Every Movie Based on Saturday Night Live, Ranked

We know what you're thinking: What the hell is Harold? The film is based on an obscure sketch way back in season 29 of Saturday Night Live, and is about a 16-year-old high-school student who has early male pattern baldness. Harold is played by Abigail Breslin's older brother, Spencer, and other cast members include SNL alums Rachel Dratch, Chris Parnell, and Colin Quinn. Even Cuba Gooding Jr., Ally Sheedy, and Fred Willard show up! The very limited release, written and directed by former SNL writer T. Sean Shannon and co-written by Greg Fields (who passed away before the film was released), was panned by critics for being a one-note joke stretched to feature length. 

"A terminally lame puberty comedy." —Ronnie Scheib, Variety

Julia Sweeney's gender-ambiguous character, Pat, is a uniquely insensitive '90s creation that hasn't aged well. And the movie adaptation has arguably aged even worse. Perhaps known more for its uncredited Quentin Tarantino rewrite, It's Pat has Sweeney reprising her then-popular SNL character, who falls in love with Chris, another indeterminate-gendered person played by The Kids in the Hall's Dave Foley. Meanwhile, Pat's neighbor, Kyle (former SNL alum Charles Rocket), becomes obsessed with identifying Pat's gender and goes to increasingly inappropriate lengths to determine the answer. Reviews were unkind across the board. But fans of the band Ween might want to seek out the movie to see members Gene and Dean recruit Pat to play with them at a show. 

"It's Pat is not only one of the most ill-conceived premises to get the big-screen treatment, it's also genuinely unpleasant to watch." —Andy Hoglund, Entertainment Weekly

Tim Meadows' breakout Ladies Man character Leon Phelps made his move to the big screen in Reginald Hudlin's 2000 follow-up to underrated sports comedy The Great White Hype. The Ladies Man has Leon, recently fired from his radio show for giving out dubious advice, searching for a secret admirer while avoiding retaliation from the irate husbands and boyfriends of women that have cheated on them with him. One of those guys is played by fellow SNL cast member Will Ferrell, while other notable performers include SCTV alum Eugene Levy, Tiffani Thiessen, Julianne Moore, and Billy Dee Williams. Critics were not pleased and claimed that the film lacked both laughs and mojo.

"The story sinks, along with any deeper laughs, under boringly formulaic motivations and plot twists." —F.X. Feeney, L.A. Weekly

Will Ferrell's first appearance in a Saturday Night Live movie was as Steve Butabi, brother to Chris Kattan's Doug, both of whom overenthusiastically try to pick up ladies at the club. Based on "The Roxbury Guys" skits, the movie sees them try to get into the ultra-exclusive The Roxbury while dreaming of opening their own club. Along for the ride are fellow SNL alums Molly Shannon, Colin Quinn, and Mark McKinney. Critics weren't impressed with the Butabi brothers' advances, claiming that the film's high-concept premise wasn't strong enough for a feature and that the movie needed more laughs. 

"One could criticize A Night at the Roxbury for being a comedy that provides not a single laugh. That would be too easy." —Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

After a supporting role in A Night at the Roxbury, Molly Shannon headlined her own movie based on her popular SNL Catholic schoolgirl character, Mary Katherine Gallagher. The movie shows us more of Mary and her St. Monica's Catholic high school where all she wants is just one kiss … and to become a superstar. Will Ferrell co-stars in a dual role as the most popular student at the school, Sky, and as Mary's vision of Jesus. The film, directed by The Kids in the Hall member Bruce McCulloch, received mostly negative reviews, though Molly Shannon's performance was largely praised.

"A comedy with several good laughs but no convincing cohesion." —Janet Maslin, The New York Times

The popular recurring sketch that parodied 1980s action series MacGyver, about a U.S. operative who resorts to ingenious mostly non-violent feats of engineering and intelligence to save the day, starred Will Forte as MacGruber, who continually fails to get out of danger before he and his friends are blown to bits. The film was directed by The Lonely Island's Jorma Taccone, who also wrote the film with Forte, and SNL writer John Solomon. Forte and Kristen Wiig as MacGruber's work partner and love interest Vicki reprise their roles from SNL and are joined by Ryan Phillippe and Tombstone legends Powers Boothe and Val Kilmer. Critics were rooting for the bomb to go off for this late-period SNL-based movie, but poor reviews couldn't keep MacGruber down: He returned for an eight-episode Peacock series that aired in late 2021. 

