Nothing feels as good as a deep, genuine laugh. It’s an expression of joy! It’s a workout. It’s a sign that you’re having a good time.
Netflix has a dazzling selection of comedy movies that give you that good-time feeling on demand. Whether you’re craving action-spiked shenanigans, quirky coming-of-age adventures, awkward humor, stranger-than-fiction silliness, madcap musical numbers, or crime with a spree of laughs, there’s a perfect pick for you. And we’ve made singling it out all the easier by highlighting the most hilarious below.
Here are the funniest movies now streaming on Netflix.
27. Cora Bora
Megan Stalter stars in “Cora Bora.”
Credit: Brainstorm Media
If Too Much has you craving more Megan Stalter, you’ll want to catch up with this underseen gem. Directed by Hannah Pearl Utt, Cora Bora centers on the titular musician (played by Stalter), who has left Portland and her girlfriend (Jojo T. Gibbs) behind to pursue her dreams in LA. The couple’s open relationship allows each to explore other connections — or, in Cora’s case, endure an awkward one-night stand with a sexy Flat Earther (Thomas Mann). But when Cora begins to fear that her girlfriend is catching feelings for someone else, it prompts the chaotic bisexual into a hasty homecoming.
In my review out of the film’s SXSW premiere in 2023, I cheered, “Cora Bora proves a sensational cringe comedy, spiked with wicked humor, skin-crawling awkward scenarios, and an ardent — if wounded — heart. Deftly dancing from brash jokes to tender dialogue, Stalter reveals a riveting range and stirring screen presence. Simply put, it’s easy to fall for Cora Bora.” — Kristy Puchko, Entertainment Editor
How to watch: Cora Bora is now streaming on Netflix.
26. Paddington in Peru
We could all use some Paddington in our lives, so why not kick back and enjoy Paddington in Peru? Sure, it’s not the masterpiece that is Paddington 2, but director Dougal Wilson still crafts a charming adventure in its own right in his directorial debut.
SEE ALSO:
‘Paddington in Peru’ review: The movie we need right now
This time around, Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) is headed back to his homeland of deepest, darkest Peru, with the Brown family in tow. In his quest to find his missing Aunt Lucy, he’ll cross paths with a high-energy, guitar-playing nun (Olivia Colman) and a cartoonish, disguise-loving boat captain (Antonio Banderas). Colman and Banderas elevate Paddington’s journey from funny to downright outrageous, proving that there are few things more fun than watching seasoned performers let their freak flags fly. Check out their work and the rest of Paddington in Peru, and see why Mashable Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko called it “the movie we need right now.” — Belen Edwards, Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: Paddington in Peru is now streaming on Netflix.
25. Saturday Night
Credit: Hopper Stone / Sony Pictures Entertainment
Unjustly overlooked at release in the fall of 2024, this frantically funny romp from Juno and Young Adult director Jason Reitman details the 90-minute lead-up to the very first episode of Saturday Night Live in October of 1975. The ensemble cast is packed, with Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, Matt Wood as John Belushi, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, and Kim Matula as Jane Curtin.
Add Gabriel Labelle as Lorne Michaels, the man with the wild and crazy plan himself, and the fact that this movie managed to only be 90 minutes long with all of these characters (plus a dozen more I don’t even have room to list) is a real miracle in itself. Plenty of people do get shafted time-wise — notably, most of the women, which is pretty crappy given the show’s own track record shafting women back in the day — but Saturday Night definitely captures the chaos and hilarious mayhem that Michaels managed to funnel into a comedy revolution. — Jason Adams, Contributing Writer
How to watch: Saturday Night is now streaming on Netflix.
24. Nonnas
Speaking of delicious, this comedy written by Liz Maccie and directed by her husband Stephen Chbosky will have you craving a home-cooked Italian meal.
Inspired by the true story of the restaurant Enoteca Maria, Nonnas stars Vince Vaughn as an average Joe who channels his grief over losing his mother and grandmother into a tantalizing new venture. He uses his inheritance to build a new restaurant in Staten Island, and hires Italian grandmothers (or nonnas) to become the chefs using their family recipes. Personalities clash, but ultimately these strong-willed women come together to create something stupendous.
It’s a feel-good comedy full of love, joy, and laughs.* — K.P.
How to watch: Nonnas is now streaming on Netflix.
23. Heart Eyes
Credit: Christopher Moss
Valentine’s Day gets a horror-comedy makeover in Heart Eyes, from director Josh Ruben (Werewolves Within). The titular slasher only kills on Feb. 14, when they target happy couples in love. This year, the Heart Eyes killer has marketers Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding) in their sights. There’s just one problem: Ally and Jay aren’t a couple, even though a coffee shop meet-cute and undeniable chemistry seem to suggest otherwise. Can these star-crossed acquaintances and definitely not lovers survive the night and convince the Heart Eyes Killer they’re totally platonic?
What follows is a cross between gory slasher and romantic comedy, and if you’re a fan of both genres, chances are you’ll be charmed by Heart Eyes. As Mashable contributor Kimber Myers wrote in her review, “Heart Eyes is a gory good time for those who are likely to swipe right on an off-kilter love story and a horror comedy.” — B.E.
How to watch: Heart Eyes is now streaming on Netflix.
22. Cunk on Life
Comedian Diane Morgan has been gifting the world with her character of Philomena Cunk for a glorious decade and a half now. A dim-witted investigative journalist who butts heads with the real-world leading minds on each subject, Cunk proved to be a one-woman feast of absolute nonsense. The character Cunk started getting her own specials in 2016 with Cunk on Christmas, followed by Cunk on Britain and the epic globe-trotting mockumentary series Cunk on Earth (also streaming on Netflix).
Morgan’s expanded her reach all the way to Cunk on Life, her latest side-splitter that tries to uncover the very meaning of existence itself across its humble 71-minute runtime. Does Cunk succeed? Well, Cunk definitely thinks she does, every damn time. But if not, at least we’ll get to hear some Technotronic in the process, dammit! — J.A.
How to watch: Cunk on Life is now streaming on Netflix.
21. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
Eddie Murphy is back as Axel Foley.
Credit: Netflix
Eddie Murphy returns as wise-cracking Detroit police officer Axel Foley. 30 years after Beverly Hills Cop III, this sensational sequel sees Foley returning to Los Angeles to fight a new foe, reunite with old friends, and reconnect with his estranged daughter.
SEE ALSO:
‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’ review: Netflix’s sequel shouldn’t work and yet…
Reprising their supporting roles are Beverly Hills Cop co-stars John Ashton, Judge Reinhold, Paul Reiser, and Bronson Pinchot. New to the crew is Taylour Paige as Axel’s hard-headed daughter, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a local ally, Nasim Pedrad as a flustered real estate agent, and Kevin Bacon as a smirking antagonist. The sparks will fly. The punchlines hit powerfully. The soundtrack is fire. And just like that, the heat is back on! — K.P.
How to watch: Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is now streaming on Netflix.
20. Between Two Ferns: The Movie
Credit: Adam Rose / Netflix
Zach Galifianakis’ awkward celebrity interview web series Between Two Ferns might not seem like fodder for a full-length movie, but Between Two Ferns: The Movie goes double meta by presenting his success on Funny or Die as an insult to the actor’s intention to host a “serious” interview show. Galifianakis the character sets off to correct the assumption that his original show is a joke by interviewing even more celebrities, like John Cho, Keanu Reeves, Tiffany Haddish, and more. — Alexis Nedd, Senior Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: Between Two Ferns: The Movie is now streaming on Netflix.
