WISE Score
Avg. Tomatometer
The ultimate country club chaos movie that's basically a series of legendary SNL sketches masquerading as a golf film.
73%
73%View →Caddyshack is a comedy legend, but it’s definitely not the 'family movie night' pick you might remember if you only saw the edited-for-TV version. It’s messy, episodic, and frequently offensive by modern standards.
If your kid is a budding comedy nerd or a golf fanatic, they’ll eventually need to see this to understand the history of the genre. Just be prepared for the fact that it’s a hard R-rated time capsule that prioritizes a gag over a plot every single time.
This is strictly for the 16+ crowd. Between the nudity, the '80s-intensity' of the partying, and the R-rated language, it’s a movie for older teens who can handle the context of the era.
It's a 'snobs vs. slobs' classic, but 'wholesome' isn't the word. It celebrates rule-breaking, heavy drinking, and general country club debauchery.
The surreal battle between a deranged groundskeeper and a sentient animatronic gopher adds a layer of weirdness that elevates it above standard sports comedies.
Rated R for a reason. Expect full-frontal nudity in the pool scene, casual drug use (cocaine and weed), and a constant stream of 1980s-era profanity.
It’s a masterclass in improv-heavy comedy and a sharp satire of classism, though some of the 'edgy' 80s jokes haven't aged well.
Directed by Harold Ramis, Caddyshack essentially defined the '80s comedy formula: take a stuffy institution (a country club), populate it with eccentric weirdos, and let the chaos reign. It’s less a cohesive story about Danny Noonan’s scholarship and more a vehicle for three very different comedic styles to collide. You have the dry, detached wit of Chevy Chase, the manic energy of Rodney Dangerfield, and the pure, unhinged physical comedy of Bill Murray.
For a teenager raised on the fast-paced, high-concept humor of the 2020s, Caddyshack might feel... slow. It’s a 'hangout' movie. Long scenes of people just talking or doing bits that don't necessarily move the plot forward. Then there's the '80s of it all. The film is a product of a time when 'R-rated comedy' meant throwing everything at the wall, including nudity and jokes that would never fly in a writers' room today.
"So I got that goin' for me, which is nice."
If you're going to show this to your teen, it's worth a quick 'this was made in a different world' talk. It’s a great example of how comedy used to be built around the performer rather than the script. Most of Murray’s best lines were improvised on the spot, which is a fun bit of film history to share.
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