The 20 Best Comedy Specials of 2023
Screenshot via YouTube / Photo courtesy of Netflix Comedy Lists best of 2023
We’ve survived another year! Frankly, I’m impressed with us all, and one of the only ways we’ve been able to make our way through the troubled present is by watching comedy. The best comedy specials of 2023 include hours that distract us from the bleakness of the world, those that help us rediscover humanity’s beauty, and the ones that dig into our species’ worst instincts.
Before we delve into our 20 favorites, let’s light a candle for those brave stand-ups that put out their specials in December. I don’t know who in the media decided this month is a no man’s land that simply doesn’t count in year end round-ups, and I apologize for contributing to this vicious cycle. Shout-outs to the December 2022 specials by Atsuko Okatsuka and Niles Abston, which technically didn’t qualify for this year but are well worth a watch.
Now let’s get into it, folks. Here are the 20 best comedy specials of 2023 (well, according to us):
20. Marc Maron: From Bleak to Dark
Marc Maron’s new comedy special, From Bleak to Dark, is about as him as a show can get; that is, a mix of the brutally honest and the utterly devastating. He jokes about Christian fascism, how to rebrand abortion clinics, and his own personal life. Some of Maron’s most refreshing material comes from his criticism of conservative or so-called anti-woke comedians, who are just annoyed that they now have to deal with the consequences of their actions.
“I think that the first third of the special when I dealt with cultural issues, that that would provide some people with a reaffirmation of their own point of view, which sometimes can get kind of solitary, especially if you’re dealing with this sort of bullying, dominant, libertarian, or right wing perspective of things. It’s very intrusive,” Maron explains to me over Zoom while smoking a cigar on his porch. He’s just as cool as you’d imagine.
He then adds, “Somehow or another, I find that I give voice to people and make them feel a little less alone around certain things.”
One of the ways Maron makes people feel less alone in From Bleak to Dark is by talking frankly about the death of filmmaker Lynn Shelton, who was his longtime partner. She died of leukemia in May 2020 at only 54. He spends much of the hour talking about missing Shelton, as well as joking about the myriad strange ways losing someone affects you.
“I thought that the open discussion and the humor that I found within that process, and within loss and grief, would provide some relief for people who have also dealt with that, which is going to be almost everybody at some point in time,” Maron says of including Shelton in the special. —Clare Martin [Full Interview]
19. Sam Jay: Salute Me or Shoot Me
Being in another person’s shoes is hard, but it breeds an understanding which can only come from immersing oneself in other people’s environments and seeing things from their point of view. For instance, when Sam Jay confesses to her all-male friend group that her bitchy attitude is due to her having her period and that everything they were saying was annoying her, her group chat called for the end of all periods. By providing her friends with insight into her experience as a woman, they rose to the occasion and rallied behind her.
Nearing the end of the show, Sam Jay regales us with one last story of grace, one she encountered while waiting for the stall in a men’s public restroom to become available. The man sitting on the only toilet, upon noticing Jay waiting, sucks up his pee and transfers to the urinal for the duration of his stream, in order to leave the stall open for Jay. Through this act of kindness, she comes to appreciate the values, like chivalry, still active and present in our society. They’re not dead, she concludes in her hour-long special now streaming on Max, if you’re willing to meet people where they are at. “It’s just perspective,” she puts forth earlier in the show about being on both sides of gender, uncomplicating the matter, although this point affords keen insight into the rest of the topics covered, like race and respect. “No one’s wrong. We just don’t have empathy for one another.”—Felicia Reich [Full Review]
18. Sasheer Zamata: The First Woman
Zamata’s latest hour, The First Woman, builds on her incisive, informative, and oh-so-hilarious perspective showcased in Pizza Mind. Released via 800 Pound Gorilla and taped in D.C., the special opens with the now-obligatory covid jokes. However, in Zamata’s case, these bits work because of their specificity to her experience, like possibly passing “the vid” to the kids she babysat and her masseuse. There’s a universality in such detail; I remember those awkward texts to friends or mere acquaintances that made me feel like Typhoid Mary, and Zamata brought me right back to those painfully uncomfortable exchanges. Zamata also sells these moments so well, particularly when recalling the message she left for her masseuse.