19. Do Revenge
Credit: Netflix
Looking for a revenge flick that pays tribute to teen classics like Mean Girls, Heathers, Cruel Intentions, and more? Then check out Do Revenge, a dark comedy sure to join the canon of iconic high school movies. Students Drea (Camila Mendes) and Eleanor (Maya Hawke) couldn’t be more different… apart from the fact that both have major bones to pick with people who ruined their reputations. They decide to team up and execute one another’s revenge plans, which leads down a winding road of morally dubious choices, snappy one-liners, and excellent outfits.
Mendes and Hawke have great chemistry, but it’s Sophie Turner who damn near steals the show in a bit part that simply must be seen to be believed.* — Belen Edwards, Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: Do Revenge is now streaming on Netflix.
SEE ALSO:
Sophie Turner steals Netflix’s ‘Do Revenge’ in 5 outrageous minutes
18. Always Be My Maybe
Credit: Netflix
What if the one who got away got a second chance? Back in the day, Sasha and Marcus were tight as a slap bracelet. But one fumbled night in a sweaty backseat seemed to shatter their future together.
Fifteen years later, she’s a world-renowned chef and he’s — well — he’s working for his dad’s HVAC business and playing with his band on the side. Still, fate arranges for them to reconnect, which could mean Marcus (Randall Park) has a shot to show Sasha (Ali Wong) how he feels. Comedy ensues as the stakes get high when Keanu Reeves crashes the party, being all weird and hot and having the audacity to be Keanu Reeves! This Nahnatchka Khan-helmed laffer also boasts appearances by James Saito, Charlyne Yi, Karan Soni, Daniel Dae Kim, and Michelle Buteau.* — K.P.
How to watch: Always Be My Maybe is now streaming on Netflix.
SEE ALSO:
20 best romantic comedies to fall in love with on Netflix
17. Dolemite Is My Name
Credit: François Duhamel / Netflix
Chronicling the true story of late comedian Rudy Ray Moore — also known as Dolemite — this Eddie Murphy vehicle is worth every minute of viewing.
An outrageous showbiz comedy, Dolemite Is My Name is at once a poignant look at the life of an underdog and an unbelievably good time. With supporting performances by Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Wesley Snipes, Craig Robinson, and more, this biopic offers more beat-for-beat joy than many of its fictional counterparts. Sensational, aspirational, and electric: You’ll love it. — Alison Foreman, Entertainment Reporter
Mashable Top Stories
How to watch: Dolemite Is My Name is now streaming on Netflix.
16. The Polka King
Credit: Netflix
Sometimes true crime can lead to some pitch-perfect dark comedy. This is the case for this outrageous offering, which stars Jack Black as infamous scammer/local celebrity Jan Lewan. Black brings all the rock star panache you need to understand how Lewan could be so beguiling to the Pennsylvanian retirees who surrendered their savings to the self-proclaimed Polka King.
Screenwriters Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky gave this story of fraud and showmanship shape. But they wisely trusted in the local flair of the terrific 2009 documentary The Man Who Would Be Polka King to provide some of the wildest lines of dialogue. Plucking directly from interviews with the friends, family, and victims of Jan Lewan, this comedy feels stranger than fiction but is jaw-droppingly real. Salty supporting turns from Jenny Slate, Jacki Weaver, and Jason Schwartzman bring added fun.* — K.P.
How to watch: The Polka King is now streaming on Netflix.
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Love me like a Polka King
15. The Mitchells vs. The Machines
Credit: Netflix
Sony Pictures Animation has given audiences such daring and dynamic animated movies as Surf’s Up, Hotel Transylvania, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. This zany 2021 release centers on a family who’s battling back the robo-apocalypse with togetherness, internet savviness, and a wall-eyed pug named Monchi (voiced by social media icon Doug the Pug).
The Mitchells’ adventure into chaos begins when daughter Katie (Abbi Jacobson) is poised to go off to college. Desperate for one last family-unifying road trip, her dad (Danny McBride) piles the whole family into his beater of a vehicle, unknowingly charting a fateful route into heroics. Co-directors Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe infuse Katie’s excitable perspective throughout the film by working in internet memes, social media-style reactions, and blitz of bonkers visuals. It’s a bold move that might alienate some viewers but has largely won the acclaim of critics and kiddos.* — K.P.
How to watch: The Mitchells vs. The Machines is now streaming on Netflix.
14. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Credit: Netflix
Writer/director Rian Johnson follows up his critically heralded whodunnit with a sequel that’s even more explosive than Knives Out. Southern gentleman/detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is back, drawling deductions and whipping out witticisms, much to the chagrin of a group of wealthy and conniving friends.
It was supposed to be a murder mystery weekend where homicide was just a game. But when tech scion Miles Bron (Edward Norton) brings together his closest friends and worst enemy, real blood will be spilled, and the game is afoot! Joining in on the comically chaotic fun are Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., and Jessica Henwick. — K.P.
How to watch: Glass Onion is now streaming on Netflix.
SEE ALSO:
All those ‘Glass Onion’ cameos, ranked
13. The Forty-Year-Old Version
Credit: Jeong Park / Netflix © 2020
The Forty-Year-Old Version isn’t just any film about a struggling New York artist, but one about a Black female playwright who’s continually held back from creating something authentic to her perspective. Radha Blank’s autobiographical directorial debut, which she also wrote, produced, and stars in, is a searing, funny, and unabashedly honest look at the compromises Black creatives are pushed to make in a world dominated by whiteness.
A teacher approaching her 40th birthday, Radha (Blank) gets the chance to produce one of her plays — only after she refuses to write a slave musical. But forced to change her vision to appease white audiences, Radha considers a totally different medium to express herself: becoming a rapper. The Forty-Year-Old Version may be one of the most slept-on Netflix originals, and it’s a shame we’ve yet to see another film from Blank since, itself an indictment of an industry that fails to continually platform raw and honest Black storytelling.* — Oliver Whitney, Contributing Writer
How to watch: The Forty-Year-Old Version is now streaming on Netflix.
12. Vampires vs. the Bronx
Credit: Netflix
Want a movie that’s got excitement, comedy, a scorching message about the evils of gentrification, and is a kid-friendly romp? Then take a bite out of Vampires vs. the Bronx.
Oz Rodriguez’s PG-13 horror-comedy centers on Afro-Latino teens who recognize that a flurry of missing person posters and an influx of rich white folks with tote bags means bad news for the neighborhood. Together, they team up Monster Squad-style to take down the bloodsuckers and save their community. With a sharp wit, a warm heart, a rich sense of atmosphere, and an equal appreciation for the Blade movies and ’80s Amblin, Vampires vs. the Bronx is an easy watch full of rewards.* — K.P.
How to watch: Vampires vs. the Bronx is now streaming on Netflix.
11. The Breaker Upperers
This hidden gem comes from New Zealand, the fertile comedy ground that gave us Taika Waititi, Flight of the Conchords, and What We Do in the Shadows. Waititi collaborators Jackie van Beek, James Rolleston, and Jemaine Clement team up for a deeply quirky buddy comedy about two long-time besties with a bonkers — but brilliant — business model.
Need someone to dump your partner so you can avoid a messy confrontation? Call on Jen and Mel (co-writers/co-directors/co-leads van Beek and Madeleine Sami). For a reasonable fee, these fearless Breaker Upperers will impersonate police officers, play pregnant, or even fake your death to help you ghost an ex. Whatever the shenanigans, van Beek and Sami sparkle. Booming with wild humor and big heart, this comedy is guaranteed to leave you cackling.* — K.P.
Where to watch: The Breaker Upperers is now streaming on Netflix.
10. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
Credit: John Wilson / Netflix
With its reputation for wacky musical numbers, the Eurovision Song Contest is ripe for parody. Luckily for Eurovision lovers, the contest gets the send-up it deserves in this gloriously goofy flick starring Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams. They play the Icelandic musical duo Fire Saga, who find themselves in the Eurovision spotlight. There, they discover that the famed competition is a world of cutthroat competitors, glitzy costumes, and many, many bops.
