The film “Everything Everywhere All at Once” by Birmingham director Daniel Scheinert is being recognized as one of the top one hundred comedy films by Variety Magazine. The film by Scheinert and Daniel Kwan stunned critics by winning seven Oscars in 2023, including Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor. The directing duo, known as the “Daniels” were both first time nominees. Their film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards that year.
The list in Variety Magazine ranks “Everything Everywhere All at Once” alongside classic films ranging from Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator,” to cult favorites like “The Big Lebowski,” and the “Rocky Horror Picture Show. The list begins with “Bridget Jones’ Diary,” “Wayne’s World,” and “Pretty Woman.” The top five ranked movies are “Waiting for Guffman,” “The Great Dictator,” “Annie Hall,” “Some Like It Hot,” and “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad.” The ranking in Variety followed this introduction.
“Laughing matters. It always has. But laughing may matter even more in modern times. Does anyone think that during the Middle Ages, or even in the late 19th century, ordinary citizens spent as much time laughing at the popular culture of the day as they have during the past 110 years? No way. And that’s because that gift from the gods known as movie comedy made laughing matter more than ever before. The first global celebrity was Charlie Chaplin, the master silent-movie comedian. It was he who established that going to the movies would be an act wired, in a primal and essential way, to the G-spot of hilarity. And once Hollywood got audiences laughing, no one wanted to stop. The slapstick genius of the silent clowns; the joyful lunacy of the Marx Brothers; the riotous repartee of screwball comedy; the sick-joke revolution of “Dr. Strangelove”; the prankster surrealism of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen; the midnight madness of John Waters; the unleashed anarchy of the “Saturday Night Live” generation; the barely controlled chaos of Jim Carrey … in compiling our list of the all-time greatest screen comedies, we thought long and hard about what makes a classic. But mostly we heeded the call of our funny bones. We hope these movies tickle yours as much as they do ours.”
Back in 2023, the Associated Press reported how the metaphysical multiverse comedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once” wrapped its hot dog fingers around Hollywood’s top prize Sunday, winning best picture at the 95th Academy Awards, along with awards for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Jamie Lee Curtis.
The film—nominated for a whopping 11 Oscars—won seven in all.
Though worlds away from Oscar bait, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s anarchic ballet of everything bagels, googly-eyed rocks, and one messy tax audit emerged as an improbable Academy Awards heavyweight.
The indie hit, A24’s second best-picture winner following “Moonlight,” has a predominantly Asian cast and tells the kooky story of an immigrant family at the center of a potential multiverse collapse. It was just the second feature by the Daniels, as the filmmaking duo is known—which blended science fiction and alternate realities in the story of an ordinary woman and laundromat owner.
Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win best actress, taking the award for her lauded performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The 60-year-old Malaysian-born Yeoh won her first Oscar for a performance that relied as much on her comic and dramatic chops as it did her kung fu skills. She’s the first best actress win for a non-white actress in 20 years.
“Ladies, don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re past your prime,” said Yeoh, who received a raucous standing ovation.
The Daniels—both 35 years old and first-time nominees—won best director.
The former child star Quan capped his own extraordinary comeback with the Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance in the indie hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
His win, among the most expected of the night, was nevertheless one of the ceremony’s most moving moments. The audience—including his “Temple of Doom” director, Steven Spielberg—gave Quan a standing ovation as he fought back tears.
“Mom, I just won an Oscar!” said Quan, 51, whose family fled Vietnam in the war when he was a child.
“They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I can’t believe it’s happening,” said Quan. “This is the American dream.
Minutes later, Quan’s castmate Jamie Lee Curtis won for best supporting actress. Curtis competed in that category with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-star Stephanie Hsu, and Hong Chao, who played the best friend of Brendan Fraser’s title character in “The Whale.”
