From Drunken Master to Rush Hour: Jackie Chan’s Funniest Films, Ranked

Let’s be honest: trying to pick ‘the best’ Jackie Chan comedies is like picking your favorite noodle dish—there’s no wrong answer, but people will still argue with you about it for hours. Chan has cranked out well over 150 movies since the 1960s, bouncing from Hong Kong classics to Hollywood blockbusters (sometimes literally), and he somehow made being thrown through glass look fun. He’s not just an action star—he’s a full-blown comedic force, with enough physical gags and perfectly timed mugging to put almost any Western slapstick comedian to shame.

If you’re new to the Chan-iverse, here’s a quick rundown: Jackie Chan grew up blending martial arts with comedy, basically wrote the book on doing your own stunts, and is one of the few people who has stars on both the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Hong Kong’s Avenue of Stars. His fame stretches from Beijing to Beverly Hills—seriously, your grandma and Tom Cruise probably both know who he is.

I’ve pulled together a selection of Chan’s best comedies; these aren’t just randomly picked action films—these are the ones where the funny bone is at least as important as the jawbone. Here’s how they stack up, in order from wild cult classic to undeniable masterpieces:

• 'Drunken Master' (1978): The gold standard for martial arts comedies—even if you watch just one Jackie Chan film, make it this one. Chan plays the punky Wong Fei-hung, who gets packed off to train with an eccentric master (emphasis on ‘eccentric’—training regimen includes a lot of drinking and goofy stances). The real genius: you’ll laugh at how ridiculous it all is, right up until some assassin shows up to threaten his family and the booze-soaked kung fu saves the day. The fight choreography is still wild after four decades, and Chan’s sheer energy here is next-level.
• 'Police Story' (1985): Chan wrote, directed, and starred in this one—he’s basically a one-man band, cracking jokes in between shattering every window in a shopping mall. Plot-wise, it’s Chan as a Hong Kong cop trying to protect a key witness and ending up framed for murder, which just gives him more reason to start creative mayhem. The action set pieces became the stuff of legend; even Western directors cite it as an inspiration.
• 'Project A' (1983): This one takes place in late-1800s Hong Kong, with Chan playing a marine cop called Dragon Ma. After his squad is taken apart in a botched mission, he teams up with some especially clumsy officers and a former rival (Sammo Hung) to take down crooks. If you know anything about Chan, you have probably heard about the ‘clock-tower fall’—yep, that’s in here, and no, he didn’t use a safety net (because why make life easy?). The comedy’s a bit hit-or-miss, but between the laughs and actual death-defying stunts, this is a must-see.
• 'Wheels on Meals' (1984): Basically Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao rolling around Barcelona in a food truck, serving up burgers and chaos. Things spiral when they cross paths with a thief and a hapless private eye, and suddenly everyone’s fighting for their lives (and their snacks). The film packs what might actually be the best one-on-one fight scene ever put to film—not just in a Jackie Chan movie, but anywhere. Also, the cast chemistry is on point, and the “three brothers” structure lets everyone riff off each other.
• 'Rush Hour' (1998): The film that unleashed Jackie Chan on the popcorn-munching American masses. He plays cool, straight-arrow Detective Lee, forced to team up with Chris Tucker’s motor-mouthed Detective Carter. Together, they’re supposed to rescue the daughter of a Chinese diplomat but mainly end up bickering, riffing, and destroying various LA landmarks. The pairing worked—so much so that this thing made over $140 million just in the US and kicked off two sequels. And if anyone denies loving this movie, ask them if they can do the dance from the closing credits.
• 'Shanghai Noon' (2000): What do you get when you toss Jackie Chan into a Western with Owen Wilson? One of the weirdest, most breezy buddy comedies of the early 2000s. Chan is a Chinese imperial guard tracking down a kidnapped princess out West; Owen Wilson is a good-natured, sometimes-thief, always-goofball cowboy. They butt heads, bicker, and somehow click, making for a bromance that spawned a sequel—and probably at least half a dozen copycats in the process.
• 'Mr. Nice Guy' (1997): Chan plays, I swear I’m not making this up, a television chef named Jackie who accidentally gets mixed up with news reporter Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) and some very angry drug dealers. There’s a videotape swap, plenty of slapstick, and some fantastically bonkers fight choreography. This one isn’t subtle—if you like your comedy broad and your action cranked, you’ll be right at home.
• 'The Spy Next Door' (2010): Here Chan gets to play the nerdy-cool Bob Ho, a Chinese agent on loan to the CIA, trying hard to impress his neighbor’s kids (who think he’s boring). When Mom heads out of town, Bob babysits, and—because it’s a Jackie Chan movie—Russian bad guys come looking for a secret file that’s, naturally, on the family computer. The highlight: seeing Chan play off the little kids and flex his slapstick chops. If you want a family-friendly take on the 'Jackie babysits, stuff gets broken' routine, this is it.
• 'Around the World in 80 Days' (2004): The Jules Verne-as-action-comedy you didn’t know you wanted (or maybe never wanted and still got, anyway). Jackie’s the valet Passepartout, helping Steve Coogan’s mad scientist Phileas Fogg try to circle the globe. Disney only picked this up after the entire project sat around as one of the most expensive movies with no distributor. It’s a mash-up of period costumes, big set pieces and, occasionally, jokes that land. At the very least, Chan and Coogan are a winning odd couple, even if the movie swings for the fences and whiffs plenty.
• 'The Medallion' (2003): Here, Chan is Eddie, a Hong Kong cop who gains supernatural powers after getting nearly flattened by a magic relic. There’s a villain named Snakehead (Julian Sands), a helpful spy played by Claire Forlani, and a ton of wink-wink jokes and cheesy lines. Not peak Chan, but if you’re into knowingly silly, effects-heavy action-comedies where plot takes a backseat to pratfalls, this fills the bill.

A quick quote from Chan himself sums up his approach:

'I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.'

And he pulled it off—nobody combines fistfights and dad jokes quite like him.

There are at least a dozen other worthy options (including the time Chan cross-dressed as Chun-Li from Street Fighter for a scene—that alone deserves a lifetime achievement award), but these are the best comedy starting points in his mind-meltingly huge filmography. If you’ve got a personal favorite or think I left off a hidden gem, throw it in the comments—frankly, you’d have to watch two Jackie Chan movies a month for half a decade to see them all. Good luck catching up.