Eurovision Song Contest is full of larger-than-life characters and ridiculous humor, but it’s also teeming with Eurovision references that will have fans laughing and cheering. For every “Jaja Ding Dong,” there’s a joyful Song-A-Long — and both are great! Pair all that with pitch-perfect comedic performances from Ferrell and McAdams, and you have a comedy that will both have you in stitches and win your heart. (Best of all, if you weren’t a Eurovision fanatic before seeing this movie, you’ll definitely be one by the time it ends.)* — B.E.
How to watch: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is now streaming on Netflix.
9. The Thursday Murder Club
Celia Imrie, Helen Mirren, Naomi Ackie, Pierce Brosnan, and Sir Ben Kingsley in “The Thursday Murder Club.”
Credit: Giles Keyte / Netflix
Sir Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, and Celia Imrie bring to life the brilliant pensioners at the heart of Richard Osman’s best-selling novel The Thursday Murder Club.
In the charming retirement village of Cooper’s Chase, a club made up of a former M16 agent, a once-feared union activist, a wise therapist, and a cheerful retired nurse use their lifetimes of skills to crack cold cases. But when fresh blood is spilled in their social circle, the Thursday Murder Club hunts for clues, leading them to spooky settings and dangerous people.
Director Chris Columbus offers a cozy crime thriller that’s sure to delight fans of the book series. And we suspect it’ll hook newcomers too, as his cast dazzles with every quip and daring deduction. — K.P.
How to watch: Thursday Murder Club is now streaming on Netflix.
8. Hit Man
Richard Linklater and Glen Powell reunite for Hit Man, a rom-com that is killer in all sense of the word.
Powell plays Gary Johnson, a college professor whose side gig as an undercover hit man leads to an unexpected meet-cute with would-be client Madison (Andor‘s Adria Arjona). The pair’s connection (and electrifying chemistry) sparks a delightful game of false identities, reinvention, and twisted love that toggles between hilarious, thrilling, and sexy at a moment’s notice. Oh, who am I kidding; sometimes it’s all three at once!* — B.E.
How to watch: Hit Man is now streaming on Netflix.
7. One of Them Days
Credit: Anne Marie Fox / Sony Pictures
Produced by Issa Rae, One of Them Days stars Keke Palmer and SZA as best friends scraping by in Los Angeles — and rent is due! Unfortunately, a shady boyfriend seems to have made off with their payment. If they don’t scramble together enough cash to appease their crooked landlord, aspiring painter Alyssa (SZA) and waitress Dreux (Palmer) will be out on the curb. These inventive girlfriends go through a wild array of hijinks along the way, crossing paths with a vicious romantic rival, a big-mouthed busybody, a ruthless gangster, and Dreux’s muscle-bound crush whose nickname is “Maniac.” As the ticking clock comes closer and closer to climax, you’ll be worn out from cackling.
The script by Syreeta Singleton is crackling with jokes, and director Lawrence Lamont pitches his cast into some grade-A slapstick. While this comedy’s dynamic leading ladies are reason enough to give One of Them Days a watch, they’re bolstered by a supporting cast that includes Katt Williams, Maude Apatow, Janelle James, Gabrielle Dennis, and Dewayne Perkins. — K.P.
How to watch: One of Them Days is now streaming on Netflix.
6. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Credit: Netflix
Our pals Wallace the inventor and his loyal pup Gromit have been running around for nearly four cracking decades now, but their latest adventure (and only their second feature-length film, after 2005’s The Curse of the Were-Rabbit) proves they’ve lost not a whit of their vim and verve. Nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl happily proves to be yet another gut-busting bit of British whimsy from Aardman Animation head Nick Park and his team of clay-playing creatives.
Vengeance Most Fowl sees our cheese-loving duo facing down a familiar foe — the diabolical penguin mastermind Feathers McGraw, who was last seen being sent off to imprisonment in the City Zoo in the classic 1993 short The Wrong Trousers. Hacking into Wallace’s latest invention, a garden gnome robot named Norbot that he’s created to do all of the yard work, Feathers builds himself an army of killer gnomes all programmed to do his bidding. And he wants nothing more than to bid adieu to his nemesis Wallace! — J.A.
How to watch: Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is now streaming on Netflix.
5. Shiva Baby
Some people find this 2020 cringe comedy from writer-director Emma Seligman to be so stressful that it stops being a comedy altogether, to which we give a hearty boo. Sure, it’s one of the most claustrophobic experiences you can have outside of an escape room that’s caught on fire, but Rachel Sennott is a comic genius who spins every moment of horror into gold!
Before the two teamed up again in 2023 for the LOL-worthy Bottoms, Seligman and Sennott gave us this small-scale story of college student Danielle, who is attending a Jewish funeral reception where absolutely everything goes wrong. Sitting shiva is never a party, but Danielle’s parents (a brilliantly funny Fred Melamed and Polly Draper) are hard on her case. Then her ex-girlfriend Maya (an equally funny Molly Gordon) shows up, and that’s awkward. What else could go wrong? Glad you asked! Danielle’s secret side gig as a sugar baby is jeopardized when her main client (Danny Deferrari) shows up with his shiksa wife and their newborn baby. Now throw all of this drama into the smallest three rooms you can imagine, all stuffed with the loudest people eating the driest crackers you have ever seen, and enjoy! — J.A.
How to watch: Shiva Baby is now streaming on Netflix.
4. KPop Demon Hunters
HUNTR/X eats ramen in “KPop Demon Hunters.”
Credit: Netflix
Officially the most popular Netflix original movie of all time, KPop Demon Hunters delivers a little bit of everything: romance, action, comedy, and a totally addictive soundtrack.
The story stars with K-pop trio HUNTR/X, who, when they aren’t making bops like “Golden,” are battling demons to protect the very souls of their fans. But just as they think they’re on the verge of building an impenetrable barrier with their songs, the demons fight back with a boy band of their own. The Saja Boys are comically hot, delivering smooth moves, devious plans, and plenty of slapstick. Plus, they’ve got a tiger, who is cute, creepy, and silly to boot! Whether it’s the martial arts action sequences, the swoon-worthy song-and-dance numbers, or the cheeky sense of humor that’s grabbed fans of all ages, KPop Demon Hunters is sure to thrill. And hey, there’s a sing-along version now too. — K.P.
How to watch: KPop Demon Hunters is now streaming on Netflix.
3. Between the Temples
Filmmaker Nathan Silver has been churning out extremely oddball indie films for the past 15 years without a whole lot of fanfare, but he finally found a sliver of mainstream attention in 2024 with Between the Temples, a tender and relatively straightforward (for him) comedy starring the one-of-a-kind twosome of Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane. Schwartzman plays Ben, a recently widowed cantor at the local synagogue, while Kane plays his former elementary school music teacher Carla, who comes to him after deciding she wants to have the bat mitzvah she didn’t get to have as a child. The two spark, their families clash, and big life lessons are learned. And if you could bottle the off-kilter chemistry between these supreme character actors, you’d have magic, which is just what this movie, singular and sweet, is. — J.A.
How to watch: Between the Temples is now streaming on Netflix.
2. Kneecap
Credit: Helen Sloan / Sony Pictures Classics
Like 8 Mile with way more vowels, Kneecap tells the true life story of the titular band while starring the band members as themselves. The hip-hop trio of Liam Óg “Mo Chara” Ó Hannaidh, Naoise “Móglaí Bap” Ó Cairealláin, and JJ “DJ Próvaí” Ó Dochartaigh portray their own rise from rough-and-tumble beginnings in West Belfast to their place atop the Irish charts, which stands out since they rap in the Irish language, which was well out of favor at the time, having been usurped by the English colonizers. Their music rises on the tide of the language’s popular reclamation, but Kneecap is hardly a linguistics lesson — it’s a hilarious and wildly entertaining drug-fueled riot of anarchic artistic expression. Oh, and Michael Fassbender plays Naoise’s da, which I guess makes him the Kim Basinger of this situation? — J.A.
