The Best Fart Jokes In Movies

Some might refuse to admit it, but even the most high-minded moviegoers know that fart jokes are funny. Okay, maybe that statement needs clarification: Fart jokes aren't inherently funny, but they can be funny. As with any sort of humor, a truly successful fart joke needs a lot of components to work. Timing is universally crucial, but other elements of success might vary, based on context. For example, one fart might be funny because it comes as a surprise, while another might work as the release of suspenseful build-up. Moreover, though the base nature of fart jokes might be immature, that doesn't mean they can't be used in artful ways. An excellent fart joke can comment on the characters' relationships with maturity and embarrassment, or even interrogate the very nature of good taste.

Or maybe this is all just nonsensical, pseudo-intellectual justification. Perhaps the true distinguishing factor between a good fart joke and a lazy one comes down to knowing it when you see it. Either way, the following films manage to put the "art" in "fart." These are the best fart jokes in cinema. We always laugh at them — even if our better judgement makes us think we shouldn't.

How many Oscar-winning movies feature fart jokes? More than you'd think. 1988's "Rain Man" has a scene in which Raymond Babbitt lets one loose in a phone booth. 1990's "Dances with Wolves" sees Timmons tell John Dunbar to put his passed gas in his book. Sergeant Dignam cuts the cheese in 2006's "The Departed." The Oscar-bait fart joke most deserving of its own award, however, occurs in "Amadeus," Milos Forman's 1984 film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's Tony-winning play.

"Amadeus" tells the story of spiteful Antonio Salieri, who plots to destroy Mozart. This scheme might be pure fiction, but one aspect that is historically accurate is Mozart's fondness for lowbrow humor. In one hilarious scene, Mozart is challenged to play piano in the styles of various different composers. Salieri, hiding under a mask, challenges Mozart to do a Salieri impression. Mozart already has the crowd in hysterics with his imitation of Salieri's stilted playing, before he concludes the performance by lifting his coattails and releasing an impressively loud fart. Everyone applauds — except Salieri.

This might be the most debatable inclusion on this list. Some cinephiles don't consider a real-life fart captured in a documentary as being on the same playing field as other fart jokes. Others might consider "The Beatles: Get Back," Peter Jackson's eight-hour documentary, to be a television series rather than a movie, as it's split into three feature-length parts. But the fact that at least seven critics have included it on their "best movies of 2021" list gives us permission to categorize it as a movie, which allows us to place its fart scene on this list.

In the midst of a serious discussion at Apple about The Beatles' next performance, Ringo Starr pipes up: "I've farted." George Martin thanks him while Paul McCartney walks away. Ringo goes on to explain his declaration by saying, "I was gonna sit here silent and look at you. Then I thought, no, I'll tell you about it." The fact that the documentary subtitles Ringo's dialogue in this scene only makes the interruption even more amusing. It is the inclusion of little moments of awkward humanity like this that justifies the documentary's lengthy runtime.

"'Blazing Saddles' for me was a film that truly broke ground," said director Mel Brooks of his 1974 Western spoof (via OC Weekly). "It also broke wind ... and maybe that's why it broke ground." He might be right. Many earlier Westerns include scenes of cowboys eating beans around the campfire, but it wasn't until "Blazing Saddles" that audiences could actually hear the results of spending so much time eating "the musical fruit."

While the "Blazing Saddles"' campfire scene wasn't actually the first cinematic fart joke, it was certainly a turning point for the lowbrow art. At the time, the joke was seen as outrageous and offensive: TV airings even went so far as to censor the fart noises, resulting in a minute of odd silence. Removed from its groundbreaking context, the fart scene is far from the funniest or most shocking scene in the movie, but it still works as an example of Brooks' "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to comedy. One subtler bonus fart joke is also present in the movie: Governor Le Petomane is named after "Le Pétomane," a French comedian famous for his flatulence.

"The BFG" is not one of Steven Spielberg's best movies. This 2016 Disney flop, based on Roald Dahl's classic 1982 children's book of the same name, couldn't quite overcome a central issue: Not much actually happens in its talky source material. However, even Spielberg's weakest films always have at least one masterful scene within them. In "The BFG," that happens to be an elaborate farting sequence.

