Going out on a limb here: you could probably use a good laugh. Fortunately, a lot of the best stand-up comedy is more than just silly stuff. Today’s most popular stand-up comedians have expanded their vision to become more like camp counselors and philosophers who can also tell a mean fart joke and make you laugh out loud. Fortunately, it’s fairly obvious where to turn for The Funny these days because no streaming service has invested in stand-up quite like Netflix. Forget the world and stream some acerbic humor because we’re listing the Top 25.
You can see the full list of the best stand-up comedy on Netflix below:
Last updated on May 1, 2023.
1. Chris Rock, Tamborine
Year: 2018
Length: 64 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
After making us wait ten years, Rock commanded the stage for a soul-bearing set that proved he’d gained an elder statesman’s wisdom without losing any of his youthful rebellion. The topical political riffs may hit differently now that we’re not in the dead center of the Trump presidency, but his barbs are sharp as ever, and the real meal is his personal journey of fatherhood (and personhood). With Bo Burnham in the director’s seat, the special feels like we’re right there in the room, witnessing the funniest therapy session in history. For those that want even more, Rock directed his own version with another half hour of material. Chris Rock Total Blackout: The Tamborine Extended Cut 2021 has a slightly less intimate vibe, but comes with a huge extra serving of jokes.
Watch it on Netflix
2. Richard Pryor, Live in Concert
Year: 1979
Length: 78 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Rock’s spiritual predecessor is also on Netflix — a legendary standup where, 40 years earlier, Pryor broke down his experiences as a Black father, the absurdity of American policing, and a host of other raw topics. It’s no wonder Eddie Murphy considered it the single greatest stand-up routine captured on film, and why it influenced hundreds of comedians who followed. Pryor was bold enough to do what had never been done before: release a movie in theaters that consisted solely of his stand-up. The result is an uproarious hour delivered with his unmatched manic expertise. It’s a must-watch (and must-rewatch) for comedy fans and truly one of the best comedy specials of all time.
Watch it on Netflix
3. Jim Jefferies, Bare
Year: 2014
Length: 76 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
There are few comics who get away with saying anything they want quite like Jefferies. The bombastic Australian went for everyone’s jugular in this special with an impish “telling it like it is” glee. Beyond offering excruciating detail about his dating life and his appreciation of certain uncomfortable sex acts, he went long on the absurdity of how America deals with its epidemic of gun violence. That’s why you see clips of this special crop up in regular rotation. Jefferies expounds on Australia’s gun ban and skewers gun culture in the United States in an extended bit that remains sadly relevant.
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4. Mark Maron, End Times Fun
Year: 2020
Length: 71 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Who better to laugh through the depression than Marc Maron? The impending end of the world has offered exactly one silver lining: the culmination of Maron’s specific brand of happy sadness applied to a global existential threat. Sure, the sky is on fire, but at least we all brought our own bags to the grocery store. Despite reducing his job to “thinking of things that are funny,” Maron is at the top of his game here as one of the most humane critics of our current state of being. As he faces down the end of everything (and questions his own existence with philosophy-killing cat Monkey), he goes after the bullsh*t artists making our time on earth worse.
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5. Dave Chappelle, The Age of Spin
Year: 2017
Length: 67 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Some will want to fast-forward through certain portions of The Age of Spin. The full experience is evidence of a genius comic mind who is shaking his fist at the clouds at the ripe old age of 42. What makes it work is that Chapelle is direct and honest about his confusion at the modern world he’s somehow aged out of. To that end, a lot of the subject matter is weirdly dated, even for 2017, but Chapelle makes it all work with astonishing insight and clarity. It’s raw, and while Chapelle is bracing and biting, he’s also introspective and attempting to feel what younger generations are all about: namely the relation of his watching the Challenger explosion as a child and wondering how the new generations can stand seeing tragedy like that unfold every single day of their lives.
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6. Aziz Ansari, Right Now
Year: 2019
Length: 65 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Directed by Spike Jonze, Ansari’s special features crew watching from offstage as the Parks and Rec alum riffs on social media, the race relations of white people watching Crazy Rich Asians, and more. It’s a phenomenal routine that features perhaps the finest possible example of a comedian heckling his own audience. Riding the wave of stand-up expanding its horizons, Ansari weaves thought-provoking concepts, personal tragedy, and toweringly hilarious jokes together to form a unique storytelling experience. With his goofy smile firmly in place, its a massive step forward for him as a comedian, and we get to reap the silly benefits.
