The 25 Best Stand Up Specials on Netflix Right Now

Image via Complex Original

Year: 2017

Recently, Tracy Morgan got hit by a Wal-Mart truck. The accident put the 30 Rock star into a coma and for a while, it was uncertain if he would even live. But he did, and to celebrate, he unleashes an hour of filthy, old-school material that’s as close to Red Foxx as exists in modern days. Not every joke hits, but Morgan takes big swings and showcases a maturity that’s been earned in his older age, as he’s settled into a committed, yet still a little freaky relationship with his wife. When his jokes veer into vaguely politically incorrect territory (like some sex thoughts about Caitlyn Jenner), they’re less malicious than the bent ramblings of a benevolent uncle. And as somebody who spent six years volunteering at a camp for people with special needs, he tells the only joke containing “retard” that’s ever made me laugh. Although he seems to mostly be freewheeling, he imposes order on the show with callbacks, returning particularly to Donna Summer’s “On the Radio,” which he uses to play himself out as he pretends to be a joint-rolling Jesus that’s just sent himself back down to Earth, where we should all be glad he’ll remain for a bit longer. 

Year: 2015

In roughly a month, Tig Notaro endured an emaciating bacterial disease, watched her mother die, dealt with a break-up and learned she had breast cancer. Fresh after hearing her diagnosis, she did a set with jokes like responding to a nurse asking how she got such a flat stomach with “oh, I’m dying.” She got an immediate cosign by Louie C.K. and blew up overnight. This documentary traces Notaro’s life in the following months as she struggled to decide what to do with the fame earned by telling an instantly legendary series of jokes about an illness that no longer afflicts her after undergoing a double mastectomy. Segments from her stellar set play alongside her falling in love, trying to have a kid and figuring out how to do stand-up again. With droll, deadpan delivery that languishes in between points, Notaro’s style requires a supreme confidence in herself for it to work. To give an idea if she found it, in 2014, she performed topless, showing off her scars.

Year: 2017

Hasan Minhaj’s special flits between being a classic stand-up set, an emotional coming-of-age tale and a TED talk filled with sound (if not exactly groundbreaking) koans about understanding the myriad experiences of Americans. Speaking from his hometown of Davis, California, the Daily Show correspondent ripples with bro-ish charisma, peppering his storytelling with familiar pop culture references that provide universal touchstones as he delves into the personal story of his upbringing. During his youth, his parents demanded he push himself to great success and to illustrate this cultural dynamic, Minhaj shows the non-plussed parents of the winner of a spelling bee. On the other hand, he wanted to do everything that the “little Ryan Lochtes” were doing in his class. A terrific storyteller, particularly when he delves into the 9/11 aftermath, a prom night disappointment or the borderline unthinkable way he met his sister, Minhaj delivers a show that tugs at each of your emotions and makes a viewer feel more affectionately towards him, and human beings in general, by the time he’s done. 

Year: 2017

Before they can verbalize in any human language, twins develop methods of communication that only they share. For the Lucas Brothers, this near-telepathic connection leads to a totally in-sync, two-man act in which they deliver bits in ping-pong fashion, with each brother providing ad-libs to punctuate the other’s points. Their looseness belies the tight structure of their set that’s peppered with satisfying and seamless callbacks. The main target of their ire is Richard Nixon and his War on Drugs, or as they call it, the war on black people “just trying to have a good time.” With their laid-back delivery, they talk about watching the WNBA with drug dealers, ditching law school and having negative three dollars in their bank account. They act out Charles Barkley hearing pitches from Michael Jordan for Space Jam, then Shaq for Shazam, and their epilogue is a trippy cartoon in which the vile ghost of Nixon returns to show them that without all of the negative impacts of the War on Drugs, Biggie Smalls would be an accountant. So ultimately, the most disastrous, racist policy in modern American history was actually a subversive way to empower black people through a brand new form of self-expression. Right before the credits, they rip from a bong labeled, “silly lit,” an apt descriptor for the twins.

Year: 2017

A comedian a bit too filthy for the mainstream, Jim Norton has still earned the respect of some of the greats—as detailed in his meta intro video where he has Louis C.K., Ricky Gervais and Robert DeNiro treat him like shit as he asks them to do a intro video for him. From there, he breaches every unbreachable topic and roasts every celebrity worthy of roasting with a specificity of language that’s artfully offensive. He exposes phonies with glee and delves into some astonishingly frank discussion about topics that other comedians wouldn’t even dream of bringing up onstage. The most gutsy being his segment about preferring transgender women, where he goes into graphic detail about how that goes down and how that makes him question his sexuality. It’s a line that no other comedian has ever crossed and Norton expands upon his personal experiences to illuminate the subject in a way that can’t be forgotten. He found a thing that nobody else talks about and made it funny: the mark of any great comedian.

