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By Harrison Pierce
Everybody loves a wedding and everybody here at Fandango really loves a good wedding movie. In honor of this weekend’s The Big Wedding – starring Robert DeNiro, Katherine Heigl, Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams – here are some of our favorite tales of on-screen matrimony.
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Father of the Bride (1950)
Elizabeth Taylor sparkles as a young bride-to-be and Spencer Tracy frets amusingly as the titular figure in this delightful comedy that set the gold standard for what a wedding movie could be: funny, dramatic and, of course, romantic.
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The Godfather (1972)
While not your typical wedding movie, The Godfather does open with a big, fat, Italian wedding, during which mafia head Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) agrees to hear requests for favors because, according to Italian tradition, "no Sicilian can refuse a request on his daughter's wedding day."
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A Wedding (1978)
The bride and groom are undoubtedly always the stars of their wedding, but in master filmmaker Robert Altman's matrimonial satire, the myriad guests attending the ceremony were the real stars. Look out for a colorful guest list that includes Carol Burnett, Lillian Gish, Geraldine Chaplin, Mia Farrow and Lauren Hutton.
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Betsy’s Wedding (1990)
M*A*S*H star Alan Alda wrote, directed and starred in this comedy about a father (Alda) determined to throw his daughter (‘80s teen queen Molly Ringwald) a lavish wedding beyond his means. While it wasn’t a big hit, Betsy’s Wedding kicked off the ‘90s wedding movie boom that continued with…
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Father of the Bride (1991)
In this hit remake of the 1950 classic, funnyman Steve Martin slips comfortably and comically into Spencer Tracy’s nervous father shoes for this, while Martin Short co-stars as one of the most hilarious – and incomprehensible – wedding planners of all time.
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The Wedding Banquet (1993)
The ‘90s wedding movie bouquet also included a number of beloved indie films, including this poignant comedy from future Oscar winner Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi) about a gay man entering into a marriage of convenience in order to trick his conservative Taiwanese parents.
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Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
The same decade also gave us a number of classic wedding tales from overseas, including this U.K. smash about a Brit man (Hugh Grant) smitten with the American woman (Andie MacDowell) he keeps bumping into at various weddings…and a funeral.
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Muriel’s Wedding (1994)
Audiences around the world fell in love with this Australian film about an awkward, overweight woman named Muriel (Toni Collette) who spends her days listening to Abba music and dreaming of the perfect wedding day. Never mind the fact that she doesn’t have a groom lined up; she just wants to be a princess for a day!
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My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)
The success of Muriel’s Wedding launched the careers of Aussie actress Toni Collette (Little Miss Sunshine, The Sixth Sense) and Aussie director P.J. Hogan, whose first big studio assignment was this delightfully subversive wedding comedy about a successful career woman (Julia Roberts) determined to stop her best friend (Dermot Mulroney) from marrying another, younger woman (Cameron Diaz).
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Very Bad Things (1998)
A year later, Cameron Diaz appeared in another wedding-themed black comedy pitched even blacker. Diaz plays it darker, too, as Laura, a bridezilla whose overbearing ways send her fiancé (Jon Favreau) packing for a bachelor party weekend in Vegas, where one of the groomsmen (Jeremy Piven) accidentally kills the hired stripper. Oops.
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The Wedding Singer (1998)
Back on the lighter side of the “wedding movie” spectrum, Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore shine in this cute and goofy rom-com set during the height - and we mean hair height – of ‘80s fashion and fun. Sandler plays a wedding singer and Barrymore a cater-waitress who crush on each other but almost marry the wrong partners…until ‘80s rock God Billy Idol intervenes.
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Runaway Bride (1999)
Director Gary Marshall reunited his Pretty Woman stars Julia Roberts and Richard Gere on-screen for this entertaining comedy about a small-town woman (Roberts) with a penchant for leaving men at the altar. Gere plays the big-city reporter who comes to town asking tough questions and to possibly break her bad habit.
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The Best Man (1999) / The Wood (1999)
The ‘90s also saw a profusion of African-American wedding movies, including The Wood and The Best Man (pictured), both of which featured hunk du jour Taye Diggs, who became a household name a year earlier helping Stella get her groove back.
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The Wedding Planner (2001)
A new decade of wedding romcoms brought with it new a romcom leading lady in Jennifer Lopez, who charms as a wedding planner who excels at organizing other peoples’ love lives while neglecting her own. That all changes when she falls for the dashing fiancé (Matthew McConaughey) of one of her clients.
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Monsoon Wedding (2001)
The new decade also brought with it more nuptial-themed hits from around the globe, including Monsoon Wedding, the beloved Indian film about an upper-class Punjabi family wedding.
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My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Stateside, Nia Vardalos wrote herself a ticket to movie stardom when she wrote the script for - and starred in - this surprise hit about a Greek-American woman who falls in love with a non-Greek (Sex and the City star John Corbett), much to her ethnocentric family’s chagrin.
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American Wedding (2003)
Pie-loving Jim (Jason Biggs) and flute-loving Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) grew up and got hitched in this wedding-themed sequel that reunites the whole American Pie gang, including Stifler (Seann William Scott), who throws a bachelor party for Jim that goes wrong in typically crude and comic American Pie- fashion.
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Wedding Crashers (2005)
American Wedding and this crowd-pleasing laugher reinforced the idea that not all good wedding comedies have to be chick flicks. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn star as two guys who love attending a good wedding - regardless of whether or not they’re on the guest list!
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The Hangover (2009)
Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis star in this hilarious box office behemoth about three groomsmen who wake up in a Vegas hotel room with no memory of the previous night’s bachelor party and no sign of the groom (Justin Bartha). With only a few hours left before the wedding, the trio sets out to find him using the only clues at their disposal: a missing tooth, a baby in a closet, and an uncaged tiger.
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Bridesmaids (2011)
The wedding comedy that proved that the female half of a bridal party can get into as much outrageous trouble as their male counterparts, Bridesmaids features hilarious performances from S.N.L. vets Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph and breakout star Melissa McCarthy (Identity Thief).
While we wait to see if A Big Wedding joins our list of favorite wedding movies, tell us yours below!
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