How to watch: Kneecap is now streaming on Netflix.
1. Parasite
Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite is not just a deeply dark “eat the rich” comedy, it’s also a Best Picture winner. And for good reason.
Co-written and direct by Bong, Parasite centers on an impoverished family, scraping by in a basement apartment in Seoul, South Korea. When son Kim Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) scores a coveted job as the personal tutor to the youngest child of the wealthy Park family, he sees an opportunity for his father (Song Kang-ho), mother (Jang Hye-jin), and sister (Park So-dam) to get in on the payday. It’ll just take some careful strategizing — or, well — flat-out scamming.
Bong and his crackling cast had audiences cackling over these crafty con artists in the film’s first and second acts. However, Parasite isn’t just a class-conflict comedy but also a scathing critique of a capitalist culture that holds up the haves and scorns the have-nots, so things go from dark comedy to just downright dark in the film’s finale. Not for the faint of heart, Parasite is a marvel that’ll have you laughing, gasping, and maybe even crying by its end. — K.P.
How to watch: Parasite is now streaming on Netflix.
* denotes that this blurb appeared in a previous Mashable list.
UPDATE: Jan. 30, 2026, 2:21 p.m. EST This list was originally published on March 26, 2020. It has been updated to reflect the current selection on Netflix.
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![Inside the London hacker house taking a stand against founder burnout | TechCrunch
Six twentysomethings in East London have built what they say is the anti-San Francisco hacker house. The goal is a “holistic improvement in life,” rather than “12 weeks, Demo Day is coming,” Rowan Aldean, 26, explained.
Intrigued, I spent an afternoon visiting the house, meeting its residents, and doing a vibe check. I arrived after Aldean escorted me through the clean sidewalks of a new East London development to where the six-story building stood facing the water.
The house is called the London Island Founder House — or “Lift House” — and Aldean and his wife, Zahraa, 22, an upcoming pharmaceutical research PhD candidate, have lived there since May, just a few months after it officially launched in March. Aldean sold his previous company last year for millions, he said, and now runs an “applied AI” startup that helps companies learn how to deploy agents.
Like all hacker houses, Lift House is part startup workspace, part co-living space. The house is named after both its lift — that is, its elevator — and its mission to uplift tech founders, Aldean said. It’s one of the very few co-living hacker houses to exist in London (compared to San Francisco, where dozens — if not hundreds — are scattered around the city at any given time).
Lift House is a bet that U.K. founders can build successful companies without mimicking the over-the-top hustle culture of Silicon Valley.
Founders have described stories of San Francisco hacker houses illegally running in warehouses, throwing full-on galas, or setting up in a tent or espousing punishing, 72-hour sprints typical of the “996” work culture.
“I don’t expect the performative and over-the-top events will be a thing here,” Aldean said, and pointed to one of London’s most successful AI companies, DeepMind. “They’ve won Nobel prizes and built frontier innovation without any song and dance.”
Instead, Lift House is part of a trend called “Londonmaxxing,” in which founders attempt to optimize everything the London tech scene offers. The London ecosystem feels less showy and less startup bro-y than San Francisco, but its founders share similar ambitions: success, wealth, and market domination. London AI startups have raised billion so far in 2026, out of .7 billion raised by all London startups, according to Dealroom. Six companies have raised more than 0 million: Wayve, Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Recursive, Ineffable Intelligence, and Isomorphic Labs, the latter three of which were founded by DeepMind alumni. The excitement from AI has boosted the morale of the U.K. tech scene, inspiring a new generation of founders, like those in the Lift House, to take big swings.
LIFT TourImage Credits:TechCrunch
Journaling vs. demo day
The timeline for living on Lift House is flexible — some people have stayed for a month; others intend to stay for at least six months. They buy their own groceries, Aldean said, although they often cook together and share ingredients. Cleaning is split among the group. Everyone declined to share information about the rent they pay.
The residents of Lift House aim for a balanced approach toward ambition, each one of them tells me — an almost unheard-of idea by San Francisco startup standards.
On Sundays, the group will journal together, a practice introduced by David Amor, 28, who runs a brain coaching and training company, helping founders and business leaders understand more about their brain and how it can help optimize business performance. The idea of journaling is to help everyone track how much time they spent in nature that week, how well they ate, and how much they moved their bodies.
“I’m eating healthier, working out more, and sleeping more,” Luke, 27, who runs an AI-marketing company, said about living in the house. “I always make sure to have lunch now, which is something that is simple, but I wasn’t doing before I lived here.” (Luke asked that his last name be withheld.) Tuesdays evenings are for volleyball, where the founders play on the house team in a local league.
After dinner on other evenings, Wan Ying L, 25, who just left an AI startup and is working on a new idea, might play the piano in the living room. Sometimes the group plays Catan or visits art exhibitions together.
Presence Plumb, 25, is a tech strategist. She likes to host rooftop dinner parties, serving dishes that reflect the different nationalities in the house — from Iraqi to Spanish — while invited founders, researchers, investors, and operators chat about tech trends and investments.
“It’s a bit calmer, balanced, authentic in a way,” she said of people in the London ecosystem. “They don’t want too much of that only startup tech bro vibe. They want a bit of balance.”
Each founder follows their own schedules for a typical workday. Amor, for example, is up by 8 a.m. and gives himself exactly 30 seconds after waking up before jumping into his morning work. “I have a clear objective of ‘this is what I want to do in the first half of the day, when there’s no distractions.’” After his morning work routine, he takes a cold shower, “because it increases your dopamine by 250% and that gives me that motivation, that spark,” he said.
Wan playing the pianoImage Credits:TechCrunch
Luke, meanwhile, is up at around 8:30. His co-founder, Varun, 27 (who asked that his last name be withheld), typically travels to the Lift House to co-work, and the duo starts work at around 9 a.m. with a team call.
Aldean rarely wakes before 10 a.m. unless something big is happening, like a “crazy angel [investor] call,” he said. When asked what makes this house uniquely British rather than a wellness-focused Silicon Valley founder house, Aldean joked: “Well, we drink tea together like Brits, and in SF folks just drink filtered coffee.” More seriously, he spoke of how British founders face a different kind of pressure than those in the U.S. They must navigate a cultural aversion to risk, an inclination toward humility, and a shame associated with failure. Instead of forgoing sleep for hustle and grind, they deal with what they call the “tall poppy syndrome,” when the media builds one up only to ruthlessly tear them down should they become too successful, investors and founders say. It makes some founders in the ecosystem wary of displaying too many wins.
Still, Luke said London is a strong choice for an early-stage founder: There’s a good network, ample early capital opportunities, and an option for a life outside of tech. In many ways, it is much more like New York culturally for founders than in San Francisco.
“London is so diverse that if you look properly enough, you’ll always find something fun to get involved with,” Amor added, “whether that’s a founder-run club, wellness events, [or going] to jazz nights.”
Luke and Varun write marketing terms on the whiteboard. They stand for top of funnel (TOFU), middle of funnel (MOFU), and bottom of funnel (BOFU).Image Credits:TechCrunch
Luke and Varun largely avoided venture capital funding by taking advantage of the U.K. government’s SEIS/EIS, which is supposed to help attract more angel investments into local startups. “There’s people who will pay basically the same rate of tax if they give us the money versus if they pay income tax,” Luke explained as another reason he liked starting out in London.
Aldean also feels the London ecosystem is less cutthroat than the Valley. He recalls his days living in a hacker house in the Bay — everyone’s desk had to face the wall, and it was heads-down, product-building. He felt the ecosystem, at times, was too willing to gossip, which is apparently done quite differently in the U.K.
