Underplayed Gems

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life poster
Directed by
Terry Jones
Genre
comedy film, musical film
Country
United Kingdom
Runtime
1h 52m
Rated
R
Rating
7.3 of 10 from 2,127 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like thisWatch the trailer

or watch the trailer on YouTube

How it feels

This comedy film is a series of sketches about different stages of human life from birth to death. It jumps between jokes about sex, religion, and mortality without one clear story.

chaoticabsurdirreverentmusicalsketch-likenonsensicalwhimsicalsatirical

What happens

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, also known simply as The Meaning of Life, is a 1983 British musical sketch comedy film written and performed by the Monty Python troupe, directed by Terry Jones. The Meaning of Life was the last feature film to star all six Python members before the death of Graham Chapman in 1989. Unlike Holy Grail and Life of Brian, the film's two predecessors, which each told a single, more-or-less coherent story, The Meaning of Life returned to the sketch format of the troupe's original television series and their first film from twelve years earlier, And Now for Something Completely Different, loosely structured as a series of comic sketches about the various stages of life. It was accompanied by the short film The Crimson Permanent Assurance. Released on 23 June 1983 in the United Kingdom, The Meaning of Life was not as acclaimed as its predecessors, but was still well received critically and was a minor box office success; the film grossed almost $43 million against a $9 million budget. It was screened at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. The film appears in a 2010 list of the top 20 cult films published in The Boston Globe. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.