Spaceballs

Directed by Mel Brooks

1987 • PG • English • 96 min.

Legendary comedy director Mel Brooks, who had already spoofed westerns, Universal monsters, and Hitchcock with Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and High Anxiety respectively, set his sights on Star Wars in the mid-1980s. He assembled an ensemble cast — that included legendary comedy actors John Candy, Rick Moranis, and Joan Rivers — and delivered Spaceballs. The plot involves the evil titular Spaceballs kidnapping a princess so they can steal her planet’s oxygen (everybody got that?), but the plot is of course secondary to the jokes, and Spaceballs has more than its share of all-timer gags.

Cast: Mel Brooks, John Candy, Rick Moranis