Watch it on Netflix
7. Eric Andre, Legalize Everything
Year: 2020
Length: 51 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
With some comedians, you get jokes and maybe a little light introspection. With Andre, you get to see a man doing a full Crossfit cardio set while screaming and making you fall out of your chair laughing. The natural heir to Sam Kinison, it sometimes feels like Andre doesn’t even need an audience for this special, content to rant and rave like no one’s watching. Yes, he’s intense. He also lets us live vicariously through his outrageous life, whether that’s finding a new erogenous zone while on an unadvisable amount of MDMA or trying to see the Tupac Hologram at Coachella while insanely high. Or doing some other stuff while sober, possibly. After watching this special, you’ll have lost 400 calories and want to legalize ranch.
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8. Sarah Silverman, A Speck Of Dust
Year: 2017
Length: 71 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
In typical Sarah Silverman fashion, this is simultaneously her filthiest and most heartfelt. Not only does it feature her coolly telling jokes that bring about profound shame and belly laughs, it also offers an origin story for her comedic superpowers which involve serial bedwetting, sleepaway camp, and her dad gifting her two raunchy joke books the year she learned to read. The next time someone tells you that comedians just can’t say anything taboo anymore because of the PC Police, sit them down with a giant tub of popcorn and press play on the story Silverman tells about her sister’s freshman year at college. Then, watch the rest after they’ve recovered.
Watch it on Netflix
9. Bo Burnham, Inside
Year: 2021
Length: 87 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Is he making fun of people or empathizing with them? Hard to say! Although diving into the claustrophobic special made during Covid may feel a bit like running back into the haunted house you just escaped from, the flourish of Burnham’s songs beautifully captures that funny feeling of living in a hurricane of loose context provided by a constant internet connection. Each is meticulously crafted and performed in flashy sequences despite the limitation of being stuck inside a small guest house. The layers of artifice alone are worthy of a TED Talk, but it’s a stellar achievement to craft songs that are viral, hilarious, and worthy of being covered by Phoebe Bridgers.
Watch it on Netflix
10. Adam Sandler: 100% Fresh
Year: 2018
Length: 73 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Adam Sandler is an enigma. The same guy who can skewer his own schlocky movie work in Funny People has no problem going right back to making schlocky movies (and then sprinting headlong into Uncut Gems). He completely lacks pretension, and this special highlights what a lowbrow knucklehead he’s remained since we first met him on Saturday Night Live in the ’90s. Yet he’s matured. A little. Most of the Steven Brill-directed special involves a patchwork of Sandler bits at different venues where he sings entire songs about taking his phone, wallet, and keys with him wherever he goes, but he delves deeper in a clear search for human connection. It’s hilarious, sometimes sweet, and it ends with a powerhouse musical tribute to Chris Farley that won’t leave a single eye dry.
Watch it on Netflix
11. John Mulaney: Baby J
Year: 2023
Length: 80 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
A longer-than-conventional comedy special was to be expected here because — let’s face it — John Mulaney has been through some stuff lately. An intervention, a rehab stint, a divorce, a new relationship, and a baby add up to the short version of events, but he’s also ready to be funny again onstage. So, he headed to at Boston’s Symphony Hall and filmed a new special to follow up on 2018’s Kid Gorgeous at Radio City and 2015’s The Comeback Kid. In other words, don’t call this one a comeback (apologies to LL Cool J), and hopefully, he will be around for so many years to come.
Watch it on Netflix
12. Taylor Tomlinson: Look At You
Year: 2022
Length: 60 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
There hasn’t been a bigger comedy break out than Tomlinson over the past few years. The comic who got her start going to a church comedy class has emerged as an impressive voice who’s already over it (life) before she’s hit thirty. Taylor Tomlinson’s Quarter-Life Crisis fully displays her sardonic wit delivered with a cheerleader smile, just bigger and bolder this time around. It’s tempting to say that she’s shaken off the newbie jitters, but there’s also the bipolar disorder that 1) she recently uncovered and 2) acts as a main focus of her special that may explain some of the frantic vibes you used to give off on stage. Tapping into her unique status as a beloved figure for both elder Millennials and the TikTok generation, Tomlinson proves herself unafraid in this special, absolutely crushing a long-form riff where she compares mental illness to not knowing how to swim. Calling it brave feels trite, especially because Tomlinson is so matter-of-fact, confident, and funny.