“There’s nothing like ‘oh my god did you hear that the CTO just, like, did this,’” Aldean said. “It’s like you’re always worried,” he said, that someone would spread negative stories, especially if it benefited them.
Aldean also thinks London startups, more than Silicon Valley ones, sell into slow-moving large corporations rather than to each other, meaning one could build without having to kiss up or posture to get their peers to like them.
To the selling point, Varun and Luke mentioned another difference between the U.S. and U.K. ecosystem. “It’s a relatively fleeting market,” Varun said of the U.S. “You get quick wins. Here, it’s hard to close a customer, but if they close, they stay with you longer.”
Coming to America
Eventually, though, the road for many U.K. startups goes straight to the U.S.
In the U.K., founders have access to affordable top talent from universities like Oxbridge and a time zone that makes it easier to work with the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and parts of North America. In the U.S., however, they have access to the world’s largest economy and, most importantly, a lot of investors willing to write large checks, from pre-seed to growth stages.
“It’s almost like a factory line in a way,” Varun said. “You start here, and then you expand there or vice versa.”
American investors are also playing a role in luring British talent away from the country. I told the Lift House residents about one startup founder who said a top investor wouldn’t even back the company unless she relocated to the U.S. She ended up doing so, though decided to keep her family based in the U.K. to raise her children.
“We had an investor in Miami who said the same thing,” Luke said of an investor trying to get him and Varun to move to the U.S. “It’s quite a common practice.” He and Varun have already begun their U.S. expansion, and despite loving London, the duo hasn’t ruled out moving to the U.S. to be closer to their customers.
David, who has a brain coaching startup, is the one who introduced journaling into the household. Image Credits:TechCrunch
That’s the tension bubbling beneath not just the U.K.’s tech ecosystem but most of Europe’s. “I work with a lot of people trying to support the European ecosystem more,” Plumb said.
Yet, founders “talk about London; everyone is bullish on the country until they get the opportunity to leave,” Aldean added.
The Lift House lease has about a year left, and there is sentiment in the house to keep it going for as long as they can. After all, there aren’t too many in London, though the city sees many short-term gatherings, like the Solana Hacker House meet-up series. Some of the more public co-living hacker houses are part of a global chain, like the San Francisco-based network The Residency, which expanded into London last year, and BaseJump, which is announcing a London version of its hacker house program soon.
In 2024, two founders tried the opposite version of the Lift House called “The London Founder House,” which Sifted covered under the headline “The people here don’t want work-life balance.” That home is noted as London’s first-ever hacker house, and though it wound down last year, it left an influence through its concept, events, and connected players around the ecosystem. To even be considered for the London Founder House, one had to have raised at least half a million dollars.
For Lift House, prospective residents need to show a hobby outside their companies and an interest in fitness. It’s the same pitch many in the Londonmaxxing ecosystem are using to keep people from leaving: That here one can have it all.
“The culture is to build something that lasts,” Aldean said, “not necessarily burn out chasing a flash.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#London #hacker #house #stand #founder #burnout #TechCrunchLondon,UK](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/LIFT-tour-2.jpg?w=680 "Inside the London hacker house taking a stand against founder burnout | TechCrunch
Six twentysomethings in East London have built what they say is the anti-San Francisco hacker house. The goal is a “holistic improvement in life,” rather than “12 weeks, Demo Day is coming,” Rowan Aldean, 26, explained.
Intrigued, I spent an afternoon visiting the house, meeting its residents, and doing a vibe check. I arrived after Aldean escorted me through the clean sidewalks of a new East London development to where the six-story building stood facing the water.
The house is called the London Island Founder House — or “Lift House” — and Aldean and his wife, Zahraa, 22, an upcoming pharmaceutical research PhD candidate, have lived there since May, just a few months after it officially launched in March. Aldean sold his previous company last year for millions, he said, and now runs an “applied AI” startup that helps companies learn how to deploy agents.
Like all hacker houses, Lift House is part startup workspace, part co-living space. The house is named after both its lift — that is, its elevator — and its mission to uplift tech founders, Aldean said. It’s one of the very few co-living hacker houses to exist in London (compared to San Francisco, where dozens — if not hundreds — are scattered around the city at any given time).
Lift House is a bet that U.K. founders can build successful companies without mimicking the over-the-top hustle culture of Silicon Valley.
Founders have described stories of San Francisco hacker houses illegally running in warehouses, throwing full-on galas, or setting up in a tent or espousing punishing, 72-hour sprints typical of the “996” work culture.
“I don’t expect the performative and over-the-top events will be a thing here,” Aldean said, and pointed to one of London’s most successful AI companies, DeepMind. “They’ve won Nobel prizes and built frontier innovation without any song and dance.”
Instead, Lift House is part of a trend called “Londonmaxxing,” in which founders attempt to optimize everything the London tech scene offers. The London ecosystem feels less showy and less startup bro-y than San Francisco, but its founders share similar ambitions: success, wealth, and market domination. London AI startups have raised billion so far in 2026, out of .7 billion raised by all London startups, according to Dealroom. Six companies have raised more than 0 million: Wayve, Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Recursive, Ineffable Intelligence, and Isomorphic Labs, the latter three of which were founded by DeepMind alumni. The excitement from AI has boosted the morale of the U.K. tech scene, inspiring a new generation of founders, like those in the Lift House, to take big swings.
LIFT TourImage Credits:TechCrunch
Journaling vs. demo day
The timeline for living on Lift House is flexible — some people have stayed for a month; others intend to stay for at least six months. They buy their own groceries, Aldean said, although they often cook together and share ingredients. Cleaning is split among the group. Everyone declined to share information about the rent they pay.
The residents of Lift House aim for a balanced approach toward ambition, each one of them tells me — an almost unheard-of idea by San Francisco startup standards.
On Sundays, the group will journal together, a practice introduced by David Amor, 28, who runs a brain coaching and training company, helping founders and business leaders understand more about their brain and how it can help optimize business performance. The idea of journaling is to help everyone track how much time they spent in nature that week, how well they ate, and how much they moved their bodies.
“I’m eating healthier, working out more, and sleeping more,” Luke, 27, who runs an AI-marketing company, said about living in the house. “I always make sure to have lunch now, which is something that is simple, but I wasn’t doing before I lived here.” (Luke asked that his last name be withheld.) Tuesdays evenings are for volleyball, where the founders play on the house team in a local league.
After dinner on other evenings, Wan Ying L, 25, who just left an AI startup and is working on a new idea, might play the piano in the living room. Sometimes the group plays Catan or visits art exhibitions together.
Presence Plumb, 25, is a tech strategist. She likes to host rooftop dinner parties, serving dishes that reflect the different nationalities in the house — from Iraqi to Spanish — while invited founders, researchers, investors, and operators chat about tech trends and investments.
“It’s a bit calmer, balanced, authentic in a way,” she said of people in the London ecosystem. “They don’t want too much of that only startup tech bro vibe. They want a bit of balance.”
Each founder follows their own schedules for a typical workday. Amor, for example, is up by 8 a.m. and gives himself exactly 30 seconds after waking up before jumping into his morning work. “I have a clear objective of ‘this is what I want to do in the first half of the day, when there’s no distractions.’” After his morning work routine, he takes a cold shower, “because it increases your dopamine by 250% and that gives me that motivation, that spark,” he said.
Wan playing the pianoImage Credits:TechCrunch
Luke, meanwhile, is up at around 8:30. His co-founder, Varun, 27 (who asked that his last name be withheld), typically travels to the Lift House to co-work, and the duo starts work at around 9 a.m. with a team call.