"MacGruber dutifully rehearses the genre's standbys -- so dutifully, at times, that the joke disappears altogether." —Sam Adams, Salon

One of the all-time headscratchers, Blues Brothers 2000 brought back writer/director John Landis and star/writer Dan Aykroyd 16 years after the death of original Blue Brothers co-star John Belushi. Their sequel finds Aykroyd's Elwood Blues released from prison (a stay caused by the $20 million worth of damages they caused in the first movie) and informed that his brother has died. While picking up the pieces, he recruits some new members, including John Goodman and Joe Morton, reunites with artists from the first movie like Aretha Franklin and James Brown, and encounters newer musicians like Blues Traveler and Erykah Badu. Critics complained that the film was essentially a remake of the original without the essential ingredient of John Belushi. 

"There's some terrific music in 'Blues Brothers 2000,' but you have to sit through a lot of tedious overkill to hear it." —Jay Carr, Boston Globe

Fourteen years after their last appearance on Saturday Night Live, the aliens "from France" with cone-shaped heads returned for a cameo-filled big-screen romp. Written by SNL writers Bonnie and Terry Turner (Wayne's World), Tom Davis, and Dan Aykroyd and directed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Steve Barron, the 1993 film has Aykroyd's Beldar and Jane Curtin's Prymaat crash-landing in the Jersey suburbs and assimilating. The film featured supporting turns from then-young SNL cast members Chris Farley, David Spade, Adam Sandler, and Kevin Nealon, as well as classic members like Laraine Newman and Garrett Morris, and critics deemed it either ridiculously unnecessary or unexpectedly decent. The Turners would later go on to create 3rd Rock From The Sun starring Jane Curtin and to write Tommy Boy starring Farley and Spade. 

"As in the sketches, the Coneheads are humorously outrageous, but somehow they don't seem quite as humorously outrageous as they did 20 years ago." —Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel

Saturday Night Live movies were so prolific in the '90s that even Al Franken's polarizing positive affirmation character Stuart Smalley got a movie! Based both on Franken's SNL character and his real-life book I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!: Daily Affirmations, the film Stuart Saves His Family is both a broad comedy origin story of Stuart's upbringing and a legit heartfelt family drama that was director Harold Ramis' follow-up to Groundhog Day. The tricky balance of heart and humor unexpectedly landed with some critics but was summarily dismissed by others. Stuart Smalley always seemed like an odd character to make a movie out of, and audiences ignored the film upon release, leaving the film short of the million-dollar mark at the box office. 

"Al Franken is good enough, he's certainly smart enough. So, doggone it, why is 'Stuart Saves His Family' so mediocre?" —Peter Rainer, Los Angeles Times

Aurora, Illinois' very own enthusiastic rock fans Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) come out of the basement (where they host cable access show "Wayne's World") and onto the big screen in the surprisingly enjoyable—and dare we say underrated—Wayne's World movie. Former Saturday Night Live writers Bonnie and Terry Turner along with Myers wrote the film, directed by punk rock auteur Penelope Spheeris (Suburbia, The Decline of Western Civilization), and together they made a movie that connected with audiences: It was the fifth-highest-grossing film of 1992. But many critics were just plain sticks in the mud, mostly complaining that the recurring sketch wasn't worthy to be a film. Too bad: We're going to replay the "Bohemian Rhapsody" sequence again for the millionth time! 

"Myers, who created the original characters, has to make a feature film out of a teeny sketch. With co-writers Bonnie and Terry Turner, he fares better than you'd expect." —Desson Howe (Thomson), The Washington Post

The inevitable and quickly produced sequel to the successful Wayne's World has Wayne and Garth staging Waynestock, a Woodstock-inspired music festival, while Wayne tries to keep his rocker girlfriend Cassandra (Tia Carrere) away from her overbearing producer (Christopher Walken). The film, which replaced director Penelope Spheeris with TV director Stephen Surjik (The Kids in the Hall), contains almost immediately dated and culturally insensitive The Doors-inspired gags but also features great supporting turns from Kim Bassinger, Drew Barrymore, and Heather Locklear as herself ("Heather be thy name"). Critics seemed more open to the laughter this time around, no doubt due to the success of the first film. 

