The movie Jim Carrey called the pinnacle of blockbuster cinema: “You can’t get better”

Posted On February 11, 2026February 11, 2026

Despite his reputation as one of Hollywood’s most enduring masters of comedy, Jim Carrey has been around long enough to know that the secret to longstanding resonance goes beyond simply imitating his heroes.

That might have been how the actor got his start, by making funny faces and executing caricature-style impressions of some of his favourite actors, but eventually, he learned that to sustain a career in the business, he needed to be a true performer. And the one driving force in the crux of all of that was to carry forward the charisma he saw in his father, who would always leave an entire room in stitches.

Carrey’s journey followed a similar pattern for a while, as a face who became known in small circles from various comedy stints but who was not yet known or recognised in the broader Hollywood sphee, until 1994, when his breakthrough came in the form of the quirky private pet detective in Ace Ventura, when he seemingly earned widespread fame in the blink of an eye.

Over the following years, he would establish himself as one of the defining forces in the comedy genre, a move that both hindered and enhanced his popularity in certain circles while cementing his position as a major cultural and industry icon, and because of this, it would be natural to assume that many of his influences come from the same pool of comedy.

While that’s true in some cases, he tends to venture more heavily into the deeper, more spiritual messages about human existence, an interest of which he has made no secret; in fact, in recent years, he’s become more outspoken about his own views and opinions on human existence and his experiences with trying to achieve visceral euphoria.

To an outsider, that might not sound like anything all that meaningful, but for the actor, it’s both a way of coping in the chaos of life and a means of constantly evolving into a better, more well-adjusted person, which is why one of his favourite-ever movies is Sidney Lumet’s 1976 comedy drama Network, in which a news anchor has a breakdown on live TV, which sparks a major spike in ratings as a result.

It’s clear why Carrey loves it so much, for it ticks all the boxes of both sides of his interests, and he also enjoys how much it made him think, as he once explained, “Now that I’m a little older too, you can look back on that movie and see William Holden and Faye Dunaway in the kitchen scene, and he’s saying, ‘I’m closer to the end than the beginning’, and ‘Death has become a real thing with definable features’, I mean fuck who writes that? That is incredible.”

However, when it comes to his ultimate favourite, his choice might surprise some people, for Carrey’s favourite isn’t another comedy hit, nor is it one that’s particularly psychologically inclined, and instead is one that many people immediately think of when presented with the question: The Empire Strikes Back.

“You can’t get better,” he said, telling Collider that Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back will always “have a special place for me”.

He added, “When that came out, I got the soundtrack that John Williams and I would put it on my headphones. While I was reading late at night, I was reading Stephen King novels. And I would mix mediums, I would read Salem’s Lot with the soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back. And so it has all these wild memory connotations. For me, that is wonderful.”