.

But The plotting is minimal and the pacing is slow. Some find slapstick dated or childish. Sellers can wear on you if you're not in his wavelength.

Innerspace1987

Joe Dante's sci-fi comedy about a pilot shrunk inside a businessman's body has that same '80s invention, the same trust in visual gags over logic, and Dennis Quaid and Martin Short playing off each other with infectious goofiness.

But It's more straightforward and less weird than its premise suggests. The romance subplot bogs down the second half.

The Kentucky Fried Movie1977

The Zucker-Abrahams sketch film that invented this kind of anything-goes comedy. Pure invention, no respect for pacing or tone, guaranteed to have something land even if others die. The DNA of the film you're watching.

But Sketches are uneven—some brilliant, some painful. The '70s references won't land if you weren't there, and some jokes are just juvenile.

Phantom of the Paradise1974

Brian De Palma's rock opera horror-comedy is gorgeously unhinged: it commits totally to being a musical AND a thriller AND a satire, never letting tone settle. Paul Williams is magnificent. It's as ambitious as it is nutty.

But It's genuinely stylized to the point of artifice. If you don't like musicals or don't buy the tone shifts, you'll be bored.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!1988

Zucker-Nielsen's first feature film is joke-dense, visually clever, and Leslie Nielsen plays it completely straight while chaos unfolds around him. It has that same commitment to being ridiculous without apologizing.

But The gag-per-minute ratio means half won't land. Some humor is very broad, and the plot is deliberately skeletal.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! poster

Gremlins1984

Joe Dante again, with creatures that allow for genuine horror and genuine comedy in the same frame. It has that '80s genre-mixing instinct and plays its premise completely straight even as it becomes delightfully unhinged.

But The tonal shifts are jarring. It can feel like two different films, and some of the violence is played darker than expected.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both films embrace their own impossible logic and refuse to explain the rules of their worlds. Both are about men doing things with brains (literally and metaphorically) that break ordinary reality.

Charlie Kaufman's brainjammed metanarrative about a dying playwright building a warehouse-sized replica of New York inside a theater. It's aggressively, confusingly surreal, but every frame means something. Dark where Martin's film is bright, but equally committed to making you comfortable with the illogical.

But It's dense, sad, and demands active interpretation. The narrative deliberately falls apart, which some will call brilliant and others will call pretentious garbage.

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter2014

Both treat absurd central conceits with total narrative sincerity. The films don't mock their own premises—they honor them. That commitment to the irrational as real is what makes both work.

The Zellner brothers' film about a Japanese woman who believes the movie Fargo is real and travels to Minnesota to find its buried treasure. It's deadpan, melancholy, visually stunning, and completely sincere about its ridiculous premise. Zero winks at the audience.

But It's slow and mannered. The humor is very dry and the tragedy sneaks up on you in ways that might feel manipulative. It requires patience.