Will Ferrell

2010 · Tom McGrath · 95 min · Animation / Comedy

Megamind is the superhero satire that arrived a decade early, a 2010 DreamWorks comedy about a supervillain who finally wins and discovers that victory without an opponent is just unemployment with a lair. Will Ferrell's blue-headed Megamind deconstructs destiny, branding, and the hero-villain codependency years before the genre's self-examination became an industry, and the film's cult rehabilitated it from underperformer to underrated classic with unusual unanimity. The animation shows its budget tier and the first act leans on formula before the inversion kicks in. Once it kicks, the film never stops being smarter than its poster.

2003 · Jon Favreau · 97 min · Comedy / Holiday

Elf is the last film to fight its way into the Christmas canon and stay there, a fish-out-of-water comedy about a human raised by elves loose in Manhattan, powered by Will Ferrell's total, shameless commitment to childlike joy. Jon Favreau shoots it with old-fashioned craft, forced perspective and stop-motion nodding to the specials it grew up on, and James Caan's grinch of a father gives the sugar its necessary salt. The third act wobbles into plot it doesn't need, and the sweetness is a lifestyle choice. Two decades of December rotations have delivered the verdict anyway. It's a classic, certified annually.

2004 · Adam McKay · 94 min · Comedy

Will Ferrell at peak powers in a gloriously silly comedy about 1970s broadcast journalism that prioritizes laughs per minute over coherence and gets away with it through sheer commitment to the absurd.

2008 · Adam McKay · 98 min · Comedy

A proudly juvenile comedy about two man-children forced to become brothers that is either the funniest film of 2008 or an insufferable exercise in arrested development, depending entirely on your tolerance for Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly screaming at each other.