The 61 Movie References in Community

Six seasons and a movie. At this point, it’s less of a joke and more of a manifest destiny statement for Greendale and its hapless student body. Yes, the sixth season of Community is scheduled to begin streaming on Yahoo in less than a week, and afterwards it is only one deceptively small step to making the actual movie. Then again, Community has been making movies—or at least parodies and homages of them—since the very beginning.

As originally a sitcom purportedly about folks from different walks of life going to school at a city college, Community has never been shy about mining pop culture, counter culture, and really just about any kind of culture for a gag. Initially, the focus was more on the sitcom tropes that showrunner Dan Harmon, executive producer Chris McKenna, and the rest of the Community writing staff were gleefully deconstructing and sending up. However, even from the very first episode, “Pilot,” there was a bit of a taste for poking fun at movie clichés long before Abed had ever even heard the word “paintball.”

Thus, in preparation for Community season six, we have compiled a list of every movie reference (that we can think of or remember) from the show’s first five seasons. As this is strictly in relation to movie references, this means we will be skipping over brilliant takedowns of Glee and the backhanded compliments to Law & Order. Also, we are compiling this list by naming only one episode per entry, even if it has multiple movie references, which we will still try to find all of therein.

With that said, I am admittedly a mere mortal and far from the encyclopedia made flesh that is Abed Nadir. So, feel free to point out any that I missed in the comments section below.

Now it’s time to crank up the Dave and prepare to seize the day! Here are the 61 Movie References of Community.

Season 1: Pilot – The Breakfast Club

While the first episode of Dan Harmon’s grand experiment at turning a network sitcom into a televised reddit utopia focused mostly on the actual community college aspect that NBC naively signed up for oh so many moons ago, even then the earliest seed of movie references was ready to sprout. Consider that Abed thinks that Jeff is going to be 1970s television’s Welcome Back, Kotter, but he quickly realizes that this is “getting much more like The Breakfast Club” with seven disparate personalities seemingly trapped together in a school library. Together, they’ll find intolerance and acceptance…

In retrospect, I wonder if Harmon and Jim Rash wish they had the Dean come in right then and start talking about messing with bulls and horns.

Season 1: Introduction to Film – Dead Poets Society

When Jeff continues to tinker at the art of blowing off courses, he drifts into the wrong kind of feel-good easy-A course: the type with a teacher who wishes to inspire. In the first minute of the episode, John Michael Higgins comes in as Professor Whitman and demands that his students throw away their textbooks to seize the day via “Carpe Diem;” this is anything but Jeff Winger’s ode to joy.

Season 1: Introduction to Statistics – The Dark Knight

Abed’s Christian Bale impersonation was the Batman we deserved and needed at that moment. And always.

Season 1: Environmental Science – An American Tail

“Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight.” – Abed and Troy singing to their biology rat.

Season 1: Romantic Expressionism – RoboCop (or at least the sequels)

When Pierce joins Troy, Abed, Shirley, and Chang to watch Kickpuncher, he had no way of realizing that they were watching the terrible ‘80s sci-fi flick with every intention of MST3K-ing it with callbacks for its entire running time. And that is because most of these ‘80s genre movies fail. However since it is about a cybernetic half-man, half-cop hybrid, the most obvious Kickpuncher influence is RoboCop, and RoboCop is awesome. So, I must assume that Kickpuncher was inspired by RoboCop 2 and everything that came after…

Season 1: Communication Studies – The Breakfast Club

It’s safe to say that the Community writers love John Hughes, and The Breakfast Club in particular, since Jeff takes his romantic advice from Abed—which apparently involves dancing like Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, and the rest of those quirky high schoolers from the 1985 classic.

Season 1: Beginner Pottery – Ghost (and all Jeff Goldblum Movies)

When joining blow-off course Beginning Pottery, Jeff should have paid attention that the professor has only one rule: no “ghosting.” It makes sense that after 20 years of teaching pottery, he’d grown sick of watching people make fun of his evocation by reenacting the most famous scene from Ghost. Still, this doesn’t stop Jeff from doing the fabled “guy-on-guy” Ghost parody when he realizes that there’s someone better than him at making clay pots. As a result, Jeffrey is evicted from the class but not before serenading his professor with the Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody.” He also found time to descend into “Goldbluming” madness due to his obsession with Rich.

Season 1: The Science of Illusion – Lethal Weapon (or any Buddy Cop Movie)

The Dean makes Annie and Shirley his low-cost campus security, and Abed gets them both wanting to be the Mel Gibson of the pairing (except without the, you know, racism and anti-Semitism). However, neither realizes that they’re both closer to Danny Glover.

Season 1: Contemporary American Poultry – Goodfellas, The Godfather, and Sixteen Candles

In what is one of the most streets ahead movie parodies Community has ever done, Abed realizes that for as long as can remember, he’s always wanted to be in a gangster movie. And he gets to be when the Greendale Seven discover that Star-Burns has cornered the market on the cafeteria’s one good food: chicken fingers. As Troy says, if God was edible, he’d be one of those chicken fingers.

So, the group enlists Abed to talk his way into working in the kitchen and give them the chicken fingers. What follows is Martin Scorsese styled madness with Abed pursuing a life of chicken crime, and becoming both the Ray Liotta and Paul Sorvino of this Goodfellas parody, much to Jeff’s misplaced horror. Luckily, after all the “Layla” and gliding steadicam homages are played out, they share one more bowl of chicken fingers like at the end of Sixteen Candles.

Season 1: The Art of Discourse – Animal House

Honestly, this is one of the weaker episodes of Community’s first season, but it still has a few gems that come in the form of parodies. Long before the rest of the cast realizes they’re in a college movie, Troy and Abed are already dressing in togas and are ready to have a good time. But then at the end of the episode, there is a food fight that is freeze framed for every character with a caption for what they’ll end up doing 30 years (or 30 minutes) later.

Season 1: Modern Warfare – The Warriors…and 28 Days Later…and The Terminator…and John Woo films…and Die Hard…and…

There are Community episodes, and then there are moments of pure television brilliance that transcend the sitcom medium to become something…legendary. “Modern Warefare” is the latter. As directed by Justin Lin, this is the first true surrender on the part of Harmon and the writers into the world of a surrealistic comedy wonderland, one where Jeff can wake up like he’s Cillian Murphy in a great (if slightly smug) Danny Boyle zombie movie, only to be saved from paintball villainy by Abed at his most Kyle Reese-y.

Reuniting with the rest of the study group, Jeff leads them through a Warriors-esque dystopia where monsters and worse—like the Glee Club—rule the campus. Jeff will have to go the full John McClane if he hopes to win this awful, glorious day.

Season 1: English as a Second Language – Good Will Hunting

It’s small but it’s to the point. Any person (or film) that says, “The favorite part of my day is hoping you won’t be there” is a bad friend. Or script. Ouch.

Because this list is enormous, we've broken it up over several pages. On to season two next!