Adam Sandler is many things to many people – a one-act icon, writer of "The Chanukah Vocal," star of Netflix'south upcoming Murder Mystery two – but he has rarely been a critical darling. Sandler'due south lucrative comedies take consistently struck out with critics, the exception being when the onetime SNL phenom veers into the realm of drama with the likes of Uncut Gems , Punch-Drunk Love, or The Meyerowitz Stories . His contempo foray into the Netflix drama Hustle is more evidence of that.

The truth, nonetheless, is that not every Adam Sandler one-act is created equal. Some are transcendental, others are merely passable. Some are forgettable and beneficial, others are accidentally fascinating ( Sandy Wexler and Jack & Jill both come to mind in this specific regard). Sandler is not only one of our more than popular funnymen: he'southward also a rather prolific pic star, period, giving audiences a star vehicle every twelvemonth or ii, in add-on to the Happy Madison flicks that characteristic pals similar David Spade and Kevin James. With a torso of one-act work this extensive, it only stands to reason that there would be some duds in the mix.

This is not a list of Adam Sandler's worst movies. This is a list of Sandler's best and funniest movies: the all-timers, the hall-of-famers, the ones that make you cry laughing when y'all quote the best lines to your friends. As the Sandman himself might say, these movies are "not too shabby."

10. Piffling Nicky

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Image via New Line Movie house

The plot synopsis for Picayune Nicky – the slack-jawed son of the devil teams upward with a talking bulldog and two metalheads to thwart a programme that involves his evil brothers seizing control of their father'due south throne and destroying New York City – sounds like it was dreamed up on a stoned cartel between overstimulated 16-twelvemonth-old boys. Steven Brill's unhinged, expensive, critically-loathed cult archetype is certainly not the nearly polished Sandler one-act, and notwithstanding, it's difficult to concede that this light-headed Satanic jape is every bit much of a blank-check indulgence equally annihilation its star has fabricated since. Plus, compared to some of today'south more timid studio comedies, this thing actually has a comedic indicate-of-view! Given Sandler's rash of sports movies and dearest of the game, this 1 had to make the list.

9. Hubie Halloween

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Image via Netflix

The anarchic and uproarious Hubie Halloween is equally shut as Sandler has gotten to the inspired madness of his early work in a long fourth dimension. What'southward more is this thing is downright wholesome: Hubert Schubert Dubois is another ane of Sandler'southward unforgettable, mush-mouthed, pocket-size-town folk heroes, a victim-turned-savior who unmarried-handedly protects his Salem hometown from chilling Halloween forces with zippo more than than some practical know-how and his trusty, multipurpose Thermos. Hubie is so unaffectedly pure and is such a proficient time – not to mention, really, truly funny, in the way that Caddyshack or The Zucker Brothers are funny – that information technology managed to win over even those who ordinarily consider themselves averse to Sandler's charms.

viii. The Week Of

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Image via Netflix

1 of the loveliest surprises in Sandler's entire trunk of work, The Calendar week Of is the genial, relaxed Happy Madison version of a Mike Nichols or James L. Brooks slice-of-life dramedy. The movie sees Sandler beautifully playing an overcompensating, over-leveraged Long Island family human being, who is desperate to impress his wealthy and emotionally distant in-laws, the patriarch beingness Sandler'southward erstwhile SNL pal, Chris Rock. Directed by frequent Sandler collaborator Robert Smigel, The Week Of is a subdued, character-focused precious stone that occasionally throws in jokes nigh drunkard onetime men and behemothic burlap sacks filled with bats to please day-one Sandler devotees. But information technology is largely content to unfold every bit a wistful and soft-tempered meditation on family and delivery.

7. You Don't Mess With The Zohan

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Adam Sandler's answer to the Israel/Palestine conflict is one that involves hacky-sack played with a alive feline, inventive employ of hummus (pro-tip: you don't always have to consume it), a fictional, wildly addictive soft drinkable chosen "fizzeh bubbeleh," and the Sandman himself as a buff, seemingly unkillable ascendant hairdresser named Zohan Dvir. You Don't Mess With The Zohan is also a sweet moving-picture show in its own goofball way and without question the loopiest Sandler comedy since Piffling Nicky. What's more than, is that the flick's villain is a Trump-manner white nationalist tycoon: it'south a curious narrative decision that calls the famously Republican Sandler's political leanings into question.

vi. Big Daddy

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Image via Sony Pictures

Information technology's not hard to run across why Big Daddy remains one of Sandler'due south most beloved movies. Here, in one case again, in the wake of The Nuptials Singer , there was a shift in focus: abroad from Sandler's goonier side and towards his more quietly implosive, fascinatingly passive-ambitious tendencies as a screen performer. Could Happy Gilmore director Dennis Dugan be the one to successfully mine Sandler's soft sensitivity, buried deep every bit it was below an barrage of fury? We'd say so. Big Daddy is slaphappy, shameless, and centre-warming, and the motion picture's occasionally saccharine tone is compellingly first by an insistent mean streak, and also hard-won wisdom almost what it means to actually abound up and leave childish things behind.