This moment occurs when Sophie and the titular Big Friendly Giant make a visit to Buckingham Palace. They're on a mission to recruit Queen Elizabeth II and her soldiers in their fight against child-eating giants. Over breakfast, the BFG serves some of his favorite "frobscottle" drink to the royal household. This results in a perfectly timed symphony of explosive flatulence, which sends men flying into the air and corgis zooming across the floor on the bums. The Queen, meanwhile, somehow keeps her cool.

Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" received virtually no marketing during its 2006 theatrical release (via NPR). Yet the dystopian satire has since gone on to become one of the most heavily-referenced cult films of the modern era. Some people think it predicted the future, while others have criticized the film for potentially eugenics-minded undertones. Wherever one stands on the film's politics and overall quality, however, one has to admit one thing: Some of its jokes are still pretty funny, particularly those related to the entertainment of the film's intelligence-free world.

The TV show "Ow! My Balls!" might be the funniest faux-production, but don't sleep on the motion picture simply titled "A**," which consists entirely of a 90-minute close-up of a butt, occasionally farting. We're told it's the number-one movie in America, and that it won eight Oscars, including best screenplay. A movie like this actually exists in real life — the Andy Warhol production "Taylor Mead's A**." That production was not a blockbuster hit, however. 

As part of his climactic plea for people to start using their brains again, everyman hero Joe Bauers offers his thoughts on how to bring fart humor to a higher level. In his day, he says, "movies ... had stories, so you cared whose a** it was, and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!" Too true, Joe. Too true.

Robert Eggers' 2019 historical horror film, "The Lighthouse," captures two lighthouse keepers who gradually lose their minds in isolation with each other. It's a lot funnier than one might expect — in fact, its nautical absurdity resembles an R-rated episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants" so closely, it's been cleverly fan-edited in the style of the popular Nicktoon. Some critics have even compared Willem Dafoe's over-the-top performance as the elder sailor Thomas Wake to Captain McCallister from "The Simpsons," though Wake farts a lot more than Springfield's sea captain.

The farts present throughout "The Lighthouse" let the audience know it's okay to laugh during this strange and often disturbing story. They also have a narrative purpose, as they seriously annoy Robert Pattinson's Ephraim Winslow. In one expletive-filled monologue, the younger lighthouse keeper repeatedly insults his elder's loose bowels: "I'm sick of your laughing, your snoring, and your *******ed farts. Your ****ed *******ed farts. God**** yer farts!"

In terms of breaking ground in the realm of fart humor, "The Lion King" was to animated films what "Blazing Saddles" was to live-action ones. The first farts ever featured in a Disney animated film occur in the musical number "Hakuna Matata." The "no worries" philosophy captured in this tune truly helped warthog Pumbaa through a difficult time, it is revealed. In his youth, he was sensitive about his flatulence. As meerkat Timon sings, "He found his aroma lacked a certain appeal/He could clear the Savana after every meal!" Pumbaa emphatically adds that "it hurt that my friends never stood downwind."

The effects of Pumbaa's flatulence are vibrantly animated, with monkeys falling out of trees, grass wilting, and animals running away from the stench. The word "fart," however, is off-limits: When Pumbaa is about to sing the contextually sensible rhyme for "downhearted," Timon interjects, "Pumbaa, not in front of the kid." Fart humor continues to surround the character of Pumbaa throughout the movie, however. At one point, when he correctly theorizes about the stars in the sky being balls of gas, Timon responds, "With you, everything's gas."

Looking back at 1975 cult classic comedy "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" from a fart-centered perspective raises an interesting question: Can simply talking about farts be funnier than an actual on-screen fart? Arguably, fart-related talk offers a slightly more intellectual form of humor than the pure, base pleasure of hearing a fart. In the case of Monty Python and the Holy Grail," this fart talk arrives as a brilliantly quotable barrage of insults.

In the scene where the French knight taunts the "English pigs" King Arthur and Sir Galahad, we get this great line: "I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal, food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" The British Board of Film Classification initially recommended the Pythons cut the "fart in your general direction" line, but the Pythons decided to stand their ground on that one. Cinephiles everywhere are glad they did.

