Mel Brooks Movies, Ranked

Every film he directed, from masterpiece to the one with Leslie Nielsen in a cape.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A cardboard box shelter under a Los Angeles freeway overpass, an electronic ankle monitor on the pavement.

    10. Life Stinks

    Mel Brooks · 1991

    Brooks plays a billionaire who bets he can survive 30 days homeless in the Los Angeles slums he wants to bulldoze, wearing an ankle monitor. It cost $13 million and grossed $4.1 million. Sincere, a little sad, and the title turned out to double as a review.

  2. Twelve matching ornate dining chairs scattered across a Soviet-era city square, one slashed open with jewels spilling out.

    09. The Twelve Chairs

    Mel Brooks · 1970

    A Soviet-era hunt for jewels sewn into one of twelve dining chairs, shot in Yugoslavia. Frank Langella won the National Board of Review award as the con man. Brooks wrote the theme, about hoping for the best and expecting the worst, which also covers furniture shopping.

  3. A forest clearing with a longbow, a pair of green tights drying on a branch and an arrow in a tree.

    08. Robin Hood: Men in Tights

    Mel Brooks · 1993

    Cary Elwes plays Robin Hood two years after Kevin Costner played him with no English accent, and the movie makes sure you notice. Brooks plays Rabbi Tuckman, who sells circumcision services in Sherwood Forest. Silly, warm, and the last Brooks film that really works.

  4. A Roman stone column, a guillotine and a synchronized-swimming pool lined with torches.

    07. History of the World, Part I

    Mel Brooks · 1981

    A sketch tour from the Stone Age to the French Revolution, including a Spanish Inquisition musical number with synchronized swimming. The title promised a Part II as a joke. Hulu finally made it in 2023, 42 years later, which is a long setup for one punchline.

  5. An old movie camera on a tripod in an empty studio office, a single white mime glove on the desk.

    06. Silent Movie

    Mel Brooks · 1976

    A has-been director pitches the first silent film in 40 years and recruits stars like Paul Newman, Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli. The film has exactly one spoken word, a refusal, and it is said by the mime Marcel Marceau. Made $36 million on $4 million.

  6. A cliff-top psychiatric institute at night, a spiral staircase seen from above and pigeons on a phone booth.

    05. High Anxiety

    Mel Brooks · 1977

    Brooks's first speaking lead: a psychiatrist with a fear of heights, at an institute on a cliff, in a parody of Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds and Spellbound. Hitchcock watched it in silence, then sent a case of wine with a note telling him to have no anxiety about it.

  7. A huge spaceship shaped like a flying maid, a jar of canned air and a plastic flamethrower toy on a shelf.

    04. Spaceballs

    Mel Brooks · 1987

    A Star Wars parody George Lucas approved, on condition there were no action figures. Brooks responded by making merchandising a running joke while playing both President Skroob and the sage Yogurt. A sequel is due in 2027. Bring your own flamethrower.

  8. A Broadway marquee with blank lettering, a stack of signed investor contracts and an accountant's blue blanket on a desk.

    03. The Producers

    Mel Brooks · 1968

    Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder plan a sure-fire Broadway flop to keep the investors' money and pick a musical celebrating Hitler. It's a hit. Brooks won the Oscar for the screenplay, and the 2001 stage version won a record 12 Tonys. The plan failed upward twice.

  9. A desert campfire with a cowboy coffee pot and tin plates of beans, a toll booth standing alone in the empty prairie.

    02. Blazing Saddles

    Mel Brooks · 1974

    A Western that dismantles the Western, co-written with Richard Pryor, with Cleavon Little as a Black sheriff in a town that does not deserve him. Gave the campfire beans scene its permanent place in film history. The finale breaks out of the studio lot entirely, which is fair.

  10. A crackling 1930s laboratory with electrical towers and an operating table, a top hat and cane on a stool.

    01. Young Frankenstein

    Mel Brooks · 1974

    Shot in black and white, written with Gene Wilder in nightly sessions at the Bel Air Hotel, using Kenneth Strickfaden's original lab equipment from the 1931 Frankenstein. Brooks thought the monster's song-and-dance number was too silly. Wilder was right. It's the best part.

Honorable mentions

  • An empty Warsaw theater stage with a red curtain, a skull prop and a fake mustache on a chair.

    To Be or Not to Be

    Alan Johnson · 1983

    Brooks produced and starred with Anne Bancroft, his wife, in a remake of Lubitsch's 1942 comedy about a Polish acting troupe outwitting the Nazis. Not his to direct, but the duet he and Bancroft sing in Polish is the most charming thing on his filmography.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A gothic castle staircase with a coffin at the foot, a cape caught under the lid and a garlic braid on the banister.

    Dracula: Dead and Loving It

    Mel Brooks · 1995

    Leslie Nielsen as Dracula, Brooks as Van Helsing, 11 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and $10.7 million grossed on a $30 million budget. It is his last film as director. Brooks reportedly offered Kelsey Grammer $3 million to play the count first. Grammer chose wisely.

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