Cheers! Our 10 Favorite Movie Drunks

E.T. was from another planet, but what was really out of this world was his inability to handle his beer. His extraterrestrial inebriation is arguably the best part of the whole flick (flying bike be damned).

For a kid’s movie, it’s a brief moment where people over the age of 12 could allow themselves to chuckle a little bit. It was also very responsible of E.T. to let Elliot be the designated driver when they took off on that damn bike ride.

Who would have thought that a film series about an androgynous pirate that acts like a gin-fueled Errol Flynn would be a hit? Obviously Johnny Depp did.

His offbeat take on Jack Sparrow is just what the Pirates of the Caribbean movies needed after they cast the lifeless duo of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley for the lead roles. Sparrow’s infatuation with rum and all things boozey makes him a cinematic classic and a drunken idol to children everywhere—which has to be a good thing, right?

Alcohol can make a person do some crazy things. And that’s unfortunate for Jack Nicholson because even sober the dude’s pretty wonky. But in Stanley Kubrick's masterful adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining he has a great booze moment when he meets a ghostly bartender to drown his sorrows with. Even a ghost can relate to a man complaining about the old ball and chain.

Eventually, after his little powwow with the bartender, Jack goes evn more nuts and tries to off his family. Now we’re not saying the booze caused him to do this, but we would be very wary of getting loaded with Jack Nicholson when there are axes lying around.

Walter Matthau is like the loveable drunk uncle who shows up to every Thanksgiving and gives everyone below the legal drinking age their first sip (or bottle) of Coors Light. In The Bad News Bears, he plays an alcoholic little league baseball coach for the worst team in the league.

Sharing his profane philosophies on life, Matthau created an unforgettable character that is the blueprint for every foul mouthed role model that came after him. He taught his players the virtue of sharing by letting them have free reign over his beer cooler at the end of the season.

Hey, kids have to learn about beer at some point in their lives. It may as well be when they have a baseball bat in their hands.

Remember when Nicolas Cage used to make real movies? If you were born in the '90s, you probably don't.

In Leaving Las Vegas, Cage played an alcoholic writer who's lost everything and decides to drink himself to death. It's tremendously sad (and funny) and his Oscar-winning performance gives viewers a haunting look at the life of a drunk. Alas, most of his films since then have driven us to drink heavily.

Leslie Mann’s brief, yet hilarious, part in The 40-Year-Old Virgin is further proof that daiquiris make women do crazy things. From driving on the wrong side of the road, to rambling on about french toast, to capping the night off with some amorous vomit, Mann took the "hopeless female at the bar" character to a whole new level.

While it wasn't the biggest part in the movie, it was certainly one of the the most memorable. And we’re pretty sure no one who saw this movie ever said the words “french toast” the same way ever again.

We like actors that can put a little bit of themselves into the roles they’re playing. And if you ever see Billy Bob Thorton in his spare time he certainly resembles a bedraggled old boozehound, so he was perfect for the role of a whiskey soaked mall Santa in Bad Santa.

The dark comedy was a nasty romp and has become an instant Christmas classic based almost solely on Thorton's performance. Cursing at children, back-dooring horny shoppers, and throwing a drunken tantrum in the middle of a department store—Thorton's performance was a gift to us all.

Much like Animal House, Old School took the idea of casual college drinking and blew it up to seem like an epidemic. And every moment of it was hilarious. Will Ferrell was easily the star of the film as Frank “The Tank” Ricard, a middle-aged loser with a penchant for funneling beer.

Whether he was singing to his favorite Kansas song or streaking through the quad nude, Old School is Ferrell’s finest performance.

Dudley Moore’s performance as a millionaire playboy in Arthur puts the “fun” back in “functional alcoholic.” His British charm, dry humor, and off-the-charts blood alcohol level made Moore very likable as the impish Arthur. He's also the only actor that could make Liza Minnelli seem worthwhile, although that feeling wears off by the closing credits.

While we’re pretty sure there’s a dark message hidden in Arthur somewhere, it’s hard to find it when Moore can’t go 10 seconds without making us laugh 'til it hurts. Remember: One person’s personal demon is another person's amusement.

Animal House is the standard by which all other drunken youth comedies should be judged. Flicks like Old School, Beerfest, Superbad, and American Pie all owe their beer soaked humor to this movie.

The most memorable character in the movie was easily John Belushi as Bluto, a seventh year college student with a 0.0 GPA. He drank Jack Daniels like it was water and wore a toga like a tux. The dude was a true visionary and inspired a generation of teens to attend college and drink malt liquor like it was going out of style.

In fact, the only bad thing John Belushi ever did during his career was convince his brother Jim to start acting.