I just found out Goodfellas has a commentary track with Henry Hill and the FBI agent who busted him doing the commentary.
And I’ve been rabbit holing my collection for commentary, and my research spiraled and I need to put it all down in one place. Some of these are even better than the movie itself !!! LOL There are others mentioned and loved, but I sort of dealt with my own idiom and interests:
Spinal Tap‘s comment track has McKean, Guest, Shearer all in character the whole time, and just being wildly goofy.
Jack Black, Ben Stiller, and Robert Downey Jr on Tropic Thunder have a blast, but Downey Jr stays in character the entire audio track, until the end of the film where he becomes the Australian and he does the rest of the film in that accent from that point on. It was based on the in film joke “I don’t drop character until the end of the DVD commentary”
Aliens has an actor commentary track, it has Paxton, Biehn, Henriksen, Goldstein (Vasquez), and Carrie Henn (Newt). Honestly, pretty fun but it’s really just for Bill Paxton. I really miss that guy a lot.
Big Trouble in Little China is basically two best buds in Carpenter and Russell just chewing the fat, cracking beers, laughing, and having a grand old time. Any of their tracks, same with The Thing, are gold.
Roger Ebert rarely did commentary tracks. I think Casablanca, Babes from Toyland, Citizen Kane, and Dark City. The Dark City commentary track in itself is a massively important part of film history, but it really drives home how special a film it is, as seen through his educated eyes. All his shit is mensa genius level on another planet insight.
Ben Affleck thinks his best work in film history was the audio commentary for Armageddon, where he famously asked why Michael Bay wouldn’t have written it to be that they trained astronauts to drill, vs training drillers to become astronauts. LOL
Ocean’s 11 actor commentary with Andy Garcia and Matt Damon in the same room, and what seemed like Brad Pitt in a voice booth somewhere else, but overall it’s a fun and friendly romp.
Anchorman? This is real weird, but it’s McKay, Ferrell… and out of nowhere for no apparent reason, LOU RAWLS, and he is confused why he is there.
Hunter S. Thompson has a commentary track on Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas I found out about 6 seconds ago. WILD.
Talladega Nights has a track that place in 2031, 25 years after the movie was released. It is the Apocalypse and John C. Reilly phones in as the leader of a guerilla militia with David Koechner playing a senator and Jack McBrayer being hated on by literally everyone.
The 36th Chamber of ShaoLin commentary by the RZA and Andy Klein.
Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker audio commentary for Top Secret and Airplane are gold.
Bubba Ho-Tep has a few commentary tracks, including one by “The King” himself, recorded in an undisclosed location. It is great.
“The C.H.U.D. commentary track has several of the stars on it, recorded many years after the film was made. They get progressively more hammered as the film goes on. At some point, someone mentions that there was a sequel made, which none of them knew about, and someone asks how it got made, since the original never made any real money on its release. It then comes out that none of the actors got paid what they were promised, and there is talk of a lawsuit. Their rage gets pretty hysterical. That’s how I remember it, anyway. I haven’t listened to it in a while.”
Cannibal! The Musical! with Matt Parker and Trey stone. It was their student film and it’s a great discussion of filmmaking on a budget and also of all the jokes they packed in and why. I’ve also watched them give talks on filmmaking, they put a lot of thought into what they do.
The Evil Dead commentaries are great.
Verhoeven and Arnold on Total Recall is hilarious. Paul is wildly technical and Arnie is all “SHE HAS THREE BOOBS!”
Sideways has Hayden Church and Giamatti in a hilarious commentary
Werner Herzog and Crispin Glover on “Even Dwarfs Started Small“. I’m game for mucho stuff, but I’m not sure being trapped in a room with those two would be a stellar day?
I’ll keep updating, and end with this sassy clip:
The Limey, where Soderbergh and the scriptwriter spar. https://vimeo.com/414248587