Year: 2014

Chelsea Peretti understands comedy—exemplified by consistently stealing scenes in Brooklyn 99 and writing some of the best episodes of Parks and Recreation. In her Netflix special, she wields this knowledge by dropping a series of sharp observations about topics that feel conventional, but possess a novel edge. She’s got goes-down-easy one-liners like “did you know a female pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes? Ask your mom” and sharp, high-concept bits that start with topics as seemingly relatable as the difficulty that women have when eating bananas non-sexually in public. She details the differences between men and women in a way that hasn’t already been done to death by comedians before her, mocking the inherent self-importance of men and stating that although she’s never done bits about her period, she knows that male comedians wouldn’t abstain from talking about bleeding out of their dick. During the cutaways that other comedians use to show the audience laughing, she inserts non-sequiturs that alternately prompt laughs or tension, which she then releases with her next solid joke. Irresistibly confident, she literally goes out with a bang.

Year: 2015

In the vein of Stephen Wright and Mitch Hedburg, Demetri Martin reigns as the current king of making rapid-fire, deadpan and intricate observations about the very mundane. In this Netflix special, he ditches the poster paper of his early career and announces at the beginning, “I got a lot of jokes to tell, so I’m just going to start telling them.” He delivers on that promise. Unlike other comedians that make their material specific by drawing from their daily life, Martin’s distinctiveness comes from his perspective that finds ways to personify the motivations of road signs or cherry tomatoes while also sleuthing out the hidden passive aggression of bringing a person a souvenir or the barbarism of snapping a wishbone. He drops killer one liners like, “I have an L-shaped couch...lowercase” or “stuffed animals are cute unless they once lived.” There’s a smidge more edge and comfort onstage than in his previous work and he’s developed into a comedian that no longer needs props, but brings his guitar and harmonica at the end to amplify a bit about how you can’t say “yep” during sex, then finishes with an ejaculatory “indeed.”

Year: 2013

Similar to his first special that dealt with his tendency to sleepwalk (sometimes even out of windows), Birbiglia builds this one-man-show off a real-life story of a car accident where he was held liable for damages when he wasn’t at fault. He weaves a long saga of him trying to convince somebody, anybody that he shouldn’t have to pay for his repairs with the story of an up-and-down relationship with the woman that would become his wife. In his ambling, gentle, storytelling fashion, he delves back into childhood romances with girls with braces, then whips back into his present relationship where he’s telling his soon-to-be-wife why he won’t get married. He cops to being a big, sad sack that can barely get his life in order—a believable enough observation if he didn’t craft such a tautly structured and circularly reinforcing tale. The ending comes when he relents and does the two things he vowed never to do: paying out of pocket to repair his car and getting hitched. And he seems like he couldn’t be happier that he got broken down.

Year: 2016

As a teenager, Bo Burnham became a YouTube phenom for his meticulously crafted parody songs played with his versatile keyboard. Now an adult with a child, he hasn’t lost his impeccable sense of timing, his top-notch ability to undercut the last thing he said or his seemingly boundless sense of energy that makes even his average bits extremely entertaining. For this special, Burnham focuses on the ambitious goal of achieving happiness, something he tackles while jumping from sincere topics to absurd ones, never changing his tone of voice or intensity. He does an darkly hilarious song called “Kill Yourself,” a high-production parody on pandering country songs and the best Kanye-in-concert impression ever—where he simultaneously addresses his beef with narrow Pringles cans and the balance between pleasing fans and staying true to himself. At the end, in his lonely dark studio, he concludes with a legitimate tear-jerker called “Are You Happy?” then he exits into the sunshine and does a goofy walk before picking up his daughter. It’s the first time a parody song artist has made me cry.

Year: 2009

Kevin Hart’s biggest strength is just how incredibly likable that he is. In his first stand-up special, Hart deploys masterful self-deprecation to poke fun at his below-average stature, never more concisely than when he hops up on a stool and just starts swinging his legs. In his set, he deals with describing his drama-prone tendencies in relationships, his inability to match the intense toughness of the thugs he knows and his “classified” techniques to look like you know how to fight and sing—when you don’t. Hart flip-flops between a variety of voices (his best is a slack-jawed, yes-man boyfriend) as he performs pitch-perfect impressions of people in mundane situations. His rendition of the man at the gym clapping and slapping himself as he prepares to do a bench press is priceless. Now, Kevin Hart’s so famous that his quintessential comedy moment is doing a Shaq impression in front of Shaq that makes LeBron, several rows back, stand up and scream with laughter. But at the end of this turning-the-corner special, he brings his two babies out onstage while thanking the audience for coming out with uncommonly deep sincerity—it’s a moment that makes you so happy he achieved the success he did.

