Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon have costarred in multiple films based on "SNL" sketches.
Todd Williamson/Getty Images for Alchemy
"Saturday Night Live" has been on the air for 50 years and produced thousands of sketches.
Some sketches become so popular that they make the jump from TV to the big screen.
"Wayne's World," "MacGruber," and "The Blues Brothers" all originated on "SNL."
The three-hour 50th anniversary special of "SNL" will air on Sunday, February 16. The guest lineup includes celebrities who have hosted or been the musical guest throughout the decades, including Robert De Niro, Adam Driver, Kim Kardashian, Sabrina Carpenter, Ayo Edebiri, John Mulaney, and Paul McCartney.
In addition to providing a platform for A-listers to test out their comedic chops, "SNL" has been the launching pad for many sketch comedians who have gone on to become huge movie stars — in some cases, that includes taking a popular sketch character from Studio 8H to the big screen.
There have been 11 movies based on "SNL" sketches, spanning 30 years of the show's tenure. Here's how each one stacks up, according to critics.
"It's Pat" is based on a series of sketches starring Julia Sweeney as Pat, one of the most annoying people on the planet, but the whole joke is that nobody can figure out what gender Pat is.
In the film, Pat falls in love with Chris, another androgynous person (played by Dave Foley). The two deal with a stalker, Kyle (fellow "SNL" star Charles Rocket), who becomes obsessed with figuring out their genders. That's the whole film.
"Ever hear the one about the pic that was too bad to be released, so it escaped? Well, that old joke now has a new punchline: 'It's Pat,' a shockingly unfunny 'Saturday Night Live' spinoff," wrote Joe Leydon for Variety.
10 (tie). "A Night at the Roxbury" (1998)"A Night at the Roxbury."
"A Night at the Roxbury" is based on "The Roxbury Guys" sketches, which starred Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell as two oblivious club rats with a talent for jerking their necks to the beat of "What Is Love" by Haddaway.
The film stretches out this premise across 82 minutes. Kattan and Ferrell star as the Butabi brothers, two aspiring womanizers who dream of getting into the famed Roxbury nightclub one day.
"Let's look at the bright side. America is still the land of opportunity if Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan can make a movie," wrote Mick LaSalle for the San Francisco Chronicle.
10 (tie). "The Ladies Man" (2000)"The Ladies Man."
Tim Meadows appeared in multiple sketches as Leon Phelps, a sex therapist and radio host. In "The Ladies Man," Leon is fired from his job — but hope is not lost since a former flame has offered to support him financially. He just has to figure out who she is.
"When Meadows's three-minute sketch persona is stretched out to cover a whole movie, the cracks soon start to show," wrote The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw.
8. "Stuart Saves His Family" (1995)"Stuart Saves His Family."
Al Franken created the character of Stuart Smalley during his tenure on the show in the '90s. He's a spoof of self-help gurus, and in his various appearances, he led meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, and other support groups.
In the film, Stuart is dedicated to saving his troubled family while dealing with losing his public access TV show.
Peter Rainer wrote for the Los Angeles Times, "It was much funnier when we didn't see Stuart's family. And, if we have to see them, it would have been much funnier if they were strait-laced '50s sitcom types."
One of Molly Shannon's most famous "SNL" characters is Mary Katherine Gallagher, a Catholic school student with a talent for pratfalls, accidentally exposing her underwear, sniffing her armpits, and saying her catchphrase: "Superstar!"
In the film, Mary Katherine is determined to become a star and win the affection of her crush, Sky (Will Ferrell), against all odds.
"Contrasting the erotic with the disgusting is usually provocative and can be funny, but not in this underdog comedy," wrote Lisa Alspector for Chicago Reader.
The Conehead family — a family of aliens with cone-shaped heads — first appeared on "SNL" in 1977, in the show's second season.
Sixteen years later, original actors Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin united with '90s "SNL" stars Chris Farley, Michael McKean, David Spade, Adam Sandler, and Phil Hartman; stars from other "SNL" eras like Jon Lovitz and Jan Hooks; and more to bring the Coneheads to the big screen.
"'Coneheads' falls flat about as often as it turns funny, and displays more amiability than style," wrote The New York Times' Janet Maslin.
After the death of original Blues Brother John Belushi in 1982, it seemed unlikely that viewers would ever see the suit-wearing, sunglasses-rocking, blues-loving brothers again.
Instead, in 1998, the Blues Brothers returned, replacing Belushi with John Goodman as Mack McTeer, another vocalist.
"The sequel offers more of the same, only less," wrote Joe Leydon for Variety.
"MacGruber" is a pretty direct spoof of the '80s TV show "MacGyver," in which Richard Dean Anderson played Angus MacGyver, a secret agent who can build anything with even the sparsest of tools.
On the flip side, Will Forte plays MacGruber, a secret agent who always attempts to disarm a bomb but gets distracted and lets the bomb go off every time. The film is much of the same, but it didn't get great reviews at the time of its release.
However, Forte brought the character back in 2021 for a Peacock miniseries of the same name — and while critics may not have gotten MacGruber's appeal in 2010, the 2021 series has an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, which would make it the best-reviewed project on this list.
"Any fans of satire who haven't checked out 'MacGruber' yet, prepare to be converted into believers like the man himself when he finally uses a gun for the first time," wrote Joe Berkowitz for Vulture.
This sequel to "Wayne's World" was seen by some as a disappointment, but it's never a bad time to hang out with best friends Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) as they try to create their own music festival, aptly titled "Waynestock."
"The sequel to last year's breakaway hit offers more of the same, but it's somehow fresher, funnier, and more endearing than the airheaded original," wrote The Washington Post's Joe Brown.
2. "The Blues Brothers" (1980)"The Blues Brothers."
"The Blues Brothers" wasn't your typical "SNL" sketch — in fact, it wasn't really a sketch at all. It was just an excuse for friends and blues lovers Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi to get onstage and play the blues together. They didn't even have character names or backgrounds until the first Blues Brothers album was released in 1978.
The film expands upon the backstory created for the 1978 album and stars Aykroyd and Belushi as Elwood Blues and Jake Blues, respectively. The two are "blood brothers" united by their love of blues and the orphanage where they grew up.
Victoria Luxford of the BBC called the film "one of the great American comedy films" and said, "It's just a joy to watch even 43 years on. John Belushi was never better as the lead. He's funny just standing there."
According to critics, the best movie based on an "SNL" sketch is "Wayne's World. " The film is based on the sketches of the same name, starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey as Wayne and Garth, two rock 'n' roll lovers who host a public access TV show from their basement in Aurora, Illinois.
In the film, Wayne and Garth's show catches the eye of a ruthless producer, Benjamin (Rob Lowe), who forces the two to sell out and go corporate. Of course, this doesn't go well.
"Amazingly, the patched-together and padded screen version manages to amuse, if only through the sheer brazenness of its stupidity," wrote Jim Farber for the New York Daily News.
