People often overlook Gary Larson’s storytelling depth in favor of the single gag that plays out in every panel of The Far Side. His most memorable comic strips often paint a broader picture, asking readers to speculate about the story that led to such an absurd moment. These may not seem totally suited to film. However, many movies — especially in the comedy genre — start with a simple premise, for better or worse. For every Cocaine Bear, there is a Hot Springs Shark Attack.
For this list, I picked strips with premises big enough to fill a movie’s runtime, then figured out what kind of movie each one would be, from holiday romance to paranoid sci-fi. I avoided Far Side comics that reference iconic movies. Every entry gets a title and a tagline ready for the poster.
8
Lone Pine’s Christmas
This Season, Love Takes Root
Netflix has already proven that audiences will happily watch a lonely widow fall for a snowman with its 2024 seasonal hit, Hot Frosty. Swapping the snowman for an evergreen with fancy footwork is the natural next step. To add some tragedy, Carl could come with a built-in countdown timer as he slowly wilts.
There’s also room for a sweeter animated version, or stop-motion kid-friendly holiday story. Carl dreams of being a dancer, which earns him mockery from his fellow trees. Yet when a family picks him as their Christmas tree, and he makes a wish upon a star, he finally gets to strut his stuff. His dance brings the Christmas spirit back to a town that has forgotten what the holiday means. The town could even be called Lone Pine, making the title a perfect fit.
7
A Fistful of Minor Keys
Every Showdown Needs a Soundtrack
The saloon piano player is a familiar Western trope, usually a man who never gets a name and often gets shot. Yet handing the spotlight to the house band, whose members apparently score each gunfight live, is a fantastic hook for a Western told entirely from the bandstand. As The Far Side delivered the best comic strips about the Old West, this could draw on much of his comedy on the subject.
The movie could even stretch the definition of “based on a true story” by leaning into an old legend. In August 1879, England’s Northampton Mercury reported on a minister in Pooleville, Arkansas, who had a request for his congregation, according to Quote Investigator. “I would suggest that the present practice of shooting at the organist during the service be discontinued,” he said. The minister added, “The poor man has his faults, but he does the best he can. Besides, it chips the new organ.”
6
The Greatest Show in Middle Management
Chasing a Different Kind of Dream
Running away to join the circus is a storybook cliché, and flipping it shows off Larson’s love of turning a familiar idea on its head. Two circus heirs sneaking off to the office make for a great fish-out-of-water comedy. Trading trapezes and elephant parades for paperwork and deadlines, they could even turn their big-top skills into unlikely corporate stardom.
In reality, Sid and Marty never existed. P.T. Barnum had four daughters. He was so determined to keep his name alive that he left his grandson, Clinton H. Seeley, $25,000 on the condition that Seeley change his middle name to Barnum (via EBSCO). James A. Bailey, meanwhile, was born James Anthony McGinnis and was an orphan. He took his surname from the circus manager who hired him to post bills, according to America Comes Alive.
5
Open Wide
Some Cavities Should Stay Hidden
Few places scare a kid more than a dentist’s waiting room. That fear fueled a dark fantasy that ruled the 1980s and beyond, like The Neverending Story or The Witches. In this one, kids in town keep vanishing after their checkups, and one boy pieces together the truth. He tries to warn the others while desperately hiding a throbbing tooth from his mother.
4
Eddie Belcher, Supreme Leader
Absolute Power, Zero Qualifications
The Truman Show (1998) built an entire town around one unsuspecting man. Here, we could put Eddie in a similar scenario. Handing a guy from Long Island his own fake country is the perfect setup for a dark comedy. Eddie starts out soaking up the parades and portraits. Then he grows drunk on power until his decrees become too absurd for the experiment to survive.
This could be an ambitious comedy on a modest budget, with a large cast and simple behind-the-scenes monitoring of Eddie’s every move. Meanwhile, the researchers scramble to stage fake protests, fake treaties, and fake wars to keep Eddie convinced he’s a ruthless leader. By the time someone finally walks into his office to break the news, the audience should be half-convinced that Ithuvania deserves him. This could be up there with the smartest comedies ever made.
3
The Last Reflection
Everyone Is Watching. Nobody Is Human.
Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend made the last man on Earth a vampire hunter. This version is an unsettling twist on that story: the man is the last human alive, and he has no idea. That’s perfect framing for a tale of madness, as he slowly realizes the city keeps him around for entertainment. The spiral deepens when he discovers everyone he trusts has been playing along.
The film wouldn’t even need fangs. A single shot of an empty mirror would do the job and tie back to the myth that vampires cast no reflection. In Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, Jonathan Harker writes that “there was no reflection of him in the mirror” after the Count appears behind him, as the CUNY Annotating Dracula project notes.
2
Keep Watching
Trust Them. They’re Professionals.
The strip instantly conjures images of John Carpenter’s cult classic They Live (1988). Both feature an alien takeover and the idea that whoever controls the media shapes the narrative. The timing couldn’t be better for Hollywood to revisit that theme. Only 28% of Americans trusted the mass media in 2025, a record low, and that figure only edged up to 33% in 2026, according to Gallup.
The movie could lean into some campy horror. Perhaps a lone cameraman catches a glimpse of the anchors’ tentacles. After the studio fires him and strips him of everything, he desperately tries to expose the truth. The media has changed a lot since 1991, too. AI and social media could become the aliens’ key tools for keeping the masses distracted from the real threat.
1
Dead Man’s Jackpot
You Can’t Take It With You
Two morgue workers stumbling onto a winning ticket make for a bankable premise. Similar setups drive films like Fargo and A Simple Plan, and this story could strike that same balance of thriller and dark comedy. The duo hides the ticket for safekeeping, but it vanishes. Suddenly, everyone wants a piece of the dead man’s fortune, from his relatives to a cop who starts asking questions.
Real life has delivered something just as grim. In 2012, Chicago resident Urooj Khan won $1 million on an instant lottery ticket. He died on July 20, one day after the state issued his check, per NBC News. His death was first ruled natural, but toxicology tests later found a lethal dose of cyanide, and the case was reclassified as a homicide. The $425,000 check wasn’t cashed until August.
- Writer
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Gary Larson
- Publisher(s)
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simon & schuster, Andrews McMeel Publishing
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