As the title suggests, The First Woman is largely about the struggles of being female. Zamata approaches the topic in a way that can sometimes feel a tad Feminism 101, but for the most part is genuinely cathartic and enlightening—especially her bits about vagina familiarity, racial bias, and female aviation pioneers.—Clare Martin [Full Review]
17. Django Gold: Bag of Tricks
Django Gold spent years writing for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert before focusing on stand-up, and it’s easy to tell he’s a writer while watching his self-released special Bag of Tricks. His smart jokes are built on great ideas that often end with unexpected punchlines, and you can see the thought and care he put into crafting many of them. He also has an ingratiating Norm MacDonald-ish delivery that helps sell the occasional joke that doesn’t land. He might overplay his cynicism a little bit at the start of the special, but he eventually apologizes for it, which makes up for how performative it feels early on. It’s almost like he’s mocking those oh-so-cynical comics who think anger and negativity are more important than actual jokes, but so dryly that it’s not all that easy to pick up on. Gold is a clever, purposeful comedian, and Bag of Tricks is a sharp debut that promises a bright future.—Garrett Martin
16. Heather McMahan: Son I Never Had
In the opening sequence of Heather McMahan’s new special, Son I Never Had, her father does her the honor of escorting her down the staircase for her entrance to her big night. Rather than, according to custom, extending his arm to her for this touching moment, McMahan takes a different approach, descending the stairs with her father’s ashes in tow, encased in an urn, the first of many morbidly hilarious, cheeky, and loud-out-loud-funny moments found in her hour-long performance.
After the sudden and rapid passing of her father due to a late-stage diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, Heather McMahan takes on the role of family patriarch with aplomb. In Son I Never Had, McMahan brings the audience through a series of stories about her late father, their family, her openly grieving on a public stage (read: IG Live), as well as her fertility efforts to start a family of her own.—Felicia Reich [Full Review]
15. Josh Johnson: Up Here Killing Myself
New York-based comedian Josh Johnson describes growing up poor with candor and, of course, humor during the first part Up Here Killing Myself. Whether recounting the seamless bag his family’s cereal came from or the questionable quality of their local pharmacy, he paints an effective picture. His stories involve people in rough circumstances trying their best—himself included—and he shows an inherent empathy to these individuals. To Johnson, the reason is simple: things that are traumatic can be very, very funny, and so laughter is just part of the healing process.
Up Here Killing Myself establishes Johnson as a naturally gifted storyteller. His turn of phrase is conversational yet inventive, elevating stories that were already funny to begin with. Johnson’s physical comedy is the cherry on top, as he dances or leans slyly to sell a moment. And that’s not to mention his voices—his affectation as his mother is subtle but distinct—and hilarious facial expressions. Even though occasionally you can tell where a joke of his is going, Johnson is so fun and genial that you’re just happy to be along for the ride.—Clare Martin [Full Review]
14. Brad Wenzel: joke. joke. joke.
joke. joke. joke. is just that—a succession of hilarious bits without any segues, Wenzel’s good-natured laughter acting as the glue that holds it all together. Watching Wenzel feels like hanging out with your funniest, weirdest friend; it’s relaxing and utterly enjoyable. The special’s 40 minute length is just right for Wenzel’s type of comedy, not overstaying its welcome or leaving us feeling shortchanged.
Wenzel employs his signature meta-commentary during the taping at The Comedy Fort, much like he did in Sweet Nothings. He breaks the fourth wall, pointing out his unstructured structure and telling us right off the bat, “I’m just gonna say a bunch of funny stuff. That’s how I like to do it.” Wenzel sure as hell lives up to that promise. It’s a half-awkward, mostly charming mechanism that puts the audience at ease. These moments, sharing with us which jokes he knows are a stretch and which ones he thinks the audience “is doing too well for,” make us feel like we’re in on the mischief.—Clare Martin [Full Review]
13. John Mulaney: Baby J
The beginning of Baby J, John Mulaney’s new special, is a bit disorienting. We dive right into it with Mulaney’s voice talking over a black screen, then the camera pans down to show him already in the groove of his set. Very rarely do comedy specials start without some sort of introduction—a sweeping shot of the city, a little scene of them backstage, or at the very least, footage of the comedian walking to the microphone. Yet here is Mulaney, already performing in a bright mulberry suit, far bolder than any of his previous navy or gray looks, signaling that yes, this is the same comedian, but a lot has changed.
To his credit, Mulaney acknowledges the odd introduction (including an extended riff about attention that leans a bit dark towards the end), noting that it would be even more odd to start super upbeat before diving into the crux of why we’re all here. Mulaney, the catalyst of a thousand discussions about parasocial relationships, overcame a drug addiction, went to rehab, got divorced, and had a child with Olivia Munn, all within the span of five years. He knows his reputation is different now, and he is ready to talk about it.