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13. Patton Oswalt, Annihilation
Year: 2017
Length: 66 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Annihilation is really two specials in one. The first is a whip smart, ludicrous routine about politics and the bizarre wonders of everyday life. The second is a reflection on losing your soul mate. Written, polished, and performed in the year after his first wife, crime writer Michelle McNamara, died, this stand-up is a magnum opus to the early phases of profound grief. The same Patton that lovingly mocks Star Wars is still around, but he’s angrier and messier, pushing through a lot of darkness to find his own weird version of the light. The special feels like someone who’s returning to what he knows best to find some stable ground and using that foundation to build something new.
Watch it on Netflix
14. Daniel Sloss, Jigsaw
Year: 2018
Length: 60 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
When he was a little kid, Scottish comedian Daniel Sloss got a powerful lesson from his father about life, the universe, and everything. The rest of the special is a banger, but the heart of the hour is his explanation of the Jigsaw analogy for finding love — and the explanation for why he’ll probably die (happily) alone. Sloss manages to spin a self-help guru truism into something gracious and awkwardly funny, splitting the audience between those laughing and those who will probably break up within a few months or hours. In fact, Sloss openly credits his Netflix special as directly leading to hundreds of breakups and divorces. Don’t be sad, though. The point is that sometimes those splits are for the best.
Watch it on Netflix
15. Hannibal Buress, Comedy Camisado
Year: 2017
Length: 67 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Buress stands alone. No one else finds the same simple surrealness to life or delivers it with his detached, jovial irritation. His down to earth vibe comes cleanly through in this masterful special where he essentially delivers a fireside chat about weird interactions he’s lived through — from a police officer going full fanboy in a crummy airport to the nuisance of having to show ID as someone in his 30s. Buress’s comedic gift is finding a punchline on top of the punchline on top of the first punchline. He fills all the nooks and crannies with extra little gags and deadpan additions that keep the laughter flowing. Comedy Camisado is like inviting your funniest friend into your home to hang for a bit.
Watch it on Netflix
16. Mae Martin: SAP
Year: 2023
Length: 70 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Feel Good star Mae Martin delivers a fantastically skewed view on the world. Their presentation here is more mature than ever before, commanding the stage with an easy confidence while telling jokes about all the dead hypothetical children they’ve had with ex-lovers. It’s a sheer delight. Martin sublimates emotion through a cocktail shaker of intelligent to pour out a glass of pure joy on the other end. The jokes are freewheeling and wondrously strange, showcasing their unique perspective and ability to transform life into belly laughs. It’s a charming winner.
Watch it on Netflix
17. Chris Rock: Selective Outrage
Year: 2023
Length: 69 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
A year after Will Smith slapped him at the Oscars, Chris Rock lorded over Netflix’s first experiment in live programming. Leaving aside the fact that we’ve just invented television all over again (complete with commercials and fees), the experiment was an artistic success, pitting Rock against the world as he delivered a potent stand-up show. It also gave us a rare peek behind the editing curtain of how these specials normally run. Rock’s delivery was wild and raw, shedding his normal persona as a perfectionist in search of pristine delivery in favor of something that felt more intimate and immediate. His targets involved companies espousing anti-racism while charging obscene amounts, the social media attention economy and, of course, the Academy Awards.
Watch it on Netflix
18. Seth Meyers: Lobby Baby
Year: 2019
Length: 61 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Once every hundred years, an event happens to a comedian that’s so incredible that they form an entire stand-up special around telling the story. Cue Seth Meyers’ wife Alexi giving birth to their son in the lobby of their apartment building. It’s comedy gold (weird to say!), and Meyers mines it for every single joke to extract, taking a seasoned pro’s mind to a singularly absurd real-life moment. The story just gets funnier, and funnier, and funnier, but the special doesn’t rest on its laurels as Meyers takes us for a journey into his family life to explain that he’s basically a goon that other people put up with for some reason. It’s also simply refreshing to see him break out of the late night hosting mode, let a little loose (a sweater instead of a suit!), and return to the conversational rhythm stand-up offers. But, seriously, his story about that childbirth should be studied in stand-up classes.
Watch it on Netflix
19. Hannah Gadsby, Nanette
Year: 2018
Length: 69 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Gadsby’s 2018 special blazed a huge trail, building on Tig Notaro‘s 2012 vulnerability tour de force to craft a special that defies comedy convention so thoroughly that people are still debating whether it counts as stand-up. Spoiler alert: it does. It conforms far more to the Edinburgh Fringe style than the standard Chuckle Hut rhythm. If you don’t want to think with your comedy, look elsewhere, because Gadsby doesn’t let the audience turn off their brains for a single moment. Like a huge sign in the outback warning about the last gas station for a trillion kilometers, she even warns the audience when the last joke comes… before she weaves together intense depictions of physical and psychological abuse with shocking throwaway lines to let some steam off. It’s a truly stunning comic achievement.