One of the most useful narrative functions of the fart joke is providing character development. A well-done fart joke brings light to the personalities of both he who smelt it, and he who dealt it. A good example of this is the silent-but-deadly gag in Edgar Wright's 2004 zombie comedy "Shaun of the Dead." The satisfaction with which slobby Ed apologizes for passing gas well before his stuffy friend Shaun even notices is informative, as is their ensuing laughter. It's a perfect illustration of how these very different personalities have become friends.

If you're the kind of person who enjoys fart jokes, this scene will make you laugh. But even if you're the kind of person who doesn't find it funny, there's still a character-driven purpose to this scene. Moreover, when the gag returns in the movie's dramatically zombie-filled climax, this silly moment of friendship takes on an air of tragedy.

If "The Lion King" made fart jokes kosher for animated family movies, "Shrek" turned them into a staple of the medium. Countless imitators have arguably dulled the film's appeal, but back in 2001, this DreamWorks film, which is rated PG "for mild language and some crude humor," felt like a genuinely subversive shock to the system. The memetic "All Star" opening credits sequence is a memorable showcase of the movie's crude humor: Viewers are introduced to the titular Scottish ogre as he uses pages from fairy tales as toilet paper, eats eyeballs, and lets out an underwater fart so powerful, it kills the fish.

This swamp fart is the only actual on-screen fart in the first "Shrek" movie (belches are more frequent), but it sets the tone and establishes a fact of ogre physiology the movie regularly references. When Donkey mistakes the smell of brimstone for a fart, Shrek clarifies, "If it was me, you'd be dead." Later, when Shrek tells Donkey about ogre constellations while looking up at the stars, he points out a mythical figure named "Bloodnut the Flatulent."

When creating humor many will deem to be in bad taste, one of the most effective strategies is to go so far that the offensiveness itself becomes the joke. There are fair concerns to be raised about whether the "equal opportunity offender" ambitions of "South Park" are actually worthwhile, but when the raunchy animated series sticks to silliness and crudity, the results are frequently hilarious. The 1999 musical feature film "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" is still a series high point, and the scene in which the boys watch the "Terrance & Phillip: A**es of Fire" movie remains a work of genius stupidity.

"Terrance & Phillip" is essentially a stand-in for how parents' groups saw "South Park" itself: A mass of sheer offensiveness with no redeeming social value. The Canadian duo's movie starts with a non-sequitur joke that has a fart for a punchline, escalates into a series of unpublishable insults, and then dives into a full-fledged musical number about an act too disturbing to describe here. An instrumental break, where a traditional musical might insert a tap number, is instead accompanied by rhythmic flatulence. Everyone leaves the theater in offense — except for Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny, and Ike, who are enraptured by the new additions to their vocabulary.

The directing team of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, aka "the Daniels," sold actor Paul Dano on starring in the 2016 film "Swiss Army Man" by telling him, "We want to make a film where the first fart makes you laugh and the last fart makes you cry." Indeed, the entirety of "Swiss Army Man" might very well be the most elaborate and artistically ambitious fart joke ever produced. The title character is a sentient corpse played by Daniel Radcliffe, whose farts propel him through the water (among other magical talents). This farting corpse saves the life of Hank Thompson, a suicidal castaway with some dark secrets who teaches his undead friend about life.

The crudity and absurdity of "Swiss Army Man" shocked audiences when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival — some viewers even walked out of the premiere (via EW). In the opinion of most critics, however, the Daniels succeeded in their goal of turning flatulence into the basis for a disarmingly moving story. 

For all the examples on this list of genuinely good fart jokes, the fact remains that the vast majority of cinematic farts are lazy attempts at comedy in unfunny films. As such, it makes sense to use fart jokes as a means of satirizing cinema's low points. "Idiocracy" takes this to far-future extremes with "A**," but for a parody of lazy fart humor that more closely resembles the genuine article, look no further than the fake trailer for "The Fatties: Fart 2," seen in the opening of Ben Stiller's 2008 film, "Tropic Thunder."

"The Fatties: Fart 2" stars in-universe actor Jeff Portnoy as every member of an ultra-flatulent family, who cause trouble in a fancy restaurant. It's virtually indistinguishable from many of the last few decades' worst family comedies. In the film's main storyline, Jeff Portnoy is insecure about whether or not people only like him for his farts. He is, in fact, attempting to become a serious actor by starring in the in-universe "Tropic Thunder" Vietnam War epic.