Film

The Nutty Professor

Name: The Nutty Professor
Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction, Romance
Released: 1996
Cast: Eddie Murphy, Jada Pinkett Smith, James Coburn, Larry Miller, Dave Chappelle

Other titles called The Nutty Professor: the 1963 film.

Comedy
Science fiction
Light-hearted

This is Eddie Murphy at his most technically dazzling: seven roles, hours of prosthetic makeup, and a premise that lets him be sweet, seedy, and outrageous inside the same ninety minutes. It's a broad, filthy-minded studio comedy with real tenderness underneath — a fat-suit farce that keeps pausing to ask who deserves love exactly as they are.

TMDb rating

2.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love a broad, physical comedy that still has a soft heart, where Eddie Murphy gets to play several rubber-faced characters at once and the jokes land on the fat suits and the swagger alike.

Skip it if you find slapstick and prosthetic gags wearing thin, or you want a comedy that stays sharp and understated rather than leaning on big voices and bigger reactions.

What it asks of you: It runs about ninety-five minutes and moves briskly, asking you to laugh loudly and often, with a sweetness underneath that never fully slows it down.

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

If you liked this

Coming to America1988

Murphy again plays multiple characters under heavy makeup, and again the film is fundamentally about a man trying to be loved for who he really is, not the persona he puts on for the world.

But It's gentler and more romantic, with none of Nutty Professor's gross-out gags — if you wanted the fart jokes, this will feel tame.

Trading Places1983

Murphy's breakout showcase, a sharp class-swap comedy that proves he was always this good at playing multiple registers of the same con at once.

But It's 80s in every sense — the pacing, the politics, the ending — and has none of the body-transformation hook that drives Nutty Professor.

The Mask1994

Jim Carrey's shy nobody puts on a magic object and becomes a loud, confident, dangerous version of himself — practically Buddy Love with green face paint and cartoon physics.

But The comedy is manic and rubber-faced rather than character-driven, with a lot less warmth or romance underneath the noise.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Nutty Professor1963

This is the actual source material: the 1996 film remakes Lewis's 1963 original, and both use the same Jekyll-and-Hyde structure to ask whether confidence is worth becoming someone crueler.

Jerry Lewis's original take on the same premise, decades earlier: a meek chemistry professor drinks a formula and becomes a slick, insufferable lounge lizard. It's manic, strange, and unexpectedly cynical about charm itself.

But It's black and white, paced very differently from a modern studio comedy, and Lewis's performance style is an acquired taste if you're used to Murphy.

Big Momma's House2000

Another star buried in prosthetics playing broad family comedy for big laughs, with the same willingness to be as silly and undignified as the joke requires.

But The fat suit here is pure disguise gag rather than character study — there's none of Sherman Klump's tenderness underneath it.

Liar Liar1997

A high-concept curse forces a slick, self-serving man to become someone else entirely for a while, and Jim Carrey runs with the premise the way Murphy runs with his serum.

But It's a tighter, single-role performance — none of the multiple-character showcase that makes Nutty Professor such a stunt.

Norbit2007

Murphy returns to multiple roles and full-body prosthetics, this time as a meek husband against his own monstrous wife — the fat-suit-as-metaphor idea pushed even further.

But It was savaged by critics at the time, and the fat-suit gags land much meaner and cruder than anything in Nutty Professor.

Shallow Hal2001

Jack Black falls for a woman he's been hypnotized into seeing as thin, flipping Nutty Professor's premise: here it's the world's perception, not the body, that's been altered.

But The Farrelly Brothers' sentimentality can feel heavy-handed, and the body-image message is far more didactic than anything in Nutty Professor.

Bruce Almighty2003

Another high-concept transformation comedy about a frustrated man handed sudden power over his own life, with Jim Carrey doing big, rubbery, crowd-pleasing work.

But It swaps the romance-driven plot for a broader everyman-gets-god-powers premise, so the connection to Klump's specific dilemma is looser.

Click2006

Adam Sandler gets a magic remote instead of a serum, but it's the same bargain: a shortcut that promises to fix your life and quietly costs you who you are.

But The tonal swing from broad slapstick to genuinely sad family drama is much more severe here than anything Nutty Professor attempts.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde1931

Same engine, opposite register: both films use a transformative serum to split a man into his 'acceptable' self and his unleashed appetite, but this one plays the split as moral catastrophe instead of punchline.

Fredric March won an Oscar playing the same split-personality bargain dead straight: a respectable man's serum unleashes the appetite he's spent his life suppressing, and it curdles into horror.

But There's no comedy at all here — it's a gothic tragedy about repression and violence, and the tonal distance from Nutty Professor is total.

Huge2010

It takes Nutty Professor's central ache — a person believing they can't be loved until their body changes — and plays it straight, as sober teen drama instead of prosthetic-heavy farce.

A short-lived teen drama set at a summer weight-loss camp, following kids who've spent their whole lives being told their bodies are the problem they need to solve.

But It's earnest, low-budget, and completely without jokes — cancelled after one season, and a real tonal 180 from a broad Eddie Murphy comedy.