Before you ask—he doesn’t touch on the divorce, nor does he mention his new relationship or his decision to have children. What he does discuss, at length even, is his struggle with addiction and his time in rehab. Viewers of his Seth Meyers interview have already heard the story of his star-studded intervention, but in this special he chronicles the night and following days with more details, and more frank confessions about his drug-fueled self. “As you process and digest how obnoxious, wasteful, and unlikable that story is,” he notes after a particularly egregious anecdote, “Just remember, that’s one I’m willing to tell you.”—Michelle Cohn [Full review]
12. Kyle Kinane: Shocks and Struts
Kyle Kinane is quick to tell the Salt Lake City crowd just how happy he is to be back in front of people after bleak Zoom stand-up sets, and that sense of genuine gratitude is palpable. Much of the set’s first half is tied to covid, though Kinane keeps the oft-discussed subject from being exhausting with his own bracing honesty and because frankly, that dude can make anything funny.
It’s been said before, but it’s worth repeating that Kinane’s best asset as a comedian is his evocative, poetic use of the English language. He truly paints pictures with his words; an extended bit about just how grody pillows can be almost becomes an ode of sorts. His exquisitely crafted descriptions—one about a truck driver named Garrett particularly stands out—feel so apt as to be nearly familiar, save for the fact that they’re so off-the-wall creative in that signature Kinane way.—Clare Martin [Full Review]
11. Nate Bargatze: Hello World
Because he’s Southern, self-effacing, and a “clean” comic you might be tempted to call Nate Bargatze an “aw shucks” kind of guy, but he’s definitely no modern Hee Haw huckster for whatever we’re calling The New South these days. Hello World reminds us of the tension between his decent Everyman persona and the mockery and disdain he has for the fools of the world—a tension he tries to diffuse with his extremely dry, understated delivery and by making himself into the biggest fool of all, but a tension that nevertheless persists. He hammers down on his own dumbness—“I say a lot of dumb stuff. I try to keep it in front of large groups; it seems to go better that way,” he says early in the special—while lightly ragging on his parents for his strict ‘80s upbringing, and it doesn’t just endear Bargatze to the audience but also softens the strain of light cynicism that sometimes bubbles through his work. And although Bargatze has proven himself to be a great storyteller in the past—go listen to his Cape Fear Serpentarium material if you haven’t yet—his best stuff in Hello World are his stray observations, like how everybody driving a boat on a lake is either 11 or drunk, and how oldest kids are raised so strictly while younger children are basically raised by their best friends. He makes his observational humor feel personal and original, which is pretty hard to do in 2023.—Garrett Martin
10. Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man and The Pool
As a master of his craft, Mike Birbiglia shares with the audience a story of his local YMCA pool, an old man from the locker room who left a lasting impression on him as a boy, and his current state of health and fear of death. As a comic, Birbiglia weaves a narrative thread like no other, calling back to jokes from thirty-seconds prior or from the top of the show, to create a sense of continuity, keep the audience engaged, and strengthen the momentum he builds to his ultimate conclusion. In the case of Birbiglia’s latest special, The Old Man and The Pool, the great comedian focuses his attention on his earthly “ultimate conclusion,” which became more real as his comorbidities piled onto each other, his doctors sorta kept making this face to him: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, and he watched his young daughter, Oona, grow older, as he describes. He captures a common wrestling with mortality, told with easy humor, physical comedy, intimate relatability, and an elegant storytelling framework, securing his position, once again, as one of the finest examples of stand-up performers this generation has ever seen.—Felicia Reich
9. Dina Hashem: Dark Little Whispers
Taped at the Lincoln Lodge in Chicago in late 2022, Dark Little Whispers opens to Dina Hashem on stage as metal music blares (a song featuring Hashem on drums and vocals). The juxtaposition is clear: Hashem may possess an understated presence on stage, but that just accentuates her electric sense of humor, which will drive you to whatever the comedy form of a mosh pit is. In fact, some of her funniest jokes are about the unnecessary vitriol directed towards soft-spoken people, including her impression of an ardent extrovert.
Hashem’s special explores both her history—growing up with very little privacy, balancing being a stoner and a good Muslim—and the larger questions plaguing our society, like whether God exists, or the differences between conservatives and liberals. These latter ones are daunting, and subjects that are far from new, but Hashem’s exceptional wit and droll delivery make them feel fresh. And as for the more personal part of the show, Hashem wrings big laughs out of having an abortion (or as she so pithily calls it, an “aborsh”), navigating awkward sexual experiences, and being asked to carry her brother’s baby. Her self-deprecation and expert analysis of life’s ironies are especially key in these moments.—Clare Martin [Full Review]
8. Mae Martin: SAP
It would be a gross disservice to relegate Martin to a “type” of comedy when their work is so intimate. But addiction and queerness are paramount to their storytelling, onstage, onscreen, and in print, as they also penned the 2019 novel Can Everyone Please Calm Down: A Guide to 21st Century Sexuality. As such, the comedian-writer-actor has accrued a decidedly queer following, the likes of which eagerly packed into Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall for their new show SAP.
