It’s probably my favorite movie of all time. It’s just perfect. Seriously. Can’t tire of watching it.
Nothing similar, sorry.

Edit: While not quite Lebowski, you might enjoy the Coen brothers’ other efforts. They are great film makers.

We all just assumed you’d seen it, since it’s the greatest movie ever.

The rug really tied the room together

Have you seen The Hudsucker Proxy?

I have to watch The Big Lebowski? O dear. By the responses I guess I must.

You might also like one of my new favorites which is similar in tone: Interstate 60

It’s right up there with Blazing Saddles. Candygram anyone?

@Adirondackwannabe Blazing Saddles is way up there in quotable movies!

@Blueroses Just makes me want to have a campfire.

Don’t forget the Lebowski Fest

For those who have already seen it. Here’s a quick video of all of the time “dude” is spoken.

Shut up, Donnie!

Ahem.

Try Raising Arizona – it’s really good.

I have seen most of the Coen Bros’ work. They are, by and large, really diverse and really interesting.

I did not care for Blazing Saddles…too obvious, too vulgar, too derivate and too evocative of junior high boys room locker behavior. Having barely lived through my son’s and my three step-sons’ adolescent antics, I now find that kind of humor tiresome.

My son and his eldest step-brother put up a new rock climbing route in the Adirondacks and named it Split Beaver ,as it appears in the guide books today, 35 years later.

I presume you’ve seen Dogma. Everyone should.

Damn you @Adirondackwannabe!
Scuse me while I whip dis out.
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet Emooooooooooooooooooo-shun.

Lebowski junky back again to just add that this movie was perfectly cast. Even the minor characters, such as John Turturro as Jesus Quintana, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Brandt, and Flea as one of the nihilists.

@tom_g: And the cameos..Ben Gazarra and David Thewlis, whom I had trouble recognizing without hair.

Sacrilege! How can you not like Blazing Saddles?!? It was an astonishing, provocative statement, satirizing Western cliches and widespread racism.

Didn’t like Blazing Saddles at all. Sorry.

Helps a lot if you’re high when you watch it….

Blazing Saddles is like all Mel Brooks films; uneven with moments of brilliance

@Blueroses That’s a pretty good summation of Mel Brooks.

When I watched Blazing Saddles, I laughed a little and groaned a lot.

There’s always the Monty Python oeuvre.

: ) It’s not as good as Monty Python…oh crap @CWOTUS! Beat me to it!

@Dutchess_III @CWOTUS GA’s. It’s just a flesh wound.

Python, though I adore, is also uneven.

I smile in your general direction.

Pining for the fjords?

What kind of swallow?

African, of course.

@gailcalled I highly recommend Bottle Shock (not like Big Lebowski, but a small gem of a movie).

Bottle Shock is so good. With so many Rickman fanatics on Fluther, it should be an instant classic.

Not anywhere near awesome as Lebowski but endearingly quirky…

Sideways
High Fidelity
American Splendor

Taking notes…

@Blueroses Yes! Bottle Shock. That scene with AR driving the Gremlin was so funny. I think people who loved Sideways (which I didn’t, even though I love Paul Giamatti) would like Bottleshock.

@syz I liked a couple of lines from Blazing Saddles, but a lot of the humor was too teenaged boy oriented that I couldn’t really appreciate it. On the other hand I loved every single second of Young Frankenstein.

A much older movie that I saw for the first time recently (that my Dad and brother have seen 100’s of times, but I couldn’t watch with them because they would LOL and say the lines before the lines were uttered onscreen) is It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. It’s a very funny movie with excellent casting, lots of hilarious quotable lines and one of the most hilarious dance sequences ever with Dick Shawn.

@CWOTUS (is that you in there WasCy?) Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the mother lode of quotable psuedo-intellectual silliness. I loved it so much that I got the special DVD that has an extra disc showing how/where they made that movie (it’s a nifty little travelogue-like documentary with Terry Jones and Michael Palin).

@gailcalled I too have not yet seen the Big Lebowski. Everyone I know says it’s hilarious and awesome, but the description on Netflix didn’t make it sound very interesting to me, so I’ve put it off. Maybe I’ll re-think that position. I’m one of the few people who hated Pulp Fiction and everybody always says how great that movie was. Hopefully BL doesn’t turn out that way for me.

Another pretty funny (with an interesting twist) movie starring Alan Rickman is Nobel Son.

I’m starting a little list. Thank you, everyone.

@Kardamom: I would never call any movie “awesome” as it’s too vague a word. TBL did make me laugh out loud however, and then review in order to catch the subtle details that I missed the first time around.

I didn’t like Pulp Fiction either, if that is any reassurance.

@mazingerz88 – Sideways is excellent!

And for the slightly less-mature version of Sideways, there’s always Swingers (another great one).

