The 30 greatest stand-up comedy specials of all time

Before stand-up specials were the norm for marquee comedians, Robert Klein put in the work and got to film it, and the result is a comedy landmark. Klein is one of the quintessential stand-ups of all time, and while not every joke in An Evening With Robert Klein has aged perfectly, it’s still a hilarious time capsule of a comic at the top of his game. Whether he’s singing songs about Dear Abby or riffing on anthropomorphized animals, it’s not that the comedy is timeless, but that Klein himself is timeless, as polished and on-point now as he was decades ago.

OK, so half of Steve Martin’s NBC special is pre-recorded sketches, but that doesn’t make A Wild And Crazy Guy any less influential to decades of stand-ups. In fact, the sketches enhance the live footage—featuring Martin’s music, characters, and straight-up weirdness—to the point that it’s almost impossible to tell where Martin begins and his characters and bits end. Is he making fun of his fame? Is he making fun of himself? Is he just refusing to take any of this seriously? The answer might be all of the above, which is part of what makes the show so brilliant, a carefully curated bomb of hilarious chaos that goes everywhere at once.

When discussing the greatest stand-up comedians of all time, Richard Pryor and George Carlin are usually the two names battling it out for first place, and with all due respect to Carlin, he never delivered a single show quite like this one. Hilarious, smart, and wildly influential, Live In Concert is not just essential Richard Pryor, but an essential piece of comedy history, a breakthrough that paved the way for hundreds of stand-up specials that followed, and arguably the greatest single comedy performance ever put on film.

When Eddie Murphy basically swept in and single-handedly salvaged Saturday Night Live before he turned 20, it was clear the world was dealing with a comedic supernova, but even his SNL tour de force couldn’t prepare us for what came next. Though some of the jokes in Delirious have not aged well, the sheer force of Murphy performing without restriction or the confines of a scripted format as he riffs on everything from cookouts to ice cream trucks remains enough to knock you through the back wall of your living room. It’s been a seminal stand-up work for 40 years, and feels destined to stay that way.

The all-time king of deadpan stand-up, Steven Wright’s act works just as well now as it did decades ago, as evidenced by the continued hilarity of 1985’s A Steven Wright Special. It’s not just that he’s delivering brilliant little nuggets of humor that tilt the world on its axis just so. It’s that he’s often taking them a step further into even deeper realms of absurdity, all while never breaking his placid, deep-voiced delivery style. Even now, lines like “When I die I’m gonna leave my body to science fiction” and “I put instant coffee into a microwave oven. I almost went back in time” can break even the most stoic of comedy viewers.

Though he’s had plenty of imitators in the years since his breakthrough, no comedian has ever been able to come close to mastering the kind of controlled chaos that was a Robin Williams set. He prepared, he developed the material, but when he stepped onstage it felt like we were getting pure, uncut comedy flowing down from the gods, not from a rehearsal or hours of work in clubs. An Evening At The Met is perhaps the best distillation of Williams’ particular force, as he discusses everything from parenting to Ronald Reagan. He also discussed what was then his recent sobriety, proving that the drugs weren’t what made Robin Williams into a comedic dervish. That was all there, just waiting to be unleashed.

Paula Poundstone might not be a household name today, but her particular brand of comedy—a blend of crowd work, observational humor, and the joyous gift of being able to think on her feet—is still quite potent, and Cats, Cops, And Stuff remains a seminal work from its era and in the wider canon of stand-up as an art form. Poundstone’s ability to command an audience through personal stories and witty asides is stellar, but it’s her gift to pivot instantly to crowd work and back again to her prepared material that makes her a legend.

“I’m an entropy fan,” George Carlin says at one point in Jammin’ In New York, during an extended riff on distrust of public drinking water. It’s a remark that could have come during any of the specials that populate the last 30 years of his work, but its place in this one helps to establish it as perhaps the birth of the latter-day Carlin we came to know and love. Earlier specials were a bridge between the counterculture Carlin of the ’60s and ’70s and the hilarious doomsayer of the ’90s and 2000s, but Jammin’ In New York is the pure, brilliant birth of Carlin as comedy’s resident leftist prophet, the guy who’ll watch the heat death of the universe with a grin on his face.

The HBO Comedy Half-Hour specials introduced home audiences to a wide variety of comedic voices, but the show never got better, or more influential, than when Janeane Garofalo took the stage in 1995. In a set that simultaneously pokes fun at the conventions of stand-up while still delivering the goods, Garofalo gave us her take on everything from TV commercials to bands that are too loud to wonderfully understated impressions, delivering the definitive Gen X standup set in the process.

The leather jacket might evoke Eddie Murphy, but there’s a larger comedy legacy at work in Chris Rock’s Bring The Pain that reveals not just a wide breadth of influence, but a focus on technique that makes him one of the best stands-ups not just of his era, but of all time. Though the special is best remembered now for a bit involving the n-word (which Rock later retired), his extended monologues on everything from platonic relationships to drug addiction are so precise, yet so infused with energy, that it feels like he just walked up and started talking when, in fact, he worked this hour to perfection.

