10 Best Life of Brian Moments

Life of Brian, the anarchic and controversial 1979 Biblical comedy from Monty Python is quite rightly hailed as one of the funniest films of all time.

Despite being banned in several countries and many more cities for misjudged charges of blasphemy and prompting a famous TV debate with a Bishop, the film featuring the 6 Pythons – Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones – playing 40 colourful roles between them, and performing a hugely quotable, gag-laden script and inventive comic sketches aplenty, has endured over four and a half decades.

Many of the most ardent Brian fans will passionately disagree on which moments stand out most vividly. This Movie List aims to please the majority of the Python fanbase, or at least prompt a chuckle or two as we remember some of our favourite gags from a movie so many of us know by heart. It would be almost impossible to include every memorable scene or repeatable one-liner, but we’ve done our best to whittle them down. So, without further ado, let’s count down The Film Magazine’s picks for the 10 Best Life of Brian moments.

Honourable mention: Ex-Leper

Michael Palin plays a beggar whose affliction with leprosy was miraculously cured by Jesus, and he’s not too happy about it. Asking Brian to “spare a shekel for an ex-leper”, he regales him with how he used to make a living and begrudges Mr Christ (whose heart was probably in the right place) for curing him of an incurable disease and in so doing robbing him of his livelihood. There really is no pleasing some people.

10. Jail Scene

“You lucky bastard!”

Following his capture by the Romans, Brian (Graham Chapman) is thrown into jail with another prisoner named Ben (Michael Palin) who isn’t letting being chained high on the wall stifle his chattiness.

In a real lesson in humility, at one of his lowest points after being beaten and spat at by the Romans (“they must think the sun shines out of your arse”), Brian becomes more desperate for the jailor to come back as he is forced to listen to his cell mate’s ramblings. In a classic example of Stockholm Syndrome, Ben waxes lyrical about what Brian has been put through, recounting his tortuous five year sentence that only marginally improved when the Romans finally hung him the right way up just the day before.

A riff on Monty Python’s famous “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch of misery one-upmanship, the dark humour and expectation subversion make this fairly simple scene stand out. 

Recommended for you: The Fine Art of Black Comedy or Why It’s OK to Laugh When We Shouldn’t

9. The Stoning

“Look, I don’t think it ought to be blasphemy, just saying Jehovah.”

Brian and his mum (Terry Jones, disturbingly convincing as a middle-aged woman) go to the stoning of a local criminal for their afternoon’s entertainment. Stopping only briefly to buy a beard for Brian’s mum (women aren’t allowed to spectate the violence), they join the eager crowd.

As the justice (John Cleese) addresses the baying audience and reads out the unforgivable crime committed by Matthias, Son of Deuteronomy of Gath (John Young), we realise he is about to be killed for praising his wife’s cooking. “That halibut was good enough for Jehovah” is considered blasphemous, enough even to prompt an early stone throw.

After sending the suspiciously high-voiced culprit to the back of the line, the official inadvertently kick-starts a chaotic chain of events, where stones are thrown every time someone says the offending “J” word even as he tries to explain the rules of this cruel and unusual execution and regain control, eventually receiving a massive boulder dropped on him for his trouble.

This is one of a handful of scenes in Life of Brian that might be considered in poor taste to modern audiences, especially with some countries still handing out such levels of capital punishment for minor crimes, but the absurd extremes the scene goes to, and Cleese’s character’s rapid unravelling, ensure it remains funny.

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