When Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy premiered 20 years ago, it wasn’t necessarily a game-changer for Will Ferrell, at least not in terms of his movie stardom. For producer Judd Apatow, it was arguably more of a milestone. A very silly, gag-packed yet idiosyncratic comedy about male vanity in 1970s San Diego kicked off a 10-year period where Apatow became an influential and frequently star-making comedy guru, getting several of his own projects off the ground while — perhaps more importantly — helping any number of men and women find their cinematic and TV voices.
Though Apatow’s influence seems to be waning these days, he’s still a major name in comedy, and the sheer number of projects he’s worked on over the years — before and after that Anchorman moment — is astonishing. Here, then, we have sorted through Apatow’s CV to rank all of those projects, from the mandatory masterpieces to the worthwhile curiosities to the intensely skippable misfires.