Aldean rarely wakes before 10 a.m. unless something big is happening, like a “crazy angel [investor] call,” he said. When asked what makes this house uniquely British rather than a wellness-focused Silicon Valley founder house, Aldean joked: “Well, we drink tea together like Brits, and in SF folks just drink filtered coffee.” More seriously, he spoke of how British founders face a different kind of pressure than those in the U.S. They must navigate a cultural aversion to risk, an inclination toward humility, and a shame associated with failure. Instead of forgoing sleep for hustle and grind, they deal with what they call the “tall poppy syndrome,” when the media builds one up only to ruthlessly tear them down should they become too successful, investors and founders say. It makes some founders in the ecosystem wary of displaying too many wins.
Still, Luke said London is a strong choice for an early-stage founder: There’s a good network, ample early capital opportunities, and an option for a life outside of tech. In many ways, it is much more like New York culturally for founders than in San Francisco.
“London is so diverse that if you look properly enough, you’ll always find something fun to get involved with,” Amor added, “whether that’s a founder-run club, wellness events, [or going] to jazz nights.”
Luke and Varun write marketing terms on the whiteboard. They stand for top of funnel (TOFU), middle of funnel (MOFU), and bottom of funnel (BOFU).Image Credits:TechCrunch
Luke and Varun largely avoided venture capital funding by taking advantage of the U.K. government’s SEIS/EIS, which is supposed to help attract more angel investments into local startups. “There’s people who will pay basically the same rate of tax if they give us the money versus if they pay income tax,” Luke explained as another reason he liked starting out in London.
Aldean also feels the London ecosystem is less cutthroat than the Valley. He recalls his days living in a hacker house in the Bay — everyone’s desk had to face the wall, and it was heads-down, product-building. He felt the ecosystem, at times, was too willing to gossip, which is apparently done quite differently in the U.K.
“There’s nothing like ‘oh my god did you hear that the CTO just, like, did this,’” Aldean said. “It’s like you’re always worried,” he said, that someone would spread negative stories, especially if it benefited them.
Aldean also thinks London startups, more than Silicon Valley ones, sell into slow-moving large corporations rather than to each other, meaning one could build without having to kiss up or posture to get their peers to like them.
To the selling point, Varun and Luke mentioned another difference between the U.S. and U.K. ecosystem. “It’s a relatively fleeting market,” Varun said of the U.S. “You get quick wins. Here, it’s hard to close a customer, but if they close, they stay with you longer.”
Coming to America
Eventually, though, the road for many U.K. startups goes straight to the U.S.
In the U.K., founders have access to affordable top talent from universities like Oxbridge and a time zone that makes it easier to work with the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and parts of North America. In the U.S., however, they have access to the world’s largest economy and, most importantly, a lot of investors willing to write large checks, from pre-seed to growth stages.
“It’s almost like a factory line in a way,” Varun said. “You start here, and then you expand there or vice versa.”
American investors are also playing a role in luring British talent away from the country. I told the Lift House residents about one startup founder who said a top investor wouldn’t even back the company unless she relocated to the U.S. She ended up doing so, though decided to keep her family based in the U.K. to raise her children.
“We had an investor in Miami who said the same thing,” Luke said of an investor trying to get him and Varun to move to the U.S. “It’s quite a common practice.” He and Varun have already begun their U.S. expansion, and despite loving London, the duo hasn’t ruled out moving to the U.S. to be closer to their customers.
David, who has a brain coaching startup, is the one who introduced journaling into the household. Image Credits:TechCrunch
That’s the tension bubbling beneath not just the U.K.’s tech ecosystem but most of Europe’s. “I work with a lot of people trying to support the European ecosystem more,” Plumb said.
Yet, founders “talk about London; everyone is bullish on the country until they get the opportunity to leave,” Aldean added.
The Lift House lease has about a year left, and there is sentiment in the house to keep it going for as long as they can. After all, there aren’t too many in London, though the city sees many short-term gatherings, like the Solana Hacker House meet-up series. Some of the more public co-living hacker houses are part of a global chain, like the San Francisco-based network The Residency, which expanded into London last year, and BaseJump, which is announcing a London version of its hacker house program soon.
In 2024, two founders tried the opposite version of the Lift House called “The London Founder House,” which Sifted covered under the headline “The people here don’t want work-life balance.” That home is noted as London’s first-ever hacker house, and though it wound down last year, it left an influence through its concept, events, and connected players around the ecosystem. To even be considered for the London Founder House, one had to have raised at least half a million dollars.
For Lift House, prospective residents need to show a hobby outside their companies and an interest in fitness. It’s the same pitch many in the Londonmaxxing ecosystem are using to keep people from leaving: That here one can have it all.
“The culture is to build something that lasts,” Aldean said, “not necessarily burn out chasing a flash.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#London #hacker #house #stand #founder #burnout #TechCrunchLondon,UK")
![Inside the London hacker house taking a stand against founder burnout | TechCrunch
Six twentysomethings in East London have built what they say is the anti-San Francisco hacker house. The goal is a “holistic improvement in life,” rather than “12 weeks, Demo Day is coming,” Rowan Aldean, 26, explained.
Intrigued, I spent an afternoon visiting the house, meeting its residents, and doing a vibe check. I arrived after Aldean escorted me through the clean sidewalks of a new East London development to where the six-story building stood facing the water.
The house is called the London Island Founder House — or “Lift House” — and Aldean and his wife, Zahraa, 22, an upcoming pharmaceutical research PhD candidate, have lived there since May, just a few months after it officially launched in March. Aldean sold his previous company last year for millions, he said, and now runs an “applied AI” startup that helps companies learn how to deploy agents.
Like all hacker houses, Lift House is part startup workspace, part co-living space. The house is named after both its lift — that is, its elevator — and its mission to uplift tech founders, Aldean said. It’s one of the very few co-living hacker houses to exist in London (compared to San Francisco, where dozens — if not hundreds — are scattered around the city at any given time).
Lift House is a bet that U.K. founders can build successful companies without mimicking the over-the-top hustle culture of Silicon Valley.
Founders have described stories of San Francisco hacker houses illegally running in warehouses, throwing full-on galas, or setting up in a tent or espousing punishing, 72-hour sprints typical of the “996” work culture.
“I don’t expect the performative and over-the-top events will be a thing here,” Aldean said, and pointed to one of London’s most successful AI companies, DeepMind. “They’ve won Nobel prizes and built frontier innovation without any song and dance.”
Instead, Lift House is part of a trend called “Londonmaxxing,” in which founders attempt to optimize everything the London tech scene offers. The London ecosystem feels less showy and less startup bro-y than San Francisco, but its founders share similar ambitions: success, wealth, and market domination. London AI startups have raised billion so far in 2026, out of .7 billion raised by all London startups, according to Dealroom. Six companies have raised more than 0 million: Wayve, Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Recursive, Ineffable Intelligence, and Isomorphic Labs, the latter three of which were founded by DeepMind alumni. The excitement from AI has boosted the morale of the U.K. tech scene, inspiring a new generation of founders, like those in the Lift House, to take big swings.
LIFT TourImage Credits:TechCrunch
Journaling vs. demo day
The timeline for living on Lift House is flexible — some people have stayed for a month; others intend to stay for at least six months. They buy their own groceries, Aldean said, although they often cook together and share ingredients. Cleaning is split among the group. Everyone declined to share information about the rent they pay.
The residents of Lift House aim for a balanced approach toward ambition, each one of them tells me — an almost unheard-of idea by San Francisco startup standards.
On Sundays, the group will journal together, a practice introduced by David Amor, 28, who runs a brain coaching and training company, helping founders and business leaders understand more about their brain and how it can help optimize business performance. The idea of journaling is to help everyone track how much time they spent in nature that week, how well they ate, and how much they moved their bodies.
“I’m eating healthier, working out more, and sleeping more,” Luke, 27, who runs an AI-marketing company, said about living in the house. “I always make sure to have lunch now, which is something that is simple, but I wasn’t doing before I lived here.” (Luke asked that his last name be withheld.) Tuesdays evenings are for volleyball, where the founders play on the house team in a local league.
