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Happy holidays! It’s the time of year where families take a break from their workaday lives, convene at the old family homestead, and proceed to get snowed in together with an almost pathological inability to agree on anything to watch together. In these times of familial … let’s say “bonding,” it helps to remember that at the end of the day, we all really want to laugh. Which is why Netflix’s abundant selection of stand-up specials so often fits the bill.
But what to select when the options are this plentiful. For the purposes of this list, we sought out the wisdom of Rotten Tomatoes. All eleven of these stand-up specials have been certified fresher than fresh: the red-vegetable guarantee of a satisfying viewing experience. So happy holidays, turn on something funny, and enjoy.
'Ellen Degeneres: Relatable': 100%
Ellen’s triumphant return to stand-up for her Netflix special is initially preoccupied by the question of whether the mega-successful talk show host and friend to every celebrity you’ve ever heard of can still be relatable to her audience. Turns out she can, especially if she’s dropping the stray f-bomb.
'Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife': 100%
In his roundup of the best stand-up specials of 2018, our Sean L. McCarthy singled out Ali Wong’s follow-up to her breakthrough Baby Cobra as “everything you enjoyed about seeing a pregnant Wong joke about the first time, now with more.”
'John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons': 100%
Celebrated one-man-show comedian John Leguizamo is on a mission to “undo your whole education” about the history of Latin America and the people who lived it. This involves the above-mentioned dismantling of “the entire way you think, and it’s not gonna be easy because that shit’s in there deep.”
'Hannah Gadsby: Nanette': 100%
The most celebrated stand-up special of 2018 by a WIDE margin is Gadsby’s dismantling of the notion of stand-up comedy as a means to deal with the kinds of social violence and injustice that has left many people battered and forgotten for decades, if not centuries. From Picasso to Donald Trump and back again, few go untouched and even fewer went unaffected.
'John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City': 100%
John Mulaney has enough stand-up content on Netflix to keep you laughing for the better part of a day, but with his latest, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City, the comedian who is not known for his topical comedy managed to skewer the Trump era without even invoking the president’s name. Our Meghan O’Keefe called his “horse loose in a hospital” bit the “best political joke of the Trump era,” and it’s hard to argue it’s not.
'Chris Rock: Tamborine': 100%
While not as era-defining as Rock’s signature HBO specials like Bring the Pain and Bigger and Blacker, the comedy on Tamborine was still able to command attention. Our Sean L. McCarthy said of his performance in an uncharacteristically intimate setting that Rock “doesn’t have to maintain a frenetic pace back and forth across the stage to hold anyone’s attention. His stature, his body of work, and his absence from the stage have us hooked already.”
'Tig Notaro: Happy to Be Here': 100%
Without having to work her way through life-threatening illness and crushing tragedy, it turns out that Tig Notaro still has the goods to slay a Netflix special, to the tune of a perfect hundo on RT.
'Maria Bamford: Old Baby': 100%
On the heels of her triumphant comedy series Lady Dynamite, Bamford kept riding that Netflix train for all it was worth, and ‘Old Baby’ showed that it was worth a whole lot.
'The Honeymoon Stand-Up Special': 100%
Married comedians Natasha Leggero and Moshe Kasher kill some time waiting for Leggero’s very prominent pregnancy to hit full term with this three-part stand-up special featuring some note-perfect relationship jokes and some of the best crowd-work you’ll see.
'Patton Oswalt: Annihilation': 100%
While the notion of a stand-up comedian mining his own personal tragedy — something that most people would find virtually impossible to do — for the poignant comedy therein isn’t exactly unheard of, Oswalt reminds us all why he’s still one of the best and more affecting comedic minds (and hearts) in the business.
'Adam Sandler 100% Fresh': 88%
Here’s some irony for you — and you thought Adam Sandler’s brand of comedy was too dumb for irony: the comedian’s stand-up special titled “100 Percent Fresh” in order to lure in the exact type of reader who clicks on lists of Rotten Tomatoes-approved stand-up specials, only topped out at 88% on RT. What’s doubly ironic is that it’s the most widely lauded piece of Sandler comedic output in years.
