Joe's Apartment (1996)

Joe’s Apartment is the kind of brazen, uniquely ’90s oddball comedy that earns its cult status on sheer commitment: it takes a truly disgusting premise and somehow turns it into a surprisingly cheerful, occasionally sweet little New York fairy tale with showtunes. Director John Payson leans into the scruffy, anything-goes vibe, letting Jerry O’Connell play the straight-faced everyman while Billy West’s cockroach ringleader and the film’s gleefully inventive musical numbers do the heavy lifting, delivering the sort of lunatic charm you can’t fake. It’s crude, noisy, and proudly lowbrow, but there’s an affectionate undercurrent about finding community in a city that doesn’t care whether you’re ready. If you can’t stand gross-out gags or the idea of singing roaches makes your skin crawl, it’s not for you—but if you’re on the fence, this is exactly the kind of weird, committed comedy that rewards surrendering to its madness.

Joe’s Apartment is trying to turn a one-joke MTV-style premise into a goofy, feel-good New York fairy tale, complete with musical numbers and a scrappy underdog vibe. The problem is the joke is, well, cockroaches—lots of them—and if that idea makes your skin crawl, the movie doesn’t exactly ease you in; it leans hard into gross-out gags and puerile humor. The story and human characters are thin, so when it stretches to feature length it can feel like you’re waiting for the next roach bit rather than getting pulled along by a plot. Still, if you’re nostalgic for mid-’90s weirdness, don’t mind crude jokes, and can tolerate the insect factor, there’s a certain dumb, energetic charm in how committed it is to its own nonsense.