Just for the holiday season:

1. ¡Three Amigos! (1986)
…And here’s a great one to start with. One of the few perfect comedies in existence, it casts Martin Short, Steve Martin and Chevy Chase, all in their prime, as down on their luck actors who end up saving a small town in Mexico. If you’ve only seen the might-as-well-been-a-remakeTropic Thunder, you’ve missed out on Chevy Chase’s perfectly clueless performance as Dusty Bottoms.

2. Spies Like Us (1985)
There are actually two Chevy Chases… The clueless, bumbling idiot who trips over everything, as seen in Three Amigos, and the smarmy ladies-man seen here opposite fellow sarcasmotron Dan Aykroyd. Chase is pitch perfect as a Pentagon pencil pusher who accidentally ends up almost causing World War III. A perfect comedy for the Cold War era, it’s just as hilarious today.

3. Fletch (1985)
The smarm hits its apex in the Fletch series, in which Chevy Chase takes Gregory McDonald’s wisecracking TV character to the big screen. This movie was so popular, and has so thoroughly invaded popular culture, that almost every TV detective’s “trademark” snark, from the mopes onLaw & Order to the flashy agents of CSI, has DNA in common with Chase’s Fletch. A must-watch.

4. National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)
The original is still the best — and nowhere else are Chase’s abilities put to such good use as when he’s playing Clark Griswold. Barely holding together his family on a cross-country trip to Walley World, Chase makes it completely believable that he would tie his dead aunt to the top of his car, accidentally kill a dog and not care, or pull a gun on a Walt Disney stand-in.

5. Caddyshack (1980)
The movie that broke Chase into the mainstream, this golf comedy is so chock-full of talent it’s surprising that Chase stands out at all… But he does, anchoring the movie, oddly enough, as the romantic lead. Luckily for Chase, the sappy romantic stuff mostly falls to young caddy-with-a-dream Michael O’Keefe, allowing Chase to steal scenes as the kooky, trick-shot-loving golf pro Ty Webb.

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