Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

"It took God six days to create the heavens and the earth...and Monty Python ninety minutes to screw it up."

1983 1h 47m EN

👍

7.3

SOLID

🍅

86%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.5

IMDB

★7.3TMDB · 2,190🍅86%Rotten Tomatoes●72Metacritic★7.5IMDB · 129,569

Comedy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Life's questions are 'answered' in a series of outrageous vignettes, beginning with a staid London insurance company which transforms before our eyes into a pirate ship. Then there's the National Health doctors who try to claim a healthy liver from a still-living donor. The world's most voracious glutton brings the art of vomiting to new heights before his spectacular demise.

“It took God six days to create the heavens and the earth...and Monty Python ninety minutes to screw it up.”

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Cast

Terry Gilliam
Various Roles
Graham Chapman
Various Roles
John Cleese
Various Roles
Eric Idle
Various Roles
Terry Jones
Various Roles
Michael Palin
Various Roles
Carol Cleveland
Various Roles
Simon Jones
Cedric

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Terry Jones
Writers: Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin
Languages: English
Countries: United Kingdom

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 4.7× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

43 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Terry Jones, shot by Peter Hannan. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by John Du Prez. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Julian Doyle shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Terry Gilliam and Graham Chapman and John Cleese carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "It took God six days to create the heavens and the earth...and Monty Python ninety minutes to screw it up.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0085959 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Terry Jones directs. Peter Hannan behind the camera. John Du Prez scores. Julian Doyle cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United Kingdom. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Made its money back 4.7× over at the box office.
243 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Directed by Terry Jones, shot by Peter Hannan. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by John Du Prez. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Julian Doyle shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Terry Gilliam and Graham Chapman and John Cleese carry the top of the cast.
7Marketing tagline: "It took God six days to create the heavens and the earth...and Monty Python ninety minutes to screw it up.".
8IMDB entry: tt0085959 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Classified under 10 themes, including "sense of life", "comedian", "satire", "sketch".
10Released under 10 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Peter Hannan
Original score: John Du Prez
Editing: Julian Doyle
Production design: Harry Lange
Costume design: James Acheson
Makeup / hair: Mary Hillman
Runtime: 107 min · 1h 47m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $9,000,000
Box office: $42,749,697
Return: 475% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)
Rotten Tomatoes: 86% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 72/100
IMDB rating: 7.5/10 · 129,569 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award1 win & 2 nominations total

Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Terry Jones

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

Gimly2019-04-12
★ 6/10
Doesn't hold up as well as some of Monty Python's other work, but there's enough classic moments in here to make it worthwhile watching. Final rating:★★★ - I liked it. Would personally recommend you give it a go.
Filipe Manuel Neto2023-05-08
★ 4/10
I expected much more: this film is a shadow of what it should have been. I think it's redundant to say what everyone already knows: the Monty Python represents the pinnacle of British humor, and if each of those comedians is excellent alone, seeing them together is always an added bonus. This film, however, is a late work by the group, when each of them was starting to have a solo career and the group's notoriety was consolidated. There are incredible partnerships in the artistic world, and if we think about it, we will think of huge music bands, television series or troupes of actors that worked incredibly well and were successful for a certain time. The issue is that many of them did not know how to harmonize a joint existence with the growing commitments of individual agendas. And I think that's what happened with Python, and that helped complicate this project. The film makes us laugh, it has some good moments, but it is a shadow if we try to compare it to “The Holy Grail”, for example. That's the crux of the matter: it's not bad, but it should have been much better, considering the talent of those involved! For me, a good part of the problem comes from the fact that it is a succession of humorous sketches with almost no obvious correlation between them. We can admit that in a TV comedy show, it is done routinely, and it works very well. In a film, greater cohesion, unity and homogeneity are expected. It's not an unbreakable rule, but it was an expectation I had. Another problem with this film is the quality of the humor. We already know that the humor has more puerile moments and others that are frankly acidic, but the film resorts too much to easy laughter and simplistic and unrefined humor: a man who is condemned to death and chooses to fall off a cliff after being chased by naked women; an enormously obese man who, in a fancy restaurant, vomits everything around him and eats a regimental dose of food; a sex education class for totally naive boys (something impossible to believe, even considering the time when the film was made) and with the right to practical and very visual exemplification of the act in the classroom... what's the funny in all this? As I said, the movie has some good moments. I loved the delivery room sketch, I think it's an absolutely delicious sarcasm and that it still works as a critique of the general state of public health services. I also liked Crimson Insurance, which is nothing more than a gigantic parody of Errol Flynn's piracy films, especially “Sea Hawk”, but which has a sympathetic touch and a critique of globalization and unbridled capitalism. Much less pleasant, but equally hilarious, was the huge musical sketch of Irish Catholics, stuffed to the bone with political incorrectness and with very accurate stings to the rejection discourse that the Catholic Church was maintaining with regard to contraceptive methods.
CinemaSerf2025-02-25
★ 6/10
Well, I suppose if anyone was ever going to be able to get to grips with the meaning of life, it was going to be the “Monty Python” lads but for me their brand of comedy never really worked. This starts with it’s equivalent of a B-reel: a bunch of geriatric insurance processors who react with unexpected violence when one of their number is fired. Next thing their building is a weapon of war wreaking havoc on the glittering world of a-personal commercialism! It’s quite entertaining how these folks intermingle “Spartacus” into the plot as they cannibalise everything from the ceiling fan to the filing cabinet to arm themselves. Thence to the main feature - and that starts with a stinging swing at the monetisation of life, right from the process of birth followed by a sarcastic critique on the attitudes to family planning of Roman Catholics with their sacred sperm! That sticky wicket starts us off through a cycle of education and onto the thing man does best: make war. This is maybe the funniest part as they have to cart around an officer who has a bit of a sore leg! Thereafter it begins to strain a little and descends too much into the realms of the vulgar. Perhaps songs about the penis raised a titter in the 1960s but in 1983 they are less potent, as is the sight of a large gent over-indulging then spewing all over the place. Finally, the man with the scythe turns up to herald the final chapter and convey everyone to a perpetual existence of tinsel and mince pies. It has it’s moments and at times it successfully uses exaggerated scenarios to provide quite a witty observation on just how mundanity governs pretty much all we do from cradle to grave, but it misses more than it hits for me. There’s no doubt it’s innovative and the assessment of the human condition quite apt, but the songs really do border on the puerile and for me it just all ran out of puff.