Hot Fuzz

Hot Fuzz is the most meticulously constructed comedy of the 21st century. Edgar Wright took the buddy cop genre — Point Break, Bad Boys, Lethal Weapon — and rebuilt it in the English countryside, where the action hero is a hypercompetent London cop exiled to a village so peaceful that the greatest crime is a living statue. Then the murders start, and the film becomes both a loving homage to and a devastating parody of every action movie ever made.

Simon Pegg's Nicholas Angel is the opposite of Shaun — where Shaun was passive and oblivious, Angel is driven and observant. He sees crime everywhere because crime IS everywhere, hidden beneath the village's quaint exterior. Nick Frost's Danny Butterman is the audience surrogate, a cop raised on action movies who just wants to fire two guns whilst jumping through the air. Their partnership is the heart of the film.

The third act — where the entire village erupts into a full-scale action movie — is one of the greatest payoffs in comedy history. Every joke, every background detail, every throwaway line from the first two acts becomes a Chekhov's gun that fires in the finale. Wright's editing is razor-precise. The film rewards rewatching more than almost any comedy made this century. Hot Fuzz is the rare sequel (spiritually) that surpasses its predecessor.