1930s–1950s

In the United Kingdom, film adaptations of stage farces were popular in the early 1930s, while the music hall tradition strongly influenced film comedy into the 1940s with Will Hay and George Formby among the top comedy stars of the time. In England in the late 1940s, Ealing Studios achieved popular success as well as critical acclaim with a series of films known collectively as the "Ealing comedies", from 1947 to 1957. They usually included a degree of social comment, and featured ensemble casts which often included Alec Guinness or Stanley Holloway. Among the most famous examples were Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955).

In the 1950s, the British film industry produced a number of highly successful film series, however, including the Doctor series, the St. Trinian's films and the increasingly bawdy Carry On films. John and Roy Boulting also wrote and directed a series of successful satires, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right, Jack (1959). As in the United States, in the next decade much of this talent would move into television.

Norman Wisdom was cast in a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring his hapless onscreen character that was often called Norman Pitkin.

1960s–1980s

In the late 1950s, as the United States, the television industry has become a serious competition over the film industry. So from the early 1960s, much of the British comedies passes through television.

1990s–2010s

One of the major developments of the 1990s was the re-emergence of the romantic comedy film, like Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Sliding Doors (1998), and Notting Hill (1999). Recent successful films, more representative of British humour were the working class comedies Brassed Off (1996) and The Full Monty (1997).

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