When The Big Lebowski first came out in the theaters, I was really looking forward to it. It was the Coen’s first movie after Fargo, which was brilliant. However, they had trouble booking theaters in Contra Costa County, and I waited for it to come on video.
When it finally hit DVD, I rented it with “Buffalo 66”. I was amused to find both movies involved bowling, and had Ben Gazarra. Both were great, but I ran right out and bought my own BL.
If you have missed the number of times I have recommended this movie, I’m sorry. It is one of my favorite comedies.

Other comedies I suggest:

O Brother Where Art Thou?
Fargo
Idiocracy
The Producers (the original please)
Some Like It Hot
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Team America, World Police
Office Space
Men Who Stare At Goats

@filmfann That last one, Men Who Stare At Goats, sounds like a dating service for Coloma! heh!

@Dutchess_III

Hey..I did have a date a few years ago and we went Goat Packing! lol
It was great, the goats packed in a picnic and beer for us, they just ran along without leads and they helped us down the little hills and cliffs. The guy was much more handsome than the goats. haha

Jeff Bridges is really good in the new “True Grit’...perfect crotchety old mush mouth drunk.
His character is perfect for him!

I like the work of Jim Jarmusch. He does some really offbeat movies.
My favorite of his is Down By Law but I also liked Stranger than Paradise and Night on Earth.
Roberto Begnigni is in some of his movies and is really great in Down By Law. Tom Waits is also in Down By Law.
Love all the Coen Brothers movies except Blood Simple. But my favorite of theirs is Miller’s Crossing. Not a comedy like Big Lebowski but it has its elements of dark humor and memorable lines. Besides, I have a soft spot for Gabriel Byrne.

@Earthgirl – Wow! A Jarmusch fan! Love his movies. Stranger than Paradise, Dead Man, Down By Law, Mystery Train, Night on Earth – in that order. Stranger than Paradise is one of my favorite movies that almost nobody likes. Not a huge fan of Ghost Dog or Broken Flowers, though.

You guys might like these 2 movies as well

Ghost World(film) and My First Mister

Kardamom I was going to say Ghost World too! I love that movie. I have a fondness for quirky films with eccentric characters.
I forgot to mention Raising Arizona.

And I mention, not without some shame, that I laughed so hard at Borat, that I found myself practically in my neighbor’s lap. I tried really hard not to.

Slow down! I can’t write that fast!

Borat and Walk Hard were both terrific!

Just goes to show the Venn diagram of films people like will go all over the place. I disliked Sideways, hated Lost In Translation and thought Old School was a complete waste of my time but I love a lot of the other suggestions here. Notably, I like most of the Coen films, Mike Judge films and Kevin Smith films. Idiocracy and Dogma are both on my replay often list.

Surprisingly likable films: Hot Tub Time Machine, Fired Up!, Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

I’m embarrassed that I’ve never seen TBL either, but it keeps being thrust into my consciousness, so I guess I will bow to the Gods of Fate and Confirmation Bias and try to see it this weekend!

Sadly, I think there’s a possibility that anyone seeing The Big Lebowski for the first time now might be affected by the expectations of being bombarded by Lebowski talk for the past 13 years. @gailcalled seems to have seen it without first getting bombarded with “you just have to see it!” In fact, she may not have even been aware of its existence.

When someone like me says that the movie is pure genius, which it is, I feel that it might be planting some ideas about the movie that might end up with the viewer being disappointed.

OK, @tom_g , that tears it. If I am disappointed I will blame you personally. You just had to go ruin it for me! <sobs gently>

Oh, everyone – go see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t yet. it is a literary treat! Woody Allen at his sweetest.

I’m never leaving my couch again.

@tom_g:And for the slightly less-mature version of Sideways, there’s always Swingers (another great one). A slightly less-mature? Hard to envision.

(You and I, so far, seem to have very similar takes on funny movies.)

@JilltheTooth: I might well have been “bombarded with Lebowski talk” (what a felicitious turn of phrase), but since I had not seen the movie, I was completely unaware.

As an aside, there is a very interesting sound track, (including a Mozart Requiem) which does not blow your eardrums into your brain.

@gailcalled – re: Swingers and “immature” – I was living near LA around the time this movie was made (knew the people who threw one of the parties in the movie). Not sure if it was a combination of knowing that scene or knowing ridiculous characters like in the movie, but I found it to be completely awkward and hilarious. Note, however, that we’re not talking about middle-age men hitting the wine country. Rather, it’s a couple of younger guys trying to hit on women the whole time. Just a warning. Great movie though.
The only reason I mention it is that I recommended it to a friend one time who called me in a fit after seeing it to ask me when I “stopped being a feminist”. I never did stop.

And let us not forget “Fawlty Towers.” The broad satire and physical comedy still holds up .

@gailcalled – Here’s where we disagree (Fawlty Towers). I happen to think it’s unwatchable, despite being a huge Cleese fan and his work in the amazing Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

I love Fawlty Towers. I have a friend who owns a B&B who considers it a primer on how to run a hotel.