Best Office Comedies

There are a lot of advantages to a cushy office job–stability, salary, benefits–but anyone who’s ever worked a 9 to 5 is also keenly aware of the many frustrations working in the corporate world brings. So don’t worry, office drones; you’re not alone. To prove it, check out one of these office comedies the next time you clock out on your online time clock.

Office Space

Mike Judge’s 1999 live-action film debut remains the gold standard of office satire. Ron Livingston plays the put-upon everyman whose soul-crushing office job finally gets the best of him, but the real stars of the show are Stephen Root as a stapler-obsessed coworker and Gary Cole as the most infuriatingly passive-aggressive middle manager ever.

The Office

This 2001 BBC comedy launched the careers of co-creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and spawned approximately one thousand adaptations (well, Wikipedia currently lists eight, including American, French, German, and Israeli versions). The reason? The Office’s hilarious, cringe-inducing comedy paired with its subtle emotional center makes it one of the most successful and beloved television series ever made.

Visioneers

Before Zach Galifianakis became famous with the frat crowd in the Hangover movies, he made the best and strangest film of his career so far, Jared Drake’s 2008 pitch-black corporate satire Visioneers. Galifianakis plays an office drone working at the Jeffers Corporation, a business so large and demoralizing, its employees are in danger of literally exploding, and that’s just the start of his problems in this low-budget surrealist masterpiece.