Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (2006)

This concert has little to offer visually — the colors are muted and the setups basic — but as a snapshot of a comic mind at its peak, Richard Pryor: Live in Concert is thrilling. This is Pryor's first released stand-up film, and he kills from the get-go, riffing hilariously (and vulgarly) on race, sex, and family with a frisky physicality that has him soaked in sweat for most of the act. Pryor's troubles with the law and drugs were already hounding him — a bit about shooting his own car is classic—but like an alchemist, he turns his guilt, anxiety, prejudices, and pain into uproarious comedy. EXTRAS None.