Yes, Jerry Seinfeld has, in the minds of some comedy fans, become a stand-in for the kind of boring observational comedians who inevitably chased his rise to fame and fortune, but there’s a reason Seinfeld’s brand of comedy became a cliche. It’s because, even after the cultural proliferation of his brand, Seinfeld was really, really good at it. To prove it, at the peak of his fame he dropped I’m Telling You For The Last Time, a top-shelf showcase of his riffs on everything from the supermarket to childhood quests for Halloween candy. It all reveals a comedy craftsman of the highest order who’s not just out to make witty observations, but build a narrative around those observations that’s both funny and unforgettable.

Every Suzy Eddie Izzard special is an unpredictable maelstrom of observations and wordplay, but Dress To Kill, Izzard’s breakout work, remains the best. It’s here that Izzard first brought her blend of daring fashion, tremendous intellectual power, and pure silliness to a truly global audience, and we haven’t been able to get enough since. From the “Cake or Death” speech to the history of colonialism through the clever use of flags to, of course, a simple riff on the name “Englebert Humperdink,” the whole thing is unforgettable even decades later.

Mitch Hedberg sadly passed away in 2005 before his career blew up enough to get him a full hourlong special, but that didn’t stop him from making the most of a half-hour on Comedy Central Presents. Featuring some of Hedberg’s best bits of observational comedy—including a riff on Pringles and a discussion of England’s answer to Smokey the Bear—delivered in his trademark cadence, it’s proof of his laid-back brilliance, and a showcase for a singular comedic voice gone too soon.

Patton Oswalt might have become the household name to emerge from the alt-comedy scene of the 1990s, but David Cross is still the era’s unapologetic, inventive standard-bearer. With The Pride Is Back, Cross brought all the skewed perspectives of the Mr. Show era to his one-man act, then went even further, delivering everything from jokes about Jesus benefitting from his own crucifixion to a bit about defiling his own corpse. It’s a delicate, perfectly executed highwire act of a show, and a reminder of Cross’ knack for squeezing everything out of truly transgressive premises.

It might seem like cheating to put a special that’s four comedians for the price of one on this list, but there’s no denying the impact The Original Kings of Comedy had when it arrived in 2000. With their powers combined, Bernie Mac, Cedric the Entertainer, D.L. Hughley, and Steve Harvey delivered a game changer, with a little help from director Spike Lee, that showed the massive impact of Black comedy to the world on a grand, instantly funny scale. It’s one of those moments that feels like it’ll never be replicated again, which is a big part of what makes it special.

Margaret Cho is certainly not the first out gay woman to make an impact in the stand-up comedy world, but with I’m The One That I Want in 2000, she proved she might just be the most fearless. A lightning bolt of a set in which she explores fallout from her sitcom, sexuality, homophobia, and of course her mother’s thoughts on her rise to fame, it’s essential Cho, a major moment for LGBTQ+ comedy, and a hilarious portrait of an artist embracing who they really are.

At first blush, Sarah Silverman’s act might seem really straightforward: She has an angelic face and a big smile, so she can say the wildest stuff imaginable, and you’ll laugh because you’re endeared to her. But there’s so much more to Jesus Is Magic than Silverman saying perverse, offensive things and pretending she doesn’t understand what she just said. The delivery system is a gambit to hook you in, which then allows her to say profound, brutally hilarious things about faith, sex, and so much more.

Before movie stardom came calling, Zach Galifianakis emerged as one of the most original alternative comedy voices of the turn of the millennium, a comedian who could do Steven Wright’s deadpan and Robin Williams’ explosive commitment with equal power. Live At The Purple Onion is a tremendous showcase, not just of Galifianakis’ range, but of his ability to ride out even the most questionable bits and wring laughs out of unexpected places. Whether he’s quietly murmuring jokes out through piano notes or pretending to be his own twin, he’ll win you over.

From the moment Wanda Sykes starts speaking, it feels like you’re listening to someone who was born to do stand-up. There’s a natural affinity for the form in every ounce of her delivery, and as a result, I’ma Be Me feels at once vulnerable and razor-sharp, like she’s been waiting her entire life to tell these jokes. In some cases, such as the joke about coming out as gay to her parents, that’s probably true, and the result is a remarkable, career-defining special for one of the funniest people on the planet.

Thank God we got a full hourlong special from Patrice O’Neal before the actor and comedian left us too soon in 2011, because Elephant In The Room is truly something special. Released just months before the comedian’s death, it’s a brilliant set full of moments when you can feel O’Neal pressing all of his audience’s buttons—his bit on sexual harassment is an especially pointed example of this—without ever losing them through sheer force of charm and comedic depth. It’s a magical special, and proof of a talent that was only just beginning his brush with greatness.

