With Easter fast approaching, we’re all dusting off our bunny costumes and stuffing our baskets with goodies.
In anticipation of that happy day, here are the 10 best movies with people dressed in bunny costumes.
Some are great, some are less great. But all have bunny costumes.
Legally Blonde (2001)
Let’s start with one of the best movies with somebody in a bunny costume.
Legally Blonde, a basically perfect comedy, stars Reese Witherspoon as a chronically underestimated law student.
When she shows up to a party, smartly dressed in a bunny suit, her horrible boyfriend informs her that he doesn’t think she’s all that smart, and urges her to focus on her other values.
“I’ll show you how valuable Elle Woods can be,” she declares, storming out with her ears flopping.
She goes on to prove everybody wrong.
Night of the Lepus (1972)
Night of the Lepus is one of the most entertaining movies we’ve ever seen, thoughperhaps not for the reasons the filmmakers intended.
A sci-fi film about a desert town infested by giant killer rabbits, it tried to scare audiences in two ways: With people dressed as bunnies, and with real bunnies, their cute faces smeared with ketchup, hopping around minitature sets.
It had a good cast, includingStar Trek veteran DeForest Kelley and Psycho star Janet Leigh. There was just one problem, as Leigh later explained to Starlog:
“How can you make a bunny rabbit menacing?”
The House Bunny (2008)
Another story of an underestimated young woman, The House Bunny stars Anna Faris as Shelley Darlingson, who ages out of playboy bunnydom by turning 27.
As one character informs her that that’s “59 in bunny years.”
Soon she becomes the house mother for a sorority and helps make over her young charges, who are played by, among others, Emma Stone.
The Man With Two Brains (1983)
At one point in the bonkers Steve Martin comedy The Man With Two Brains, Martin’s brain surgeon character, Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, is walking tensely down a hospital corridor in scrubs when he catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror.
He realizes he’s in bunny ears.
With no explanation, he whips them off, throwing them at a colleague.
“I don’t find this amusing, Guerrero!” he shouts. And the film continues.
Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001)
One of the funniest moments in the very funny Bridget Jones’ Diary arrives when Bridget (Renée Zellweger) arrives at a fancy garden party she thought was a costume party.
She’s in the least appropriate attire possible, of course: A bunny costume.
Stil, she handles things with remarkable aplomb, sneaking a smoke with a local clergyman.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Easily the scariest movie on this list.
Throughout Donnie Darko, Jake Gyllenhaal’s possibly schizophrenic, or possibly prophetic lead character is haunted by a character in a bunny costume named Frank.
“Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?” Donnie asks Frank.
Frank whispers: “Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?”
Mean Girls (2004)
In a cute inversion of the Bridget Jones bunny costume mixup, all the Plastics (played by Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried) dress up as animals for Halloween. As their leader, Regina George scores the bunny costume.
But Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) hasn’t gotten the memo that Halloween is the one day you can dress however you want, and opts for the most grotesque fright mask possible.
Regina later kisses the boy Cady likes, for good measure.
The Bunnyman (2012)
Slightly less scary than Frank is the Bunnyman, the titular villain of the 2011 horror film based on Virginia’s urban legend, the Bunny Man.
Oh, you haven’t heard of the Bunny Man? He’s a man in a bunny costume who chases people with an axe. In the movie, the Bunny Man uses a chainsaw instead.
If the chainsaw bunny costume doesn’t scare you, maybe this will: The Bunnyman eats people instead of carrots.
A Christmas Story (1983)
Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) suffers many indignities in A Christmas Story, but none is worse than having to wear bunny costume pajamas, a Christmas gift from his Aunt Clara.
Adding to the humiliation: It’s not just a bunny costume, but a bunny costume with two little bunnies for feet.
“Immediately my feet began to sweat as those two fluffy little bunnies with the blue-button eyes stared sappily up at me,” he intones in a voiceover.
“He looks like a deranged Easter Bunny,” his father observes, before allowing him to change back to his regular clothes.
Star 80 (1980)
The saddest movie on this list, Bob Fosse’s Star 80 tells the true story of Playboy model Dorothy Stratten (played by Mariel Hemingway), who was murdered by her husband Paul Snider in 1980.
Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize winning Village Voice article “Death of a Playmate” by Teresa Carpenter, it recounts Snider’s sinister obsessiveness, which leads to horrendous violence. Eric Roberts is terrifying as Snider.
Look, we said “best movies,” not most uplifting movies.
If you liked this list, you might also like this list of 13 Deadly Animal Movies That Used Real Animals.
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Main image: Mean Girls. Paramount
