20 2000s Movies That Could Never Be Made Today

The Hangover: a contemporary of Superbad’s that had a similar level of impact on the comedy and culture, but aimed at a (slightly) older audience.

Todd Phillips’ film tells the story of Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis), and Doug (Justin Bartha), who head to Vegas for the ultimate stag do. But what begins with drinks on the roof of Caesars Palace, ends all too quickly with the hangover of the century. Unable to remember a thing, the gang have to retrace their steps from the night before and find Doug so they can get him back in time for the wedding.

Needless to say, a movie with a breastfeeding stripper, a caricatured Chinese gangster, and a drug dealer called Black Doug has shaky gender, racial, and sexual politics. Add in a primo spot for convicted r*pist Mike Tyson and, of course, "paging Dr. F**got" – a line so out of place in 2020s zeitgeist that it was recently satirised for this very fact in Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie – and you’ve got a 2026 executive’s nightmare.

Indeed, it’s surprising that Phillips – the man who cast himself as a bus-based feet-licking stranger in Road Trip, and a man going down on a woman in an elevator in The Hangover – is still making movies. But the last picture of this nature he got greenlit was The Hangover Part III back in 2013, so that should say everything you need to know.