After years of doing wonderfully confessional work in shorter forms, Mike Birbiglia broke through as one of the world’s most popular comics thanks to a series of one-man shows in the 2010s. They’re all great, but My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, Birbiglia’s show about all things love and relationships, might be his best so far. A hilarious, sneakily emotional journey covering everything from first kisses to marriage, it’s Birbiglia working at the top of his game, and proof that he’s earned all of the sold-out shows that have come since.

Though there’s always a certain amount of character work in her stand-up, Maria Bamford manages to bring an earnestness to the table that creates the sense of a comic who wants to pound every ounce of joy out of her time that she can possibly get. The Special Special Special, in which Bamford performs for an audience of just two—her parents—might sound like a relic of the pandemic era (in fact, it arrived years earlier), but it’s so much more than a gimmick. It’s Bamford at her purest, a wild ride that also highlights the intimacy layered into every ounce of her work.

Always a favorite among the alternative comedy fandom, Tig Notaro exploded into popularity after a stand-up set immediately following her breast cancer diagnosis became an internet phenomenon. Boyish Girl Interrupted builds on that legendary moment (released on audio as Tig Notaro: Live) and re-introduces Notargo to a much larger comedy audience, where it’s clear she’s lost none of her taste for testing a crowd’s ability to follow her down some truly strange alleyways. Her willingness to do a large portion of the show topless, mastectomy scars and all, is an extension of the comedic courage she’s displayed her entire career.

Patton Oswalt always comes to the stage with a combination of polish and willingness to let the mood of the night guide his delivery, and nowhere has that highwire act paid off more spectacularly than Annihilation. In his first special following the death of his first wife, the writer Michelle McNamara, in 2016, Oswalt went toe to toe and punch for punch with his grief, chronicling the strange emotional ride of it all while never pulling his audience down into absolute darkness. Plus he still made time to pick apart the insanity of the 2016 Presidential election over the course of a profound, beautifully realized hour.

A special so complex, introspective, and biting that it started a public debate over what actually counts as “comedy,” Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette still plays like lightning in a bottle years after its release, and not just because of the gut punch that made it stand out in the first place. Yes, the naked, emotional power of the piece is still there, but it’s Gadsby’s innate, intricate understanding of how her own comedy works, and how well she applies it, that makes Nanette work as a masterpiece of the form. And yes, it definitely does count as comedy.

John Mulaney’s command of a stage has helped transform him into one of the most in-demand voices in all of stand-up, and Kid Gorgeous just might be his masterpiece in that regard. Twirling a microphone cord around like it’s an extension of his body, Mulaney spends this special filmed at Radio City Musical Hall exploring everything from talking about sex with his parents to trying to write jokes with Mick Jagger during his Saturday Night Live tenure. The J.J. Bittenbinder “Street Smarts!” bit is the one that went instantly viral, but Mulaney’s “horse loose in a hospital” description of the Trump presidency might be his masterpiece.

We might be stretching the definition of stand-up comedy with this one, as Bo Burnham’s most recent special was filmed without an audience and without a clear stand-up format, but Inside is such a landmark piece in a chaotic time that it’s ultimately still worth mentioning. Combining Burnham’s signature style of comedic songs punctuated by incisive monologues and observations, it’s destined to stand out as the definitive piece of comedy from the pandemic lockdown era, and a wonderfully vulnerable exploration of one man’s quest to squeeze meaning out of all the fear.

The late, great Norm Macdonald never got to do his final stand-up set for a live audience, but then again, an audience never stopped Norm Macdonald from doing whatever he wanted anyway. Recorded in the midst of pandemic lockdowns, shortly before Macdonald’s death from cancer in 2021, it was meant to be a workshop moment for the comic, a chance to say his new material out loud in preparation for the live audience to come. He never got the chance to finish the work, but something in the rawness of Nothing Special makes it feel like vintage Macdonald: Honest, relentless, and unflinchingly his own.

The special’s biggest punchline is given away by its title, but that doesn’t detract from the sheer force of Jerrod Carmichael’s intimate, confessional hour. Covering everything from fame to dating to, of course, coming out onstage in front of a warm, conversational club crowd, Rothaniel sometimes feels less like a comedy special and more like a group therapy session. Then Carmichael delivers a perfectly timed, unexpected dose of casually insightful humor, the audience howls, and you’re reminded what a powerful perspective he brings to the table.

Marc Maron has endeared himself to audiences through a blend of honesty and world-weary wisdom, and it’s a blend that’s allowed him to go to some very dark places over the years. Even by Maron’s standards, though, 2023’s From Bleak To Dark is heavy stuff, probing everything from the collapse of the climate to, of course, the sudden death of his partner, filmmaker Lynn Shelton, in 2020. Maron’s particular style has always allowed him to get away with dark bits, but it’s quite possible no other major stand-up alive could have pulled off a joke about considering a selfie with his partner’s dead body, and that alone makes this a towering comedic achievement.