With SAP, Martin launches into new material—the plight of being conceived doggy-style, snowglobe insignia, fabled moose encounters, and the non-binary potential of Beauty and the Beast’s Lumière are all highlights—as well as past anecdotes about daytime rehab and being a long-limbed pubescent. The show is thematically lighter than Martin’s past work, with the title’s double meaning of sticky, romantic sappiness and literal tree sap being plucked from a Buddhist parable about finding the good in impossibly bad circumstances.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call Martin’s comedy hopeful; their humor seems to percolate best with anxieteens, but still see-saws between conceptualizing the future as a throbbing question mark and a kinder, remediable place. Even post-COVID, their approach doesn’t clamor onto isolation politics or doomism (“Well, well, look who’s inside again,” et cetera). Rather, it signals a turn toward something warmer, unmarred by present divisiveness though still clearly politically conscious.—Saffron Maeve [Full review]
7. Emma Arnold: Myself
Emma Arnold released her fifth comedy album, Myself, via Blonde Medicine and the special on YouTube. Arnold has been through some shit in her life, but by her own admission is in a better place than ever as she performs her latest hour at The Infinity Room in Salem, Oregon. She takes to the stage with the ease and joy of someone who loves what they do. Myself is thoroughly hilarious and disproves the tired thinking that artists must suffer to make something great—a notion that Arnold plays with as she jokes that she should quit comedy now that she’s so happy.
That happiness shines through and becomes infectious as the special continues. Arnold finds pleasure in what some people might call the little things, but which are not so little after all and certainly not to be taken for granted (namely thinking of her mentioning dental insurance). She also manages to mine the humor in deep pandemic life with three teenage sons in a two bedroom apartment, her right-wing neighbor, and her kids’ various rebellions against authority. Arnold has some truly wild tales to tell. There’s no bells and whistles here, just an exceptional storyteller gracing us with her talent.—Clare Martin [Full review]
6. Chris Fleming: Hell
Hell allows Chris Fleming to play with a variety of different comedic forms. Onstage, he dances, sings, and contorts his body into tangled, tangible punchlines. There are sketches featuring eccentric characters, intricate creatures, and entirely different video formats. At one point, Fleming even goes into the audience, engaging with a bit of crowd work. The combination of elements makes the special energetic and engaging, and showcases how well Fleming is able to juggle different formats. The variety also feels like an effective use of the streaming medium, embracing a myriad of visual options rather than sticking with the static image of a singular person onstage.
One of the things that Fleming excels at is creating a detailed visual language for his characters, tying into the Surrealist idea of making art that features a world that’s “completely defined and minutely depicted but that makes no rational sense.” He’s adept at this, and his previous work includes things like “Guy Who Created The Word Umpteenth” and “this thing,” but this special gives him the resources to create even more elaborate weirdos, like Ticketmaster Babies. I must admit, I was originally disgusted by the Ticketmaster Babies, little Hieronymus Bosch-like creatures that feed off wood and Twizzler Pull N Peels. But much to my surprise, by the end of their bit I was rooting for the little gremlins, hoping that the main one would succeed in its journey of getting a kiss (it’ll make sense in context). Fleming puts thought into not only how things look, but how they move, how they sound, and the rules of their specific world.—Michelle Cohn [Full Review]
5. Wanda Sykes: I’m An Entertainer
Not Normal started off with the mind-boggling strangeness of the Trump presidency, and Wanda Sykes breathed new life into a subject that felt utterly exhausted at that point. Likewise, Sykes’ ruminations on the pandemic in I’m An Entertainer are effective, and in this instance it’s because of the specificity of her stories. Her tales of increasingly debaucherous online church attendance and sneakily smoking weed while isolating both work because they’re so singular, so her, and therefore much more hilarious than banal, sweeping statements about lockdowns. It helps that Sykes’ impeccable comic timing and exasperated expressions are tailor-made for giving out about anti-vaxxers and the generally bananas state of the world.