After dinner on other evenings, Wan Ying L, 25, who just left an AI startup and is working on a new idea, might play the piano in the living room. Sometimes the group plays Catan or visits art exhibitions together.
Presence Plumb, 25, is a tech strategist. She likes to host rooftop dinner parties, serving dishes that reflect the different nationalities in the house — from Iraqi to Spanish — while invited founders, researchers, investors, and operators chat about tech trends and investments.
“It’s a bit calmer, balanced, authentic in a way,” she said of people in the London ecosystem. “They don’t want too much of that only startup tech bro vibe. They want a bit of balance.”
Each founder follows their own schedules for a typical workday. Amor, for example, is up by 8 a.m. and gives himself exactly 30 seconds after waking up before jumping into his morning work. “I have a clear objective of ‘this is what I want to do in the first half of the day, when there’s no distractions.’” After his morning work routine, he takes a cold shower, “because it increases your dopamine by 250% and that gives me that motivation, that spark,” he said.
Wan playing the pianoImage Credits:TechCrunch
Luke, meanwhile, is up at around 8:30. His co-founder, Varun, 27 (who asked that his last name be withheld), typically travels to the Lift House to co-work, and the duo starts work at around 9 a.m. with a team call.
Aldean rarely wakes before 10 a.m. unless something big is happening, like a “crazy angel [investor] call,” he said. When asked what makes this house uniquely British rather than a wellness-focused Silicon Valley founder house, Aldean joked: “Well, we drink tea together like Brits, and in SF folks just drink filtered coffee.” More seriously, he spoke of how British founders face a different kind of pressure than those in the U.S. They must navigate a cultural aversion to risk, an inclination toward humility, and a shame associated with failure. Instead of forgoing sleep for hustle and grind, they deal with what they call the “tall poppy syndrome,” when the media builds one up only to ruthlessly tear them down should they become too successful, investors and founders say. It makes some founders in the ecosystem wary of displaying too many wins.
Still, Luke said London is a strong choice for an early-stage founder: There’s a good network, ample early capital opportunities, and an option for a life outside of tech. In many ways, it is much more like New York culturally for founders than in San Francisco.
“London is so diverse that if you look properly enough, you’ll always find something fun to get involved with,” Amor added, “whether that’s a founder-run club, wellness events, [or going] to jazz nights.”
Luke and Varun write marketing terms on the whiteboard. They stand for top of funnel (TOFU), middle of funnel (MOFU), and bottom of funnel (BOFU).Image Credits:TechCrunch
Luke and Varun largely avoided venture capital funding by taking advantage of the U.K. government’s SEIS/EIS, which is supposed to help attract more angel investments into local startups. “There’s people who will pay basically the same rate of tax if they give us the money versus if they pay income tax,” Luke explained as another reason he liked starting out in London.
Aldean also feels the London ecosystem is less cutthroat than the Valley. He recalls his days living in a hacker house in the Bay — everyone’s desk had to face the wall, and it was heads-down, product-building. He felt the ecosystem, at times, was too willing to gossip, which is apparently done quite differently in the U.K.
“There’s nothing like ‘oh my god did you hear that the CTO just, like, did this,’” Aldean said. “It’s like you’re always worried,” he said, that someone would spread negative stories, especially if it benefited them.
Aldean also thinks London startups, more than Silicon Valley ones, sell into slow-moving large corporations rather than to each other, meaning one could build without having to kiss up or posture to get their peers to like them.
To the selling point, Varun and Luke mentioned another difference between the U.S. and U.K. ecosystem. “It’s a relatively fleeting market,” Varun said of the U.S. “You get quick wins. Here, it’s hard to close a customer, but if they close, they stay with you longer.”
Coming to America
Eventually, though, the road for many U.K. startups goes straight to the U.S.
In the U.K., founders have access to affordable top talent from universities like Oxbridge and a time zone that makes it easier to work with the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and parts of North America. In the U.S., however, they have access to the world’s largest economy and, most importantly, a lot of investors willing to write large checks, from pre-seed to growth stages.
“It’s almost like a factory line in a way,” Varun said. “You start here, and then you expand there or vice versa.”
American investors are also playing a role in luring British talent away from the country. I told the Lift House residents about one startup founder who said a top investor wouldn’t even back the company unless she relocated to the U.S. She ended up doing so, though decided to keep her family based in the U.K. to raise her children.
“We had an investor in Miami who said the same thing,” Luke said of an investor trying to get him and Varun to move to the U.S. “It’s quite a common practice.” He and Varun have already begun their U.S. expansion, and despite loving London, the duo hasn’t ruled out moving to the U.S. to be closer to their customers.
David, who has a brain coaching startup, is the one who introduced journaling into the household. Image Credits:TechCrunch
That’s the tension bubbling beneath not just the U.K.’s tech ecosystem but most of Europe’s. “I work with a lot of people trying to support the European ecosystem more,” Plumb said.
Yet, founders “talk about London; everyone is bullish on the country until they get the opportunity to leave,” Aldean added.
The Lift House lease has about a year left, and there is sentiment in the house to keep it going for as long as they can. After all, there aren’t too many in London, though the city sees many short-term gatherings, like the Solana Hacker House meet-up series. Some of the more public co-living hacker houses are part of a global chain, like the San Francisco-based network The Residency, which expanded into London last year, and BaseJump, which is announcing a London version of its hacker house program soon.
In 2024, two founders tried the opposite version of the Lift House called “The London Founder House,” which Sifted covered under the headline “The people here don’t want work-life balance.” That home is noted as London’s first-ever hacker house, and though it wound down last year, it left an influence through its concept, events, and connected players around the ecosystem. To even be considered for the London Founder House, one had to have raised at least half a million dollars.
For Lift House, prospective residents need to show a hobby outside their companies and an interest in fitness. It’s the same pitch many in the Londonmaxxing ecosystem are using to keep people from leaving: That here one can have it all.
“The culture is to build something that lasts,” Aldean said, “not necessarily burn out chasing a flash.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#London #hacker #house #stand #founder #burnout #TechCrunchLondon,UK](https://i3.wp.com/techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/LIFT-tour-2.jpg?w=680&ssl=1 "Inside the London hacker house taking a stand against founder burnout | TechCrunch
Six twentysomethings in East London have built what they say is the anti-San Francisco hacker house. The goal is a “holistic improvement in life,” rather than “12 weeks, Demo Day is coming,” Rowan Aldean, 26, explained.
Intrigued, I spent an afternoon visiting the house, meeting its residents, and doing a vibe check. I arrived after Aldean escorted me through the clean sidewalks of a new East London development to where the six-story building stood facing the water.
The house is called the London Island Founder House — or “Lift House” — and Aldean and his wife, Zahraa, 22, an upcoming pharmaceutical research PhD candidate, have lived there since May, just a few months after it officially launched in March. Aldean sold his previous company last year for millions, he said, and now runs an “applied AI” startup that helps companies learn how to deploy agents.
Like all hacker houses, Lift House is part startup workspace, part co-living space. The house is named after both its lift — that is, its elevator — and its mission to uplift tech founders, Aldean said. It’s one of the very few co-living hacker houses to exist in London (compared to San Francisco, where dozens — if not hundreds — are scattered around the city at any given time).
Lift House is a bet that U.K. founders can build successful companies without mimicking the over-the-top hustle culture of Silicon Valley.
Founders have described stories of San Francisco hacker houses illegally running in warehouses, throwing full-on galas, or setting up in a tent or espousing punishing, 72-hour sprints typical of the “996” work culture.
