Best in Show
★★ 1/2
In honor of the recent passing of the brilliant Catherine O'Hara, our family decided it was time to revisit Best in Show. It felt right — a tribute to her comedic genius and a chance to introduce my teenage daughter Hallie to a film I remembered loving when it first came out.
And here’s my hot take: this rewatch didn’t quite sit as well as I expected.
First, let me say this clearly — the cast is stacked. Absolutely stacked. Director Christopher Guest assembled one of the great comedy ensembles of the early 2000s. You’ve got Eugene Levy, Jane Lynch, Jennifer Coolidge, Parker Posey, Michael McKean, John Michael Higgins, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley Jr., Fred Willard and of course, O’Hara, as the hilariously unfiltered Cookie Fleck.
On paper? Comedy royalty.
And to be fair, there are funny moments. Fred Willard’s clueless commentary still lands. O’Hara’s escalating stories about past flings are delightfully absurd. The commitment from every actor is undeniable. They’re the reason to watch. No one is phoning it in.
But as a whole? I found myself surprisingly underwhelmed.
Maybe part of it is context. When Best in Show debuted in 2000, the world of competitive dog shows felt bizarre and wonderfully niche. It was unfamiliar territory, ripe for satire. Now? In a post–reality TV explosion era — with streaming, podcasts, social media and entire networks dedicated to hyper-specific hobbies — niche worlds aren’t niche anymore. We’ve seen duck hunters, cake decorators, Bravo-level socialites, survivalists and every possible micro-community imaginable. The joke isn’t quite as novel.
Back then, Christopher Guest’s mockumentary style felt revolutionary (he’d already perfected it with This Is Spinal Tap). The improvised awkwardness and the straight-faced absurdity was fresh. Now that style has been absorbed into pop culture grammar.
Watching it with Hallie was interesting. We didn’t laugh out loud much, but she hung with it, which honestly surprised me. It speaks to how watchable this group of actors is, even when every joke doesn’t fully land.
And that’s the thing. The material isn’t lazy. The performances aren’t weak. It just feels uneven. A collection of very funny scenes that don’t quite coalesce into something consistently hilarious.
What surprised me most is that I remember loving this film the first time I saw it. I remembered it being sharper, funnier, more cohesive. Maybe it’s a reminder that comedy, more than any genre, is tied to timing. Cultural timing. Personal timing. Sometimes both.
But even if the movie didn’t completely hold up for me, Catherine O’Hara absolutely does. Her fearless specificity and her total commitment to character hasn’t aged a day. If anything, revisiting this reminded me why she remains such a singular comedic force.
So while Best in Show didn’t fully fetch on this rewatch, it was still worth revisiting, if only to celebrate a legend and spend a couple of hours with one of the great comedy ensembles ever assembled.
And hey, if you disagree with me, I get it. This one has its loyal fans. It just didn’t quite win Best in Show for me this time around.