Watch it on Netflix
20. Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King
Year: 2017
Length: 72 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Homecoming King is very much an extension of his politically charged show Patriot Act. Yes, he sets the jokes up and knocks them down, but Minhaj shines more as a storyteller, especially here with American flags projected on big screens behind him. This is a special about growing up as a second generation Indian Muslim immigrant, mocking and celebrating the differences he noted between him and his father after 9/11. The political gets merged with the personal, and Minhaj masterfully navigates both with his gigantic eyes and freewheeling energy. Unlike other specials, the camera work here follows next to Minhaj, letting him directly address the home viewer as much as the theater audience, creating a remarkably intimate tone for an intimate series of topics.
Watch it on Netflix
21. Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife
Year: 2018
Length: 64 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Two years after busting through with Baby Cobra, Wong did it again, rocking the stage with a prodigious pregnancy belly and a fiery attitude. The follow-up to a hit special can be a highwire act, but Wong makes it look effortless. It’s a stellar performance filled with aggressively honest observations about motherhood, and the grotesque expectations we place on women. It’s also a kind of op-ed for treating all mothers better that happens to be uproarious and shocking. Wong’s performance is balletic. She puts her whole body into it, but her absolute best feature is the ability to perceive with pinpoint accuracy how absurd so many thing we consider “normal” really are. That and channeling the desire to collect checks in her pajamas by voicing a piece of tofu for Pixar.
Watch it on Netflix
22. Trevor Noah, I Wish You Would
Year: 2022
Length: 60 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Noah absolutely explodes on the stage in this energetic special. Shifting away from The Daily Show, Noah proves again to be a powerhouse of observational comedy, narrowing his eyebrows at the abject stupidity of political figures, bigots, and life’s tiny absurdities. As with his book Born a Crime, Noah riffs on his upbringing as the child of a Xhosa woman and a Swiss man. He also unsurprisingly hammers American government and its various sex pests, trotting out a shocking amount of incredibly good impressions. It’s a Jim Carrey-esque side to Noah that hasn’t really been seen until I Wish You Would, and Noah emerges from the event as a rock star of comedy.
Watch it on Netflix
23. Bill Burr: Paper Tiger
Year: 2019
Length: 67 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Burr is another legacy comic who continually proves his relevance by exploiting a unique ability to piss off an entire audience before winning them all back. It happens multiple times during Paper Tiger, none more than when he relates how happy he is that Stephen Hawking is dead. Most comics are terrified of boos, a few endure them momentarily, some build an identity on only receiving hate, but Burr luxuriates comfortably in the boos before impossibly wringing more laughs from the crowd that was just about to grab their pitchforks. He’s on fire here, pouncing on social landmines with a jester’s joyful abandon.
Watch it on Netflix
24. Pete Davidson, Alive From New York
Year: 2020
Length: 49 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
The initial pleasure of Alive From New York is Davidson’s naturalistic gift for delivering punchlines while exposing his most embarrassing moments. The secondary pleasure of Alive From New York is listening to Davidson laugh at his own jokes. It’s a classic SNL tradition, but it’s also fun to see how much fun he’s having. Sweet and astonishingly self-deprecating, the set fully embraces the tabloid nonsense that everyone is tuning in for — opening with a story about how Louis C.K. tried to get Davidson fired from SNL for smoking pot, telling tales out of school about Ariana Grande, and delighting in some jaw droppingly awkward family stories. Davidson magically owns the room while harnessing underdog energy, leaning into the high highs and low lows that Davidson has lived out in full view of the public.
Watch it on Netflix
TIE: 25. Craig Ferguson: Tickle Fight
Year: 2017
Length: 66 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
The acerbic late-late night host sure enjoyed letting loose after leaving his network gig of a decade, and this special does fill in some behind-the-scenes details of his more mischievous exploits during that CBS tenure. His tales of the ravages of the road would come later, but for Netflix, he unfurls his takes on 1970s porn along with those wacky Japanese toilets.
Watch it on Netflix
TIE: 25. Michael Che: Matters
Year: 2016
Length: 60 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Trailer: Watch here
Before he crushed the spirit of fellow Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost, Michael Che filmed his first Netflix special in Brooklyn, and this was a no-holds-barred affair. Naturally, controversy arose when Che dove into the hot-button topics of the year, including the unmentionable one of 2016 as well as homophobia, gentrification, and racial disparities.
Watch it on Netflix
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