April Fools - what are the best films featuring clowns, jesters, and other “fool” types?

Shakes the Clown Killer clowns from outer space

Killer Klowns from Outer space is a fun one

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Quick Change with Bill Murray.

"He Who Gets Slapped." Great silent film starring Lon Chaney as a circus clown.

The Court Jester, like you said. Stars Danny Kaye, Angela Lansbury, and Basil Rathbone. Legit one of the funniest films I've ever seen in my life.

It (& Welcome to Derry) Spawn

La Strada if you wanna go artsy

Fellini's The Clowns (1970). A documentary about clowns dying as an art form, made by someone who genuinely mourned it. Nothing else like it.

Kurosawa’s Ran. A retelling of King Lear set in feudal Japan. Lear’s Fool is one of the most iconic characters in Western Literature and Kurosawa’s version does not disappoint.

There's only one clown scene in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure but it absolutely horrified me as a kid if that counts.

The King of Comedy

Death to Smoochy. And Batman

Octopussy has James Bond dressed as a clown yelling at disbelieving generals that there's an atomic bomb hidden in a circus cannon.

The Apprentice features a pretty big clown.

Hitting the big boss for a raise…apparently the clowns in Dumbo were a caricature of Art Babbitt and his colleagues like Bill Melendez and Dave Hilberman by the pro-Walt animators following the strike.

_Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex_ by Woody Allen has a jester based segment in it...

Patch Adams

The Big Lebowski

Danny Kaye's The Court Jester

*King of Hearts* (1966) https://youtu.be/6-nxdyTOtE8

IT.

The Red Shoes has some clown-like characters in the performance scenes

*IT, Part 1 and Part 2* Despite the sewer humor, Pennywise brought new *dimensions* to comedy.

Melania

The Dark Knight Batman (1989) Batman (1966)

Killer Klowns from Outer Space >>

A Kights Tale - Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany) is funny and entertaining! Has a jester feel to him in the movie

The Last Circus (2010)

for underrated options, check out “The Clown” (not the 1920s one) and “La Strada.” both give some solid takes on clown and fool themes without the typical horror nonsense. also, “The King of Comedy” kinda fits your vibe too, but it’s more of a dark take on the entertainment biz.

*I'm Just F****** With You* is a horror where the main antagonist is definitely a 'fool' type, though not a clown in the traditional sense. I've got a soft spot for that one.

I've been wondering what my April theme would be. Maybe it'll be this.

Shakes the Clown

I love Carny and Gary Busy as a mean clown in a dunk tank. He was sooooooo interesting. I loved him.

A Thousand Clowns (1965)

When I make A documentary about my ex gf I’ll send it to you

There's a Film simply called "CLOWN" It's a Horror Type Movie, Found Footage Feal too it if I'm remembering correctly, And it's a Body Transformation Horror about A Normal who "LITERALLY" Transforms into a Clown, I think it's an Eli-Roth Film, I thought it was really Good, And The Gradual Transformation is done well, Btw, He's not your everyday friendly Clown, It is a Horrorr After-all, It's definitely worth a watch.🎬📽🍿

The People Under The Stairs, if you know you know.

The Illusionist - the 2010 Sylvian Chomet animation. Beautiful film.

There’s the Danny Kaye classic “The Court Jester”.  I haven’t seen it since I was a kid, but I remember it fondly. 

>Still waiting on The Day the Clown Cried, Jerry Lewis well, you're going to be waiting a really long time because a full movie doesn't really exist *In August 2024, all five hours of the film's footage held by the Library of Congress was screened for journalist Benjamin Charles Germain Lee, who confirmed in a subsequent article that what exists is fragmentary and that a fully finished film does not exist in the Library's collection.* you can see some of the footage on YouTube and there's a documentary about it called *From Darkness To Light* ***also***, this movie is incorrectly described as: *Jerry Lewis is a clown who entertains children on their way to the gas chamber* as if it's a running gag in the whole movie or some kind of profession that someone could have but it's actually about a clown that gets locked up in a concentration camp and ends up accompanying a boxcar full of children on their way to the gas chambers

The people under the stairs :)

Terrifier

The Greatest Show on Earth - Jimmy Stewart's clown is the best part.

Kevin Smith's original View Askew intro

Joker. I also like Joker 2. But I'm not allowed to have that opinion. Because if I say I liked Joker 2, I'll be accused of trolling, and convicted of wrongthought.

Joker. I also like Joker 2. But I'm not allowed to have that opinion. Because if I say I liked Joker 2, I'll be accused of trolling, and convicted of wrongthought.