"Carvey is such a lovable doofus and Myers such a well-intentioned naif that it's hard to get down on them, especially considering that the heirs to their niche in pop iconography are Beavis and Butt-head." —Rita Kempley, Washington Post

So much time has passed that it almost obscures how unbelievably cool it was to see your heroes from television show up in a slickly produced big-screen urban epic. The Blues Brothers brought John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd's Jake and Elwood Blues to the movies in a big way with an adventure—or mission from God—that had the duo getting their band back together to save their Catholic childhood home. A truly unique musical, action, and comedy hybrid, the film received mixed-to-positive reviews, with some critics loving the musical performances (featuring Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and James Brown) and the Chicago car-mageddon setpieces, and others lamenting the high budget and indulgent filmmaking. 

"What's a little startling about this movie is that all of this works. The Blues Brothers cost untold millions of dollars and kept threatening to grow completely out of control. But director John Landis (of 'Animal House') has somehow pulled it together, with a good deal of help from the strongly defined personalities of the title characters. Belushi and Aykroyd come over as hard-boiled city guys, total cynics with a world-view of sublime simplicity, and that all fits perfectly with the movie's other parts. There's even room, in the midst of the carnage and mayhem, for a surprising amount of grace, humor, and whimsy." —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

The most recent Saturday Night Live movie isn't adapted from a sketch but instead recreates the making of the first-ever episode of the show (then titled NBC's Saturday Night) back in October of 1975. Saturday Night, the new film from Jason Reitman and his Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire collaborator Gil Kenan, is essentially a workplace process docudrama savvily timed to coincide with the beginning of SNL's 50th season. The film premiered at the 51st Telluride Film Festival in August and was met with mostly positive reviews, with critics praising the massive ensemble cast that includes The Americans' Matthew Rhys as first host George Carlin and The Fabelmans' Gabriel LaBelle as SNL creator/producer Lorne Michaels. However, some critics would have preferred an actual documentary, lamenting that Reitman's reenactment is too sunny and lacks depth. 

"Despite its shortcomings, 'Saturday Night' works as a crowd pleaser for those who watched Chevy Chase take command of the Weekend Update desk, John Belushi tear up a stage with his intensity, or Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner crack up the audience with their absurd characters." —Monica Castillo, RogerEbert.com

Wait, Tim Robbins' passion/vanity project about a conservative folk singer running for a Senate seat as a Republican is a Saturday Night Live movie?!? Way back on the Steve Guttenberg/The Pretenders December 1986 show, Tim Robbins had a short film on the program called Profiles: Bob Roberts, which was essentially a dry run for the feature film that would come out six years later. Critics ate up the rollicking political satire, which also featured the likes of Giancarlo Esposito, Ray Wise, Gore Vidal, and Alan Rickman alongside Robbins that poked holes at our political process and media at the time. Unfortunately, the film is challenging to locate on streaming, and with some pieces online comparing recent failed Trump assassination attempts to one featured in the movie, perhaps it's time to see what Bob's up to these days. 

"Bob Roberts not only invigorates a climate polluted by the usual presidential campaign bombast; it quickens the hearts of the disillusioned by reminding us that the left needn't always forfeit the bare-knuckled approach." —Jay Carr, Boston Globe

Another surprising Saturday Night Live-related movie is the acclaimed improv folk music comedy A Mighty Wind from Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. The Folksmen trio (Spinal Tap members Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer) first appeared on a SNL episode back in season 10 in a pre-taped piece and later gave a live performance in an episode hosted by McKean and featuring musical guest Chaka Khan. The trio moved to the big screen for A Mighty Wind, which followed similarly critically beloved Christopher Guest mockumentaries Waiting For Guffman and Best in Show and depicted the reunion of once-popular folk acts after their producer passed away. The film was even nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song for "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" by duo Mitch & Mickey (Levy and Catherine O'Hara), written by McKean and his real-life wife Annette O'Toole. The Folksmen are probably still upset about it. 

"I laughed myself silly through most of A Mighty Wind, and was pleasantly surprised when it took a turn toward genuine feeling near the end." —Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal