Don’t Look Up: 5 Ways It’s Adam McKay’s Best Movie (& 5 Alternatives)

Adam McKay’s new sci-fi satire Don’t Look Up is the pinnacle of his comedic style, but movies like Anchorman and Step Brothers could still beat it.

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Warning: This article contains spoilers for Don’t Look Up.

After rising through the ranks of Saturday Night Live to become the show’s head writer, Adam McKay crossed over to the big screen with the hit comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. His stint as one of Hollywood’s most popular comedic filmmakers continued with a hot streak of such absurdist gems as Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, and The Other Guys. After bringing his comedies full circle with an Anchorman sequel, McKay switched to Oscar-baiting political docudramas like The Big Short and Vice.

McKay’s latest movie, Don’t Look Up, pairs the all-out wackiness of Step Brothers with the political storytelling of The Big Short. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence star as two astronomers who stumble upon an asteroid that’s headed straight for Earth. It just might be McKay’s best work to date.

2 Don’t Look Up Is The Best

It Has His Most Star-Studded Cast

McKay has never made a movie that doesn’t feature at least a few big stars. His filmography has plenty of star-studded casts, usually led by Will Ferrell. He’s worked with A-list superstars like Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Samuel L. Jackson.

But his latest movie has his highest A-lister quotient yet. Don’t Look Up stars a sprawling ensemble led by DiCaprio and Lawrence, featuring such huge names as Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett, and Timothée Chalamet. Even the bit parts are played by recognizable stars.

It’s His Most Sketch-Driven Movie

As the former head writer of Saturday Night Live, McKay cut his teeth as a sketch writer. Some scenes from his movies feel like isolated sketches – like Ricky Bobby refusing to say he likes crepes or Dale and Brennan’s tuxedo-clad job interview montage – but Don’t Look Up is McKay’s most sketch-driven work since his days on SNL.

His Don’t Look Up script is a series of absurdist sketches and vignettes based on its central premise of two intelligent people trying to get the unintelligent masses to listen to them. McKay draws plenty of hilarious, painfully recognizable gags out of the ignorance surrounding an imminent apocalypse.

It’s His Most Ambitious Take On Genre

McKay’s early movies were straightforward comedies and his more recent movies have been political docudramas. Don’t Look Up is his most ambitious take on genre: a full-blown sci-fi epic wrapped in both absurdist comedy and political allegory.

Empire’s review described it as “essentially Deep Impact played for yuks, Armageddon if it had a brain.” It’s a large-scale end-of-the-world blockbuster with a poignant message and a ton of dark humor.

It’s A Spot-On Satire Of Modern Times

With its goofy allegory for very real contemporary fears, Don’t Look Up has been described as a modern-day Dr. Strangelove. It’s a spot-on satire of modern times.

In Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick satirized the Cold War-era threat of nuclear annihilation. In Don’t Look Up, McKay satirizes the looming dangers of climate change.

It Perfectly Pairs His Two Filmmaking Styles

Above all, Don’t Look Up is the perfect intersection between the early absurdist comedies of McKay’s career and his later Oscar-baiting political docudramas.

His comedies could be criticized as thematically insubstantial, while his dramas could be criticized as dry. In Don’t Look Up, McKay uses the humor of his comedies to offset the dryness of his drama, and the political weight of his dramas to bring substance to his comedy. In this sense, it feels like the apex of his directorial voice.

1 Alternatives

Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004)

McKay’s breakout movie is still a strong contender for his best. Anchorman frequently appears on lists of the greatest comedies ever made. With wall-to-wall jokes, spot-on overacting, and a boatload of bathos, Anchorman brought McKay and Ferrell’s uniquely absurdist SNL sensibility to the big screen in spectacular fashion.

Led by Ferrell, Christina Applegate, and Paul Rudd, Anchorman pushes a sharp satire of workplace sexism through a series of bear attacks and battle sequences.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby (2006)

“If you ain’t first, you’re last!” McKay and Ferrell’s follow-up to Anchorman, Talladega Nights, has a more bloated runtime than its predecessor, but it’s also arguably an even funnier movie.

Ferrell stars as a NASCAR driver whose reputation is threatened by the arrival of a French F1 driver, played by Sacha Baron Cohen. The movie is both a hysterical spoof of sports underdog movies and an incisive critique of American nationalism.

Step Brothers (2008)

After both Anchorman and Talladega Nights were met with positive reviews, Step Brothers had a much more mixed response. But it’s since been reappraised as a cult classic, subtly lampooning the Bush era through the lens of a wacky buddy comedy.

Ferrell’s hilarious on-screen chemistry with John C. Reilly was one of the best parts of Talladega Nights, so Step Brothers was conceived as a showcase for that dynamic.

The Big Short (2015)

McKay was awarded an Oscar as soon as he crossed over from straightforward comedy into a more serious style of filmmaking. He shared Best Adapted Screenplay with Charles Randolph for The Big Short, a sharp examination of what caused the 2008 financial crisis and a powerful portrayal of its aftermath on a personal level: people lost their homes while the bankers responsible received corporate bonuses.

What makes The Big Short work so well is that there’s plenty of evidence that it’s helmed by the director of Anchorman. McKay makes dry financial topics slightly more exciting with colorful cutaways and celebrity cameos.

Vice (2018)

McKay’s follow-up to The Big Short was another Oscar-baiting docudrama chronicling a crucial juncture in recent U.S. history. Vice tells the life story of former V.P. Dick Cheney. The star-studded cast is led by Christian Bale as Cheney, Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld, and Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush.

It’s a highly unconventional biopic with nonlinear storytelling and editing gimmicks like mid-movie credits and sporadically cross-cutting in and out of the daily life of the fictional donor of Cheney’s new heart.

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