Year: 2013

As he turns 30, Aziz Ansari looks in bewilderment at the insane things that people his age do without thinking twice. He breaks down the out-of-context intensity that comes with marriage—a God-sworn oath to keep hanging out until one person dies—and does some excellent crowd work to suss out the details of a married couple that got engaged at lunch over breadsticks. He goes on to evaluate having children, and how watching a documentary on bullying made him fear that he could have a shitty kid. With his trademark exuberance, he also makes points about modern ghosts, reality TV shows about pregnant or birthday-having 16 year-olds and the time he hung out with Barack Obama while the president ballbusted the Roots. Ansari simultaneously blends the perspective of a perpetual manchild with a bird-eye’s view on social conventions that allows him to unravel the ridiculousness of some of the most taken-for-granted features of modern life. He does great work in Parks and Recreation and his own show Master of None, but onstage with a microphone is where he shines brightest.

Year: 2017

Sarah Silverman became famous off a schtick of saying awful things in a cute way. She crafted tight jokes about taboo topics and delivered them with an exceptional deadpan, but seemed to mostly be trying to shock the audience rather than elicit any deeper emotions. This changes with A Speck of Dust. Shot in an intimate comedy club, Silverman’s still sharp and cruel, but her cutesiness has been substituted for a genuine concern for the morality of the world. She aims her jokes at inspiring a bit more compassion in the listener. She builds tension before her punchlines with a sincerity that grates at our modern sense of cynicism, but then she releases us with a taut punchline that simultaneously undercuts and reinforces her point. In special filled with exceptional joke construction, a jaw-droppingly good bit is when she laments the sexualization of young girls. By way of example, she mentions her toddler niece, who, Silverman found when she changed a diaper, was “totally shaved” down there. As her title suggests, she recognizes our utter insignificance, then urges us to just be fucking kind to each other anyway.

Year: 2006

In a foreshadowing of the off-kilter stylings that made him instantly famous after The Hangover, Zach Galifianakis stars in a special that weaves in footage from a documentary of him driving a smoking van to the show and an interview with his “twin brother,” Seth, a youth pastor who presides over chili cook-offs and doesn’t find Zach funny. During Galifianakis’s act, he plays a mournful piano and does a stream-of-conscious-style series of one-liners and half-baked characters like the Pretentious Illiterate. He intercuts some playfully abusive crowd work, particularly towards an older, bald man named Carl, who Galifianakis can’t believe got placed in the front row. After each minor error, he pretends to be overwhelmed and on the verge of quitting, only to crack whenever his super-dedicated shticks get too absurd. But scattered amongst the absurdity, he gives an interesting description of his claustrophobia and explains how a relative ran for office and lost to a Republican who deployed a fear-mongering slogan that seized on his long family name. At another point, he asks, “Can you really trust your mind?” And by the time he throws the glitter after his final bit featuring an angelic boys’ choir, you’re inclined to wonder with him.

Year: 2014

For whatever reason, Americans prefer to hear critiques of their country from those with a foreign accent. And few do a better job of popping the balloon of American exceptionalism like Jim Jefferies. The Australian compares and contrasts his two nations in bits about the his native nation’s far more relaxed policy when it comes to airport security, which makes our extreme (and ineffective) methods seem ludicrous. In a since-gone-viral bit on gun control, he details how Australia gave up their guns after the Port Arthur massage, then boils down the American pro-gun argument to “fuck off, I like guns.” In other parts of the special, he gleefully finds topics that feel out-of-bounds, but his blunt approach makes them worthy of laughter, like when he mocks the disgraced and murderous runner, Oscar Pistorious, by laying on the ground and re-enacting the domestic dispute that led to his trial. With his caustic tone, but compassionate perspective, Jefferies proves you can talk like an asshole without being one.

