10 Film Parodies Better Than The Original

1. This Is Spinal Tap

Original Movie: Gimmie Shelter

What makes Spinal Tap such a good parody movie is if you showed it to someone who didn’t know the film was a spoof, they’d believe the band was real. Rob Reiner recruited fellow comedic genius Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher guest to satirize the genre of documentaries about rock stars. They decided the best way to do this would be to shoot hundreds of hours of footage, like a documentary and have the actors improvise, which creates a noticeable sense of authenticity in the film.

This approach also practically created a new genre, the mockumentary. So not only is Spinal Tap a hilarious parody that could pass for a genuine entry into the genre its parodying, its also a ground-breaking film that led to other great mockumentaries such as The Office, Arrested Development and What we do in the Shadows, to name a few.

You don’t have to be familiar with rock bands to get the jokes because you’ll likely have an idea of what a rock star is in your head, and Spinal Tap will meet the expectations in your head and then some. That’s why it's the best parody film of all time.