Is this thing on? (tap, tap) While every genre employs some level of humor, there's a certain type of film that gives the old funny bone a resounding whack by making jokes, silliness, and laughter their essential ingredient. Probably the most loved of all the genres, comedy comes in countless forms: dark comedies and romantic comedies, slapstick comedies and gross-out films, parodies and mockumentaries. What they all share is a universal equation for humor: pain + distance = funny. Whether watching someone mess up a first date or slip on a banana peel, nothing is funnier than someone else's suffering.

Usually light-hearted dramas, comedies tend to follow and mock, the structures of other genres to deliver another key comedy ingredient: misguided expectations. Whether a fish-out-of-water, man-against-the-world, or simply an oblivious idiot, comedy protagonists do not realize their own hilarity. Going it alone or with a team of equally clueless sidekicks, he or she must overcome simple challenges that seem huge, or huge challenges that seem simple. While humor evolves over time, and joke-fueling cultural references are ever-changing, comedy itself is timeless. Even someday when films are projected inside our brains, some futuristic buffoon will slip on a genetically modified banana peel and we'll slap our bionic knees in appreciation.