Funny / The Grand Budapest Hotel

Many moments on this list are ramped up to eleven by the fact that practically every character is The Comically Serious.

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• Gustave admits that he goes to bed with all his friends. Dmitri punches him in the face, which makes Zero punch Dmitri in the face, and he, in turn, is punched in the face by Jopling. And then Jopling turns at the mourners showing his fists to see if anybody else wants some.
  Dmitri: This criminal has plagued my family for nearly 20 years. He's a ruthless adventurer and a con artist who preys on mentally feeble, sick old ladies. And he probably fucks them too.
  Gustave: I go to bed with all my friends.
  • The faces the punched pull in the aforementioned scene. After Dmitri punches Gustave, he has a look of fear as he turns to look at Zero. After Zero decks him, he looks at Jopling with the most nonchalant expression ever, as if to say, "Yeah, I punched your boss. What're you gonna do about it?"
  • And then later:
    Dmitri: If I learn you ever once laid a finger on my mother's body, living or dead, I swear to God, I'll cut your throat! YOU HEAR ME?
    Gustave: I thought I was supposed to be a "fucking faggot"?
    Dmitri: [Pause] You are, but you're bisexual.
    • The funniest part is that for a moment there, Dmitri stops and frowns, almost like he's thinking "Oh wait, yeah, I have backed myself into a corner here, haven't I?"
    • "Let's change the subject. I'm leaving."
    • Also funny is that the old mourner who inquires as to who Gustave H. is (and thus inadvertently alerting Dmitri to Gustave's presence) is later revealed to be generally senile about the entire situation.
      Old mourner: Where's Céline?!
      (a man in the background spits some water back into his glass upon hearing this)
      Young mourner: What?! She's dead! We're reading her will!
      Old mourner: Oh, yes, yes, of course...
• During Gustave's first on-screen meeting with Madame D, after all the preparations for the dinner, their earnest conversation about her fear of seeing him for the last time is abruptly interrupted by Gustave's disgust for the color of her nail varnish. It is made even funnier as the background music abruptly stops at that very moment.
• Gustave tells Zero about Madame D. on the train to Lutz:
  Gustave: She was dynamite in the sack, by the way.
  Zero: She was 84, M. Gustave...
  Gustave: I've had older. When you're young, it's all fillet steak, but as the years go by, you have to move on to the cheaper cuts. Which is fine with me, because I like those. More flavourful, or so they say.
• Gustave looks upon Madame D.'s body:
  Gustave: You're looking so well, darling, you really are, they've done a marvelous job. I don't know what sort of cream they've put on you down at the morgue, but I want some.
• Gustave being accused of Madame D's murder. To make it better, there isn't any music and the camera doesn't follow them.
  Gustave: She's been murdered, and you think I did it.
  (Beat)
  (Gustave turns and starts running away)
  (Beat)
  [Police start chasing and shouting for him to stop, while Zero and the other hotel staff watch in confusion]
• The reveal that Boy With Apple, while a lovely and valuable painting itself with a rich history, turns out to be rather smaller and less grandiose that it was built up to be, making Dmitri's possessiveness of it even more petty, especially when you consider that he and his sisters did end up getting a hefty inheritance.
  Gustave: It's a masterpiece. The rest of this shit is worthless junk.
• After taking down Boy With Apple, Gustave looks around for something to replace it. He grabs and hangs the nearest available painting, which turns out to be Two Lesbians Masturbating. The icing on the cake is that it doesn't even properly cover the outline of faded wallpaper left by its predecessor.
• When Zero reads the letter from the imprisoned Gustave to the rest of the staff: When the "business" part of the letter is finished, he turns to give instructions to start dinner because the rest of the letter is a 46-stanza poem and could take a while...
• The other concierges leaving in the middle of a task and having their lobby boys continue for them.
• During the prison escape, when one of the escapees takes out five guards, only to be killed by the last guard at the same time.
  Gustave: I suppose you'd call that a draw.
• The inmates inviting Gustave to join in on their prison break:
  Pinky: Me and the boys talked it over. We think you're a real straight fella.
  Gustave: Well, I've never been accused of that before, but I appreciate the sentiment.
• Just the beautifully hilarious visual gag of the burly prison inmates using a vicious looking prison-shank to slice Mendl's dainty pastel cake pastries.
  Wolf: (licking his fingers) Out of this world.
• The fact that Gustav takes Zero's inability to find a safe house very well... and then takes his neglect in finding facial disguises very well... but upon learning that Zero forgot to bring his favorite perfume...
