5 Hilarious Cold War Comedies Like ‘Mayday’ to Binge This Weekend

Apple TV+’s Mayday arrived with a Cold War premise starring Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh. Reynolds’ Navy pilot, Troy “Assassin” Kelly, has been shot down during a mission, and his only way home is Branagh’s ex-KGB man, Nikolai Ustinov, who happens to love everything American.

Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, it is a throwback buddy comedy that treats the Cold War as a setup for jokes. That idea is older than it looks. Filmmakers have been laughing at the superpower standoff since the 1960s, and these five Cold War comedies remain the best of them. Notably, the entries on this list are ranked based on how funny they are and how closely their premises resemble Mayday.

5 The Death of Stalin Turns a Kremlin Power Grab Into a Joke

Where to Watch: AMC+, PlutoTV, Plex

In The Death of Stalin, we are taken back in time when Joseph Stalin hits the floor in 1953, and the men who run the Soviet Union have to decide what happens next. None of them can say what they think, because saying what they think is how people ended up on Beria’s lists.

Armando Iannucci films this as pure panic comedy, with Steve Buscemi‘s Khrushchev arguing over funeral arrangements while a country waits. It sits at five only because Mayday‘s warmth is nowhere to be found. It is still the smartest film here, and proof that Cold War comedy did not stop in the 1980s.

4 Stripes Sneaks Bill Murray Across the Iron Curtain

Where to Watch: Sony Pictures Core on Prime Video

When he loses his job, his car, and his girlfriend in one afternoon, Bill Murray‘s John Winger drags along his buddy, Russell Ziskey, played by Harold Ramis, to an army recruitment office. Then, for an hour, Stripes is a slacker comedy about basic training.

In the latter half of the movie, the platoon ends up in Czechoslovakia in a top-secret assault vehicle, and two men who cannot follow orders are suddenly behind enemy lines. Murray’s total lack of respect for the mission is very Mayday, and earns it a fourth spot on this list.

3 The Russians Are Coming Creates Comedy Out of an Invasion Panic

Where to Watch: Prime Video, Fubo, Tubi

In The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, a Soviet submarine runs aground off a small New England island, and a handful of sailors come ashore hoping to borrow a boat. The locals see them, assume the invasion has started, and arm themselves.

Norman Jewison’s film gets its laughs from American panic rather than Russian villainy, which is exactly what Mayday does sixty years later. Alan Arkin’s performance as the flustered lieutenant is a predecessor to Branagh’s Nikolai. It received a Best Picture nomination, and it is the warmest film on this list by a distance.

2 Dr. Strangelove Has a Perfectly Absurd Ending

Where to Watch: Rent on Prime Video or Apple TV

With Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick weaves one of the most perfectly absurd satires in cinema. Its Cold War premise and nuclear war threat are rarely topics for comedy, but the nerve of Kubrick’s parody is astonishing.

An unhinged general sends bombers toward the Soviet Union, and nobody in the war room can call them back. Peter Sellers plays three of the men failing to fix it, including the president, who has to explain the situation to Moscow over the phone. It is the funniest Cold War film ever made, and the least like Mayday, which is why it is not first.

1 Spies Like Us Is the Closest Thing to Mayday

Where to Watch: Tubi, Plex, YouTube, The Roku Channel

Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd play two useless government employees in Spies Like Us who are recruited for an elite spy program, and neither of them realises they are decoys. They are sent into Soviet territory to be caught, so that the real agents can work unnoticed.

They survive anyway, mostly by accident, and end up with their hands on a Soviet missile launcher. The two mismatched idiots stumbling through enemy territory while the superpowers panic above them are a premise very much like Mayday. Funny, breezy, and easily the most bingeable movie in this list.

Which of these movies are you planning to pick up first? Let us know in the comments below!