There is not a single joke, sight-gag or one-liner in Monty Python's Life of Brian that will not forever burn itself into the viewer's memory as being just as funny as it is possible to be, but--extraordinarily--almost every indestructibly hilarious scene also serves a dual purpose, making this one of the most consistently sustained film satires ever made. Like all great satire, the Pythons not only attack and vilify their targets (the bigotry and hypocrisy of organised religion and politics) supremely well, they also propose an alternative: be an individual, think for yourself, don't be led by others. "You've all got to work it out for yourselves", cries Brian in a key moment. "Yes, we've all got to work it our for ourselves", the crowd reply en masse. Two thousand years later, in a world still blighted by religious zealots, Brian's is still a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Aside from being a neat spoof on the Hollywood epic, it's also almost incidentally one of the most realistic on-screen depictions of the ancient world--instead of treating their characters as posturing historical stereotypes, the Pythons realised what no sword 'n' sandal epic ever has: that people are all the same, no matter what period of history they live in. People always have and always will bicker, lie, cheat, swear, conceal cowardice with bravado (like Reg, leader of the People's Front of Judea), abuse power (like Pontius Pilate), blindly follow the latest fads and giggle at silly things ("Biggus Dickus"). In the end, Life of Brian teaches us that the only way for a despairing individual to cope in a world of idiocy and hypocrisy is to always look on the bright side of life.

On the DVD: Life of Brian returns to Region 2 DVD in a decent widescreen anamorphic print with Dolby 5.1 sound--neither are exactly revelatory, but at least it's an improvement on the previous release, which was, shockingly, pan & scan. The 50-minute BBC documentary, "The Pythons", was filmed mainly on location in 1979 and isn't especially remarkable or insightful (a new retrospective would have been appreciated). There are trailers for this movie, as well as Holy Grail plus three other non-Python movies. There's no commentary track, sadly. --Mark Walker

If you want to see something that really shows up the ludicrousness of the so called gospels this is it and side splittingly hilarious too.

I love Monty Python humour, but this film was completly ruined by the almost constant stream of swearing, could not finish the film

I own this dvd and i thought it was hilarious,this movie did make a lot of people unhappy. 'i still think this is a great film today. I wasn't interested in this film until my two friends brought it up in a film discussion, so i thought i should see it for myself so if you want to see this just watch it you wont be dissapointed.

Life of Brian is brilliant, gut busting, wee yourself laughing sort of film. It followes Brian of Nazerith played by Graham Chapman who joins a group of people disloyal to the Romans, after graffiting over the Roman's property he is on the run, while hiding he ends up in front of people and is forced to preach causing him to be thought of as the messiah. The film is ledgendary for many scenes partically 'Always look on the bright side of life' but when you watch it you'll find every scene is a treat and extremly funny.

How sad to see a new repackaging of this movie, and STILL no inclusion of Gilliam's "Don The Cockroach" and "Christmas Cards" animations, or "Away From It All", the utterly brilliant spoof of every boring travelogue short we cinemagoers were forced to endure back in those days. Very, very sad. Fortunately a very kind and generous soul on UKNova has provided them in an unofficial upload and I thoroughly recommend every diehard Python fan to source these, and to play them in the order I've mentioned them above before viewing the movie. This is the way the movie was made to be seen. Watch the newly released deleted scenes after the feature.