v. 50 First Dates

Paradigm via Sony Pictures

fifty First Dates wasn't just a bounce dorsum after the wonky Anger Direction . This Groundhog Day -inspired rom-com is easily the breeziest and most mannerly Sandler comedy since the star's terrific mid-90s run. Sandler is almost doing a Walter Matthau riff here, playing a slick, cynical, Hawaii-spring womanizer whose cold heart is inevitably thawed by his quondam Wedding Singer co-star, Drew Barrymore. Sandler and Barrymore are vivid as a screen couple considering they share the chemical science of dorky adolescents who are but beginning to acquire how much they like each other; what's more is that the movie showcases a softer, more compassionate Sandler without sacrificing whatsoever of the bizarre gross-out humor (hello, steroid-abusing Sean Astin) that his fans love him for.

4. The Waterboy

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Image via Buena Vista Pictures

Sandler inched dangerously close to mainstream respectability with The Wedding Vocalizer, so it only stands to reason that The Waterboy is the dumbest and about puerile of his early run of slob comedy milestones. It's almost every bit if Sandler and his cohorts wished to make something explicitly for the fans of the actor's insane, pre-fame one-act records, which brand no attempt to cross over to a non-Sandman audience. It helps that The Waterboy is also incredibly funny: an affable underdog-pigskin saga with one of Sandler'south trademark warbling nerd kings, Bobby Boucher, at its mushy center. And like all the bang-up Sandler movies, The Waterboy is resoundingly good-natured: the tale of a sheltered, yet valiant, mama's male child and the physically dangerous things he'll do for his female parent's love.

three. Happy Gilmore

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Image via Universal Pictures

This is the blockbuster wherein Sandler's volcanic temper made him one of Hollywood's most in-need comedy stars. The character Happy Gilmore is, past whatever metric, a psychopath with serious rage-control issues. However, because Happy is channeling his latent chapters for violence in lodge to win a golf tournament – thus getting one over on the ane%'er aristocracy and saving his sweet grandmother's business firm from foreclosure in the process – we come to beloved him. It certainly doesn't injure that Sandler plays Happy with a kind of bruised puppy-canis familiaris integrity. Sandler has given us bawdy sports romps earlier, but never funnier than this, and Happy'southward frightening game-day meltdowns are the stuff of one-act fable, while the savagely protracted fist fight with Bob Barker is inarguably 1 of the greatest things that Sandler and his team of collaborators have ever filmed.

2. Billy Madison

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Image via Universal Pictures

Here it is, folks, the commencement approved Sandler piece of work: a trailblazing progenitor that's and then fearlessly young and over-the-top ridiculous that it ends up transforming a fairly stock comedic scenario into something deranged and very nearly avant-garde. Billy Madison 'south entirely nonsensical setup at in one case allows the Sandman to indulge in his nostalgia for vaguely aspirational 80s comedies like Dorsum to Schoolhouse (starring his hero and comic forefather, Rodney Dangerfield), and withal Billy, in spite of its air of juvenile, surreal, olfactory organ-thumbing offensiveness, allows for a sneaky critique of upper-crust white privilege that belies Sandler and Tim Herlihy's screenplay'due south proudly doofy frat-male child façade. There are jokes most flaming bags of dog poop, hallucinated penguins, Norm Macdonald, Chris Farley as an out-of-command passenger vehicle commuter, and a cameo from a murderously unbalanced Steve Buscemi. Are you sold notwithstanding?

i. The Wedding Singer

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Epitome via New Line Movie theatre

This 1 remains one of the virtually radiant love stories of the 90s, despite being very much set in a delirious, hilariously heightened version of the 1980s. To this day, this contemporary classic nearly an underappreciated cocktail waitress and a moody wedding singer, who fall in beloved in small-boondocks suburban America, bonding over featherbrained sing-a-longs, eye-to-hearts, and gawky eye-school intimations, remains one of the most purely likable movies of its decade. This is the 1 that even Sandler haters seem to make excuses for, that'south how downright Old-Hollywood wonderful it is. Frank Coraci's official directorial debut, which is as convincing as The Philadelphia Story , if not quite every bit elegant (psh, elegance), also proved that Sandler possessed the chops to be a bonafide romantic lead without sacrificing the lowbrow frivolity (horny rapping grandmas, volatile outbursts, Steve Buscemi being a drunken lout) that ultimately made him a star.