Comedy Specials
Guides, rankings and deep dives on the stand-up specials that changed the form.
Jacqueline Novak: Get On Your Knees
Ninety-odd minutes on one subject, written like an essay and performed like a seduction. The story of Get On Your Knees, and of the writer-comedian behind it.
John Early: Search Party to Maddie's Secret
Elliott Goss, a rock-doc stand-up special, a fake reunion special with Kate Berlant and a camp melodrama he wrote, directed and starred in. A guide to the most theatrical comedian of his generation.
50 Greatest Alt Comedy Specials
From Richard Pryor in Long Beach to Jacqueline Novak off-Broadway: the stand-up hours and albums that changed what a comedy special could be.
Bo Burnham: Career Profile
A teenager's bedroom webcam, four specials, an acclaimed debut film and a lockdown masterpiece made alone in one room. The whole Bo Burnham story, in order.
Demetri Martin: Where to Start
A law-school dropout with a guitar, a harmonica and a big pad of paper. How Demetri Martin turned the one-liner into a multimedia act, and which special to watch first.
Hannah Gadsby: Career Profile
From a small town in north-west Tasmania to an Emmy, a Peabody and a public argument with the whole idea of stand-up. Every stage of Hannah Gadsby's career, in order.
Maria Bamford: Career Profile
Your favourite comedian's favourite comedian, finally getting the documentary. Three decades of Maria Bamford, from Minneapolis open mics to Netflix, a bestselling memoir and Sundance.
Best Comedy Specials of 2025-2026
Fifteen specials worth your evening, from HBO's run of weird, personal hours to the Dropout and YouTube releases the algorithm won't show you. Every release date and platform checked.
2025 Comedy Trends, Revisited
A year when late night wobbled, specials went free and comedians argued about Saudi money. We look back at what really shaped comedy in 2025, and check how each trend played out.
Alt Comedy in the 2010s
Streaming bought everything, podcasts took over the commute and the strangest comedians in America got TV shows. It was alt comedy's richest decade, and its most uncomfortable.
Alt Comedy Reviews
The criteria we use to judge a sketch show, a sitcom or a stand-up hour, and short verdicts on the shows and specials we've covered in depth.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Profile & Specials
A comedian who turns a hard family story into joyful, deeply strange stand-up, and who got the internet dropping to the floor with her grandmother.
Aziz Ansari: Career & Specials
A business-school kid who came up in New York's improv scene, became Tom Haverford, reinvented the streaming sitcom, and remade his stand-up after 2018. The full arc.
Bo Burnham's Style Explained
A comedian who keeps catching himself performing, and makes that the act. How Burnham builds a song, a show and a joke about the joke, and which special to press play on first.
Catherine Cohen: Cabaret Comedy
Sequins, belted ballads and devastating asides about wanting to be loved. A guide to Catherine Cohen, from Joe's Pub to an Off-Broadway musical about her own stroke.
David Cross: The Profile
Half of Mr. Show, the man inside Tobias Fünke's cutoffs, and a stand-up who has been furious about the same things, brilliantly, for thirty years.
Essential Alt Comedy Albums
Before specials, there were records. A ranked guide to the comedy albums that shaped the alternative tradition, from 1950s nightclub LPs to the indie-label era.
Hannah Gadsby's Style Explained
A joke is a question with a trapdoor. Gadsby's trick is to show you the trapdoor, then decide not to use it. How their sets are built, what they keep coming back to, and which special to watch first.
Hannibal Buress: The Profile
A few minutes of a 2014 Philadelphia set reignited the allegations against Bill Cosby. But Buress was a brilliant, unhurried stand-up long before that night, and the bit makes more sense once you know his style.
How to Self-Release a Special
Netflix isn't calling, and that might be fine. How comedians shoot their own hour, pick a platform and get it in front of people who'll actually watch.
James Acaster: Style & Where to Start
A former drummer from Kettering who builds stand-up like a puzzle box, then smashed the box open with the most personal show of his career. A guide to his specials, podcasts and books.
Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel & After
Four HBO specials, a network sitcom, a Sundance film and a reality series that made people wince. How Carmichael turned his own life into the material, and what happened after Rothaniel.
John Mulaney
He came up in New York's alternative rooms and became the most polished storyteller of his generation. A guide to his style, his specials and the odd, ambitious projects in between.
Kate Berlant: Profile & Where to Start
Performance-studies graduate, Taskmaster champion, Bo Burnham collaborator and one third of a famously close comedy friendship. A guide to Kate Berlant's work.
Marc Maron: The Profile
A frustrated 1990s club comic, a cancelled radio host, then the inventor of the comedy interview podcast as we know it. WTF ended in 2025. Here's the whole story, and why the stand-up kept getting better.
Nanette, Explained
Sixty-nine minutes at the Sydney Opera House that start as a stand-up show and end as an indictment of one. A close look at how Nanette is built, why it landed, and the arguments it still starts.
Patton Oswalt
The nerd who took alt stand-up into rock clubs, then made some of the most honest specials about grief ever filmed. A guide to how he works and where to start.
Sarah Silverman: The Profile
She built a persona that said appalling things with a sweet smile, then spent the next twenty years taking it apart in public. A guide to one of the most recognisable voices in American comedy.
Stewart Lee: Style & Where to Start
He tells you which bits aren't working, which parts of the room don't get it, and then does the joke again. Why Stewart Lee's deconstructed stand-up is the central British alt comedy act of the century.
Tig Notaro: The Profile
Days after a cancer diagnosis, a deadpan comic walked onto the Largo stage and told the truth. The recording became a landmark. What came before it, and the inventive career that followed.