Seinfeld: 10 Best Movie Parodies, Ranked

As a multi-camera sitcom about four friends getting into relatable social situations in New York, Seinfeld’s style was very naturalistic. It didn’t often indulge in stylistic flourishes or draw attention to the artifice of television. However, the show would occasionally lampoon movies, both box office hits that were popular at the time and age-old classics.

If the A-plot referenced a movie, then the B-plot could parody that movie to dovetail the two storylines together — which, of course, was Seinfeld’s trademark that made it one of the best-written shows of all time. So, here are the 10 best movie parodies from Seinfeld, ranked.

10 Apocalypse Now

When running J. Peterman gets to be a bit much, Elaine heads deep into the jungles of Burma to find her boss. He’s descended into madness ,and become more animal than man, much like Marlon Brando’s deranged Colonel Kurtz character in Francis Ford Coppola’s seminal Vietnam War masterpiece Apocalypse Now. Elaine takes on Martin Sheen’s role as the Captain Willard of the situation.

9 Absence Of Malice

After getting sick of all the junk mail that gets sent to his mailbox, Kramer protests the mail and asks the post office not to deliver his mail anymore, much to the terror of Newman. Depicting the U.S. Postal Service as a shady underground organization filled with conspiracies that go straight to the top was one of Seinfeld’s more absurdist running gags, but it never failed to get a few laughs.

The finest hour of this joke was casting the legendary Wilford Brimley to play the Postmaster General à la his character in the shocking final moments of the Sydney Pollack-directed neo-noir Absence of Malice.

8 Cape Fear

Jerry decides to teach Uncle Leo a lesson when he catches him shoplifting in a bookstore, and asks the security guard to give him a little fright. However, the security guard apprehends Leo and calls the cops.

Riddled with guilt and anxiety over ratting out his uncle, Jerry is kept up later that evening by a nightmare in which Uncle Leo assumes the role of Max Cady, played to psychotic perfection by Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear. Like Cady, Leo does pull-ups in prison, and as he does so, he says, “Jerry…hello…Jerry…hello…”

7 What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?

In Season 4’s “The Airport,” George picks up a Time magazine that features a blurb about him. Just as he grabs the last copy, a convicted criminal being escorted by two cops reaches for it. The criminal is on the cover, but George refuses to give him the magazine by channeling Bette Davis.

In What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, Blanche (Joan Crawford) says, “If I wasn’t in this chair…,” and Jane (Davis) replies, “But ya are, Blanche! Ya are in that chair!” In Seinfeld, the criminal says, “If I wasn’t in these shackles…,” and George replies, “But ya are, Blanche! Ya are in the shackles!”

6 The Fugitive

When Elaine’s favorite birth control is discontinued, she mirrors Tommy Lee Jones beginning his relentless search for Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive. In The Fugitive, Jones says, “What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse in that area.”

In Seinfeld, Elaine says, “I’m gonna do a hard-target search. Of every drug store, general store, health store, and grocery store in a 25-block radius.”

5 The Godfather

Both Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Richards got to try out a Marlon Brando impression in the episode “The Bris.” When Jerry is made the godfather of his friends’ new baby, he accepts the responsibility of holding the child while the mohel performs the circumcision. However, he flinches at the last second and the circumcision is botched. The baby is rushed to the hospital and Jerry is stripped of his title as godfather.

Instead, the parents name Kramer the godfather, and in the episode’s final moments, Kramer closes his apartment door on his friends like Michael Corleone does to Kay at the end of The Godfather.

4 Schindler’s List

In the two-parter “The Raincoats,” Jerry’s parents are ashamed that he was spotted making out with his girlfriend during Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg’s harrowing World War II drama. Seinfeld took a few jabs at Schindler’s List after it was revealed that Spielberg watched episodes of the show to cheer himself up when directing a movie about the horrors of the Holocaust had him feeling down.

In the episode’s final scene, the close-talker Aaron regrets not doing more for Morty and Helen, having taken them to dinners, Broadway shows, and hansom cab rides during their stay in New York. This parallels Oskar Schindler’s remorse over not saving more people from Nazi concentration camps.

3 Nixon

Morty’s condo board presidency is cut short when Jerry gives him a Cadillac and he’s seen eating dinner after the early-bird special. The other board members become concerned Morty is dipping into their budget for personal gain.

When Morty is impeached and he leaves the condo complex in disgrace with Helen and Jerry at his side, the musical score and camera angles mirror Richard Nixon’s resignation in Oliver Stone’s biopic.

2 Midnight Cowboy

In “The Mom and Pop Store,” the A-plot and the B-plot are brought together by a movie parody. One storyline concerns George buying a car that he believed belonged to Jon Voight, the star of Midnight Cowboy, and the other concerns Kramer giving Jerry’s shoes to the proprietors of a mom and pop store who skip town with them.

When they learn about the location of the shoes, Jerry and Kramer hop on a bus to New Jersey. Kramer’s incessant nosebleeds return on the bus, and he rests on Jerry, much like Ratso Rizzo leans against Joe Buck in his worsening medical state in the final scene of Midnight Cowboy. Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin’” from the movie is even playing on the soundtrack.

1 JFK

“That is one magic loogie.” When Jerry befriends Keith Hernandez, Kramer and Newman say they hate him because he once spat on them. However, as Jerry reconstructs the events of the spitting incident — much like Kevin Costner’s character in JFK does — it becomes clear that the trajectory of the spit doesn’t line up with Hernandez’s position.

Just as Costner’s character believes there had to have been a second shooter involved in the Kennedy assassination, Jerry believes there had to have been a “second spitter” when Kramer and Newman got hit with that loogie.

About The Author

Ben Sherlock
(3465 Articles Published)

Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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