Year: 2016

After years of being an indulgent, stonery nerd, Patton Oswalt now has a daughter. But this new responsibility has just given him new topics to deploy the strong suits of his comedy: his spot-on references, limitless vocabulary and socially aware, but self-effacing worldview. In this special, he opens with a joke about taking someone thinking he did heroin as a compliment, then segways into a bit about the limitless pills that will be given to old people for any mild malady—and why that’s a reason to remain friendly with your parents. He draws a parallel between himself and a Jack Russell terrier with a body that looks as though it’s been filled with “waffle batter and ball bearings” and describes the differences between the far more radical social movements of the past with the seemingly reasonable requests of today. A buff of many a fantastical realm, he describes in great detail the complicated inner-workings of the My Little Pony universe. Although the special released after the sudden death of his wife doesn’t address this heartbreak, it’s a triumphant display of Oswalt’s incredibly specific and begrudgingly optimistic view of the world.

Year: 2015

Just as Henri Matisse spent the final years of his life completing simple cut-out art work, Margaret Cho could tell dirty jokes until her dying breath. The pioneering comedian has been doing what she does better than most anyone else for so long that her stage presence exemplifies effortlessness, even as she handles subjects fraught with sensitivity. At one point, she talks about being so addicted to prescription painkillers that she fished an intact pill out of her own vomit. She pauses to let that image sink in, then hits the audience with “I’m not trying to glamourize drug use…” She compares the “ideal pussy” to an airplane neck pillow before asking a quartet of gay men if they’ve ever performed oral sex on the opposite gender, which elicits some puckers. Then she goes into detail about her own bisexuality and the joys of being a “fag hag.” At the end, she brings up the curtain on a 3-piece band that accompanies her as she leads the audience in a sing-a-long of a song with three verses and a breakdown that revolves around two words “Fat Pussy.” The woman rules.

Year: 2013

During his special, Doug Stanhope tells a quintessential story about helping his terminally ill mother commit suicide via morphine pills, then using her credit cards to spend $10,000 on Skymall. A self-described alcoholic that watches Storage Wars all day, Stanhope possesses an infallible bullshit meter and his chemically removed inhibitions lend him to freer speech than nearly any other comedian. At one point, he tears into the Occupy Wall Street movement, not for their motivations, but for the deployment of their rallied supporters to “stink up” parks and “slap bongos,” rather than his suggestion: sending squadrons to go into banks and apply for frivolous loans. He rails against self-aggrandizing fun runs and Breast Cancer Awareness organizations ruining his detailed football fantasies about strong men in lycra pants. At the end, he closes with a bit about pretending to be gay in meaningless small-talk conversations to surprise the people he’s talking with, and to show a prospective teenager coming to grips with their sexuality that they’re fine just the way they are: an action that’s mildly socially unacceptable, but well-intentioned, just like Stanhope.

Year: 2014

Although his funniest named special is Hannibal Buress: Animal Furnace (simply for the rhyme—chill, PETA), Buress delivers a quintessential special in Chicago while accompanied by music cues by DJ Tony Trimm, who provides a major assist during a bit about a Riff Raff show. Buress made a name out of his laid-back subverting of expectations, as the looming co-host on the Eric Andre Show and the sincere dentist on Broad City, who wants more out of his relationship. But his chief strength as a comedian comes from his ability to state the unspoken obvious. He’s at his best when he makes a social observation then starts tugging on the strings of its implications until his bit reaches a frenetic conclusion in the stranger parts of his imagination. In his special, he talks about pissing himself on ecstasy, sports warping his sense of time passing and throwing a parade in New Orleans for his cousin’s bachelor party, which thoroughly captures the city’s approach to debaucherous indulgence. Lacing his set with meta references, there’s few that seem more comfortable as a comedian than Buress.

Year: 2012

Bill Burr delights in introducing a topic, watching his audience pull back, then bringing them to the conclusion he’s cultivated from his curmudgeonly, borderline psychopathic perspective. In this special filmed just before the election, the material holds up as he encapsulates the choice between a completely inept racist dummy and a faux-smiling representative of the Illuminati. He rolls his eyes at his inability to shame anybody, about anything now, then gives his diagnosis for where McDonald’s went wrong: caving to people who asked for healthier options, which opened the door for stoners to ask for all-day breakfast. He’s at his funniest when he goes on huge tangents down the rabbit hole of his dark imagination, like when he imagines all of the implications behind a sign-language-proficient gorilla learning its beloved kitten died (spoiler: The Planet of the Apes). But his best thought might be his solution for population control: sinking cruise ships, which he describes with sound-effect-laden pantomime. A self-aware shock comedian, Burr recognizes the thin gap between offensive and insightful and sprints through it.