Coronavirus is just the beginning here for Sykes; she kicks off with the pandemic, moving smoothly into tough topics like homophobia, transphobia, the murder of Black people in America, the insurrection on January 6th, and white supremacy as a whole. Her points are woven together with stories about herself and her family, because for Sykes many of these subjects aren’t simply political—they are deeply personal. Add to this her keen ability to get straight to the core of something—stand-outs here include reparations and Republicans opposing critical race theory—and you’ve got a special that pulls no punches. By centering her individual perspective, Sykes injects humor and newfound vigor into conversations that fall flat in a lesser comics’ hands.—Clare Martin [Full review]
4. Hari Kondabolu: Vacation Baby
New parent comedy could be its own subgenre—one that can certainly be enjoyed regardless of whether or not you actually have a child—and Hari Kondabolu (known for The Problem with Apu) recently added to that hallowed canon with Vacation Baby.
The last few years have seen some of Kondabolu’s peers contribute formidable entries to the new parent comedy category. For Mike Birbiglia there was The New One, in which he delved into his own trepidation about becoming a parent; Kurt Braunohler joked about trying to be a good dad in Perfectly Stupid despite not having a great role model himself; and Jena Friedman found many a barbed laugh in Ladykiller, grappling with the strange position of expecting a kid amid Roe v. Wade being overturned. And though the subject matter is the same, the perspective obviously varies from person to person; having a new kid allows these comics to explore self-growth, or our desire to outrun our parents’ missteps, or the feeling (and reality) of impending political doom.
Kondabolu’s comedic approach to becoming a dad falls closest to Friedman’s, as he tries to capture what it’s like to have a kid in a COVID-ridden world, when hope is often hard to find, even post-lockdown. (And, like Friedman, his special was filmed shortly after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.) The comedian doesn’t endorse despair or unbridled optimism during his set, but finds humor in every situation, no matter how bleak. His main through line, that of attempting to find the perfect metaphor for having a kid during a pandemic, is just focused enough to keep Vacation Baby on track, while also giving him enough leeway to get plenty weird and go off on tangents.—Clare Martin [Full review]
3. Beth Stelling: If You Didn’t Want Me Then
In an era when so many celebrated comedy specials revolve around a single motif or a certain period in the comedian’s life, it feels almost old school to sit with an hour of jokes that seemed a little more scattershot or loosely connected. But take a step back and the overarching theme of If You Didn’t Want Me Then comes more into focus: how Beth Stelling’s somewhat challenging childhood has informed her perspective as both a comic and a woman.
Often in this special that takes the lighter form of extended pieces like the ridiculous story of her father’s years-long chore of feeding an ever-growing gaze of raccoons on the back porch of his Orlando home. A diet of dog food and Hershey’s Kisses because “they deserve dessert too.” It might otherwise come off as a too-good-to-be-true, Florida man type story if the special wasn’t punctuated with a montage of photos of said raccoons. But it also doesn’t feel like a leap to suggest that Stelling’s difficult upbringing may have fed into her decision to not have a child.
That admission comes out in another great segment where Stelling goes over her history with birth control. With a little audience participation, she lays out the awful side effects of the pills she takes to reduce her chances of getting pregnant. (“Multiple personalities!” a lone voice yells out when she asks what any fellow users of one pill dealt with. “I’m glad you both could make it tonight,” Stelling fires back.) It’s a terrifying list that ranges from spotting to dark patches on the skin to mood swings. She gets the laughs but makes them sting with the underlying reality of the hell that women go through just to be in control of their bodies.—Robert Ham [Full Review]
2. John Early: Now More Than Ever
John Early’s new special, Now More Than Ever, opens with artifice. The camera is positioned behind a door, and we spy (voyeuristically) on Early transferring some lemon squares from a plastic container to a plate. He quickly covers them with saran wrap, disposes of the plastic box evidence, and enters the greenroom, triumphantly announcing that he made his “famous lemon squares” for the members of his band. This scene is a quintessential example of Early’s comedy, reveling in the contrast between who we are and who we want other people to think we are. His characters try desperately to be perceived a certain way (cool, personable, intelligent) yet they are completely unaware that their brazen overtures often give off the opposite of their intended effect. Unlike other comedians who strive for the relatable or the authentic, Early embraces hyperbole, finding truth in caricatures and camp.—Michelle Cohn [Full review]
1. Joe Pera: Slow & Steady
As a comedian, Joe Pera has created something wholly unique, something more powerful and more hilarious than pretty much any other comic of the last decade. When you first encounter him you might wonder how sincere he is—if there’s an undercurrent of cynicism you’re supposed to pick up on or a satire that’s so bone-dry it’s almost impossible to detect. Screw that. Pera is exactly as sincere as you want or need him to be, and personally, for me, that’s as sincere as possible. The world’s gone to hell—it is hell—-and it’s the rare island of decency and joy that helps me get through it. Joe Pera is at the top of that list, and I won’t hear any arguments to the contrary.—Garrett Martin [Full Review]