Best of all, A Fish Called Wanda showed that Cleese – closer to 50 than his character’s age of 40 – could tackle the intricacies of romance.

| Feb 3, 2024

... one of the funniest comedies of the eighties.

| Aug 19, 2022

The bright characterizations, vivid performances, and unexpectedly uproarious set-pieces have lost little of their luster over the ensuing decades.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 22, 2021

It's almost as if each antihero is competing to be the most despicable of the lot.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 6, 2020

If anything, what Cleese and director Charles Crichton celebrate with A Fish Called Wanda is the art of the ensemble. Getting the pieces together is difficult, but when it works, it's a masterpiece.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 26, 2020

There are certainly plenty of elements within A Fish Called Wanda that work exceedingly well...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 3, 2020

A nutty caper film that is sometimes riotous, sometimes romantic, and sometimes merely confused.

| Feb 27, 2020

To those who appreciate Ealing comedy (which is to say all right-thinking people), watching the film is like chancing on a Hogarth sketch in grandmother's attic, clearly and unmistakably signed by the Master.

| Jan 16, 2020

In the Monty Python tradition, the script is an assembly of skitlike situations cobbled into a flimsy story. The humor is cruel and at times wildly funny.

| Oct 29, 2019

The antics alone are fun to watch, but the dialogue is priceless, and there's never been such a hilarious blend of American and British humor.

| Dec 9, 2017

The key to Wanda's comedy is the ever-shifting loyalties of its four nutty main characters.

| Oct 18, 2017

A Fish Called Wanda is vintage black comedy, British-style -- a cruel, dastardly, down-and-dirty jewel-robbery romp that pits thief against thief, while entangling an innocent bystander in the web of greed, romance and decidedly cockeyed high jinks.

| Jul 30, 2013

Cleese's cracking script gives it a solid foundation, but it's the supporting cast who make this movie wanda-ful.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 30, 2013

Putting heart and heat into a film that could have easily slid by on silliness, Cleese proves himself a master actor.

| Jul 30, 2013

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of what is surely the year's most original and daring comedy is that John Cleese is not the funniest performer in it. Believe it or not, that honor goes to none other than the usually somber Kevin Kline.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 30, 2013

As in most of his Python parts... Cleese's character is an extended riff on the concept of pomposity. But Archie is more leavened with humanity than any of his other roles.

| Jul 30, 2013

This hilarious tale of criminal incompetence and transatlantic eccentricity is easily John Cleese's finest achievement since Fawlty Towers.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 30, 2013

Somehow, the movie manages to do the impossible: It makes John Cleese less than hilarious.

| Jul 30, 2013

Low comedy at high speed, it pretends to be a caper movie about a smooth London jewel heist and its infinitely complex aftermath. Actually, it's a smart farce about ingrained cultural differences.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 30, 2013

There are a few hilarious moments, and a few more that are foolish and even disgusting.

| Jul 30, 2013