• Zero reprimanding the lobby boy left in charge during his absence, despite said lobby boy having just helped them with where Agatha went.
• Minor detail: Agatha's birthmark is a massive red splotch on her cheek that just to happens to be a topographically-accurate map of Mexico.
• Any time that Gustave breathlessly switches from overly formal dialogue to profuse swearing without changing tone or missing a beat.
  • One in particular — when Gustave is hanging from an icy cliff edge as Jopling approaches with murderous intent. Then, out of nowhere, Zero shoves Jopling off the cliff, and Gustave immediately goes from calmly reciting a flowery poem about facing death to screams of overjoyed profanity.
    Gustave: HOLY SHIT, YOU GOT HIM!
    • Making it funnier is Jopling's scream is the Howie Long Scream.
• "Did he just throw my cat out the window?" Jeff Goldblum's delivery is what makes this line so funny.
  • Later, we see him stop at the coat check to retrieve a package. Cut to a shot of the ticket, stating the contents as "Persian Cat (DECEASED)".
• When Henckels is investigating the breakout. He pops up out of the hole in the ground, remains half-submerged, and classily points to each group of men as he gives the orders. All without any sense of irony.
  • Zero gives a similar point at Gustave, after they discuss Agatha.
    (Beat; points) Don't flirt with her.
• The very, very spontaneous gunfight that occurs in the film's climax. Dmitri shoots at Gustave and Zero from one side, a man starts shooting back on their side, and in seconds the two balconies are a mess of chaos and gunfire. It's absolutely absurd in the best way.
• During the planning for the prison breakout, Harvey Keitel's tattooed prison inmate, Ludwig, shows Gustave a beautifully ornate prison map he's drawn to plan for their escape. This wouldn't be funny on its own except for the fact that the actual tattoos covering Ludwig's body are almost hilariously bad and look like they were drawn on by a child with Magic Marker.
• Dmitri's reaction when he discovers that Boy With Apple has been stolen and that Two Lesbians Masturbating now hangs in its place.
  Dmitri: Holy fuck! [walks over to the painting] What's the meaning of this shit?
  Marguerite: Boy with Apple? I thought you'd hidden it.
  Laetizia: [overlapping] It's been missing two weeks. I assumed it went to the tax-appraiser.
  Carolina: [also overlapping] Why are you only noticing now?
  Dmitri: Are you fucking kidding me?!
  • Almost immediately after learning that Gustave is the culprit, Dmitri proceeds to smash the painting over the head of a statue. Note the joke in the painting of two women having sex being impaled by the helmeted head of a man.
• In jail, we see a guard slicing up food deliveries to check for weapons and tools. But when Mendl's pastries come up, they look so nice and artistic that he can't bring himself to destroy them.
  • And this despite the fact that the bottom tier of each confectionery is blatantly tool-shaped.
• The lieutenant's report to Henckels involve him saying of a certain telegraph (dramatically whipping out his notebook): "I copied it down. It reads as follows:" (Flips open notebook) Cue epic Telegraph Gag STOP. Bonus points for his looking at Henckels every time he says "Stop".
• "Are you Monsieur Gustave of the Grand Budapest Hotel in Nebelsbad?"
  • "Uh-huh".
• The "confessional" sequence. Roughly one-third of the comedy comes from the rapid-fire pace of the dialogue, one-third from the equally rapid intercutting between Serge's POV and that of Gustave and Zero—and one third from Zero's wide-eyed yet otherwise deadpan expression while Gustave is increasingly frantic.
  Serge: There's more.
  Gustave: Okay?
  Serge: To the story.
  Gustave: I get it. Go on.
  Serge: I was the official witness in Madame D.'s presence to the creation of a second will to be executed only in the event of her death by murder.
  Gustave: A second will.
  Serge: Right.
  Gustave: In case she got bumped off.
  Serge: Right.
  Gustave: Uh-huh.
  Serge: But they destroyed it.
  Gustave: Oh, dear.
  Serge: However.
  Gustave: Uh-huh?
  Serge: I pulled a copy.
  Gustave: A second copy of the second will?
  Serge: Right.
  Gustave: Uh-huh? Well, what does it say, where is it? What's it all about dammit?! Don't keep us in suspense, Serge! This has been a complete fucking nightmare! JUST TELL US WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!
  • Following on from this, Gustave's choice of phrasing when discovering Serge's body is hilariously mean and insensitive.
    Gustave: Bloody hell, they've strangled the poor slob!
• The absurdly speedy ski chase.
• The sheer pettiness of Gustave's comment to Jopling while Gustave is hanging off a cliff.
  Gustave: You sick, pathetic creep. I hate you.
  • When Zero pushes Jopling to his death, we hear the Howie Long Scream.

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