Year: 1987

A former reverend, Sam Kinison uses this special to deliver a sermon on depravity with Pentecostal fervor. Pacing the stage, screaming his punchlines and lolling his eyes into the back of his head, Kinison cultivates an electric onstage presence as he details his destroyed relationships, hands out sexual advice and makes religious jokes at a level of nuance that only comes from heavily studying the scriptures, then deciding they don’t quite add up. He makes sage points about Jesus’s stressful life and reasons for not returning to Earth while also spewing fury at the awful way his two marriages ended, saying that this experience has inoculated him from the torments of hell. His most timeless bits include telling men to make the alphabet while they “lick pussy” and miming out how a corpse would react to the advances of a necrophiliac. Bookended with supportive reflections from his mother, Kinison drives off his in Corvette with a personalized license plate reading “Ex Rev”—a man who finally found the right choir for his preaching.

Year: 2006

Jim Gaffigan will put his five kids through college with his observation that Hot Pockets are an awful food with an awful slogan. This consistently excellent comedian reigns supreme in observations regarding gluttony, Catholicism and fatherhood, topics on which he is a resounding authority. During his breakout comedy album, Gaffigan debuts the Hot Pocket bit, mockingly imagines a donut hamburger (only for Dunkin’ Donuts to actually make one years later) and introduces a meta-feedback into the mainstream that responds to his jokes in the tone of a humorless, soft-spoken and concerned critic. Beyond opening wider the path for comedians to make jokes about their jokes, Gaffigan ranks second only to Jerry Seinfeld in comedians that don’t curse. He doesn’t object to dirty words on any moral grounds, but finds that they’re unnecessary for his subject material and that omitting them forces him to work harder on his jokes. With a delivery style that stacks laughs on top of each other, Gaffigan will forever recontextualize how you see your most indulgent habits.

Year: 2017

Fresh off writing the greatest comic novel, Norm MacDonald weaves through this off-kilter Netflix special in his singular melancholy, meandering way. The man who perfected SNL’s Weekend Update may be the purest stand-up working today, crafting idiosyncratic bits that only really land as they roll around in the silence that he lets linger thanks to the justified confidence he has in his superb material. Norm crafts his jokes artfully, always choosing the absolute funniest word, veering from a folksy innocence to jaded depravity at whip-snapping speed. He’ll leave audiences in limbo for a minute without a laugh just to build tension. In a joke about auto-erotic asphyxiation, he delves into a tender monologue about a son remembering his father, then releases it in an instant with a wordless, vulgar physical punchline. It’s brilliant and one-of-a-kind. A true master at his craft, he calls back to all the loose ends and non-sequiturs (“it’s raining in the forest”) in his set before he closes with a joke that’s maybe the most clever and sudden end to a special ever. Norm’s style has failed to fully translate to films and most television, but as far as American humorists who have a way with words, his only company is George Carlin and Mark Twain.

Year: 2008

After toiling for years with respected, but unprofitable absurdist humor, Louis C.K. committed to writing a new hour-long special each year, a trend he’s pretty much kept to for the last decade. In 2008, as he hit 40, C.K. dropped Chewed Up, which encapsulates his ability to provide brilliant social observations while also painstakingly deconstructing the most noxious features of his self-proclaimed disgusting body. In the middle of his special, he does a riff on how much easier it is to be white that explains the concept of white privilege more clearly and concisely than four years of Sociology classes. He justifies his hatred of deer with an impassioned story about the time he killed one with his car, then shouted the three worst words you can call a human being at it. But his true gift is bringing everybody down to his own level through graphic and detailed self-deprecation—like comparing his package to a “pig’s ass” and describing his digestion health by saying “each shit is an emergency.” The most prolific and consistent modern comedian has four other specials on Netflix, each delving into darker, cruder and gnarlier territory than most before him. He’s a master of making the vile sublime.

Year: 1979

The 24 previous entries on this list all contain elements that were done better decades ago in this masterpiece. During this as-perfect-as-it-gets special, Pryor hits multiple knee-slappers in each bit while seamlessly weaving between topics ranging from mimicking a squirrel monkey fucking his ear to sly race comparisons to his personal marital woes and drug addiction. Rolling on the ground while sweating through his silk shirt, he’s still simultaneously the smartest, coolest and most relaxed man in the room. At one point, he recounts the story of his father passing due to an intercourse-induced heart attack, calling him a man who “came and went at the same time.” Then he unfurls an anecdote about a domestic dispute that culminated with him “killing” his car by blasting its engine twice with a magnum pistol. When the cops show up, he scurries back inside because “cops don’t kill cars, they kill nig-gars.” Richard Pryor was brilliant, poignant and hysterical at once. He became the greatest by reveling in the moments when he was the worst and laid the foundation for all those who came after him with this special.