“I don’t expect the performative and over-the-top events will be a thing here,” Aldean said, and pointed to one of London’s most successful AI companies, DeepMind. “They’ve won Nobel prizes and built frontier innovation without any song and dance.”
Instead, Lift House is part of a trend called “Londonmaxxing,” in which founders attempt to optimize everything the London tech scene offers. The London ecosystem feels less showy and less startup bro-y than San Francisco, but its founders share similar ambitions: success, wealth, and market domination. London AI startups have raised billion so far in 2026, out of .7 billion raised by all London startups, according to Dealroom. Six companies have raised more than 0 million: Wayve, Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Recursive, Ineffable Intelligence, and Isomorphic Labs, the latter three of which were founded by DeepMind alumni. The excitement from AI has boosted the morale of the U.K. tech scene, inspiring a new generation of founders, like those in the Lift House, to take big swings.
LIFT TourImage Credits:TechCrunch
Journaling vs. demo day
The timeline for living on Lift House is flexible — some people have stayed for a month; others intend to stay for at least six months. They buy their own groceries, Aldean said, although they often cook together and share ingredients. Cleaning is split among the group. Everyone declined to share information about the rent they pay.
The residents of Lift House aim for a balanced approach toward ambition, each one of them tells me — an almost unheard-of idea by San Francisco startup standards.
On Sundays, the group will journal together, a practice introduced by David Amor, 28, who runs a brain coaching and training company, helping founders and business leaders understand more about their brain and how it can help optimize business performance. The idea of journaling is to help everyone track how much time they spent in nature that week, how well they ate, and how much they moved their bodies.
“I’m eating healthier, working out more, and sleeping more,” Luke, 27, who runs an AI-marketing company, said about living in the house. “I always make sure to have lunch now, which is something that is simple, but I wasn’t doing before I lived here.” (Luke asked that his last name be withheld.) Tuesdays evenings are for volleyball, where the founders play on the house team in a local league.
After dinner on other evenings, Wan Ying L, 25, who just left an AI startup and is working on a new idea, might play the piano in the living room. Sometimes the group plays Catan or visits art exhibitions together.
Presence Plumb, 25, is a tech strategist. She likes to host rooftop dinner parties, serving dishes that reflect the different nationalities in the house — from Iraqi to Spanish — while invited founders, researchers, investors, and operators chat about tech trends and investments.
“It’s a bit calmer, balanced, authentic in a way,” she said of people in the London ecosystem. “They don’t want too much of that only startup tech bro vibe. They want a bit of balance.”
Each founder follows their own schedules for a typical workday. Amor, for example, is up by 8 a.m. and gives himself exactly 30 seconds after waking up before jumping into his morning work. “I have a clear objective of ‘this is what I want to do in the first half of the day, when there’s no distractions.’” After his morning work routine, he takes a cold shower, “because it increases your dopamine by 250% and that gives me that motivation, that spark,” he said.
Wan playing the pianoImage Credits:TechCrunch
Luke, meanwhile, is up at around 8:30. His co-founder, Varun, 27 (who asked that his last name be withheld), typically travels to the Lift House to co-work, and the duo starts work at around 9 a.m. with a team call.
Aldean rarely wakes before 10 a.m. unless something big is happening, like a “crazy angel [investor] call,” he said. When asked what makes this house uniquely British rather than a wellness-focused Silicon Valley founder house, Aldean joked: “Well, we drink tea together like Brits, and in SF folks just drink filtered coffee.” More seriously, he spoke of how British founders face a different kind of pressure than those in the U.S. They must navigate a cultural aversion to risk, an inclination toward humility, and a shame associated with failure. Instead of forgoing sleep for hustle and grind, they deal with what they call the “tall poppy syndrome,” when the media builds one up only to ruthlessly tear them down should they become too successful, investors and founders say. It makes some founders in the ecosystem wary of displaying too many wins.
Still, Luke said London is a strong choice for an early-stage founder: There’s a good network, ample early capital opportunities, and an option for a life outside of tech. In many ways, it is much more like New York culturally for founders than in San Francisco.
“London is so diverse that if you look properly enough, you’ll always find something fun to get involved with,” Amor added, “whether that’s a founder-run club, wellness events, [or going] to jazz nights.”
Luke and Varun write marketing terms on the whiteboard. They stand for top of funnel (TOFU), middle of funnel (MOFU), and bottom of funnel (BOFU).Image Credits:TechCrunch
Luke and Varun largely avoided venture capital funding by taking advantage of the U.K. government’s SEIS/EIS, which is supposed to help attract more angel investments into local startups. “There’s people who will pay basically the same rate of tax if they give us the money versus if they pay income tax,” Luke explained as another reason he liked starting out in London.
Aldean also feels the London ecosystem is less cutthroat than the Valley. He recalls his days living in a hacker house in the Bay — everyone’s desk had to face the wall, and it was heads-down, product-building. He felt the ecosystem, at times, was too willing to gossip, which is apparently done quite differently in the U.K.
“There’s nothing like ‘oh my god did you hear that the CTO just, like, did this,’” Aldean said. “It’s like you’re always worried,” he said, that someone would spread negative stories, especially if it benefited them.
Aldean also thinks London startups, more than Silicon Valley ones, sell into slow-moving large corporations rather than to each other, meaning one could build without having to kiss up or posture to get their peers to like them.
To the selling point, Varun and Luke mentioned another difference between the U.S. and U.K. ecosystem. “It’s a relatively fleeting market,” Varun said of the U.S. “You get quick wins. Here, it’s hard to close a customer, but if they close, they stay with you longer.”
Coming to America
Eventually, though, the road for many U.K. startups goes straight to the U.S.
In the U.K., founders have access to affordable top talent from universities like Oxbridge and a time zone that makes it easier to work with the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and parts of North America. In the U.S., however, they have access to the world’s largest economy and, most importantly, a lot of investors willing to write large checks, from pre-seed to growth stages.
“It’s almost like a factory line in a way,” Varun said. “You start here, and then you expand there or vice versa.”
American investors are also playing a role in luring British talent away from the country. I told the Lift House residents about one startup founder who said a top investor wouldn’t even back the company unless she relocated to the U.S. She ended up doing so, though decided to keep her family based in the U.K. to raise her children.
“We had an investor in Miami who said the same thing,” Luke said of an investor trying to get him and Varun to move to the U.S. “It’s quite a common practice.” He and Varun have already begun their U.S. expansion, and despite loving London, the duo hasn’t ruled out moving to the U.S. to be closer to their customers.
David, who has a brain coaching startup, is the one who introduced journaling into the household. Image Credits:TechCrunch
That’s the tension bubbling beneath not just the U.K.’s tech ecosystem but most of Europe’s. “I work with a lot of people trying to support the European ecosystem more,” Plumb said.
Yet, founders “talk about London; everyone is bullish on the country until they get the opportunity to leave,” Aldean added.
The Lift House lease has about a year left, and there is sentiment in the house to keep it going for as long as they can. After all, there aren’t too many in London, though the city sees many short-term gatherings, like the Solana Hacker House meet-up series. Some of the more public co-living hacker houses are part of a global chain, like the San Francisco-based network The Residency, which expanded into London last year, and BaseJump, which is announcing a London version of its hacker house program soon.
In 2024, two founders tried the opposite version of the Lift House called “The London Founder House,” which Sifted covered under the headline “The people here don’t want work-life balance.” That home is noted as London’s first-ever hacker house, and though it wound down last year, it left an influence through its concept, events, and connected players around the ecosystem. To even be considered for the London Founder House, one had to have raised at least half a million dollars.
For Lift House, prospective residents need to show a hobby outside their companies and an interest in fitness. It’s the same pitch many in the Londonmaxxing ecosystem are using to keep people from leaving: That here one can have it all.
“The culture is to build something that lasts,” Aldean said, “not necessarily burn out chasing a flash.”
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