2. Click (2006)
Click is one of those films with a premise that can easily make a ripe comedy, but Sandler's 2006 film is probably best remembered not for its fairly standard routine of laughs, but its surprising emotional elements. Sandler plays Michael Newman, a dedicated family man who, when out shopping, stumbles across a magical remote control that can allow him to skip forward time as he sees fit. Naturally, this begins well for him and there are several amusing sequences, but when the remote begins self-programming his life, skipping past any sections it deems unsavoury, things start to go wrong. Here is where the comedy mostly stops, and Click becomes an obvious but well-intended tale about Ferris Bueller's old adage of taking time to sniff the roses. A climactic moment as Michael, now a broken man, tearfully telling his son to make time for his family, is one of the few genuinely moving moments in a Sandler film, and a commonly acclaimed scene in his body of work from even his detractors. Despite making a whopping $237m at the box office, the film received only 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, which, given Sandler's effort and the expectation-defying dramatic quality of the work, feels somewhat unfair.