Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)

All Critics (61) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (72) | Rotten (3) | DVD (44)

Grail is as funny as a movie can get, but it is also a tough-minded picture -- as outraged about the human propensity for violence as it is outrageous in its attack on that propensity.

March 29, 2011 Full Review | Comment

Richard Schickel

TIME Magazine

Top Critic

Silly, sophomoric, and slapped together -- but would you want it any other way?

March 29, 2011 Full Review | Comment

Dave Kehr

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Monty Python's Flying Circus, the British comedy group which gained fame via BBC-TV, send-up Arthurian legend, performed in whimsical fashion with Graham Chapman an effective straight man as King Arthur.

September 4, 2008 Full Review | Comment

Variety Staff

Variety

Top Critic

A marvelously particular kind of lunatic endeavor.

May 9, 2005 Full Review | Comment

New York Times

Top Critic

Holy Grail suffers from the same syndrome that afflicts many of these restored classics: It is better remembered than actually seen.

July 19, 2003 Comments (28)

Bruce Newman

San Jose Mercury News

Top Critic

For all its shenanigans, Monty Python and the Holy Grail has a sense of humor that is intellectual, even academic, at heart.

August 15, 2002 Full Review | Comment

Kevin Thomas

Los Angeles Times

Top Critic

A comedy classic that only misses out on the Python canon's top spot because the talented swines also made Life Of Brian.

March 29, 2011 Full Review | Comment

Film4

There's something about feature films that brings out the best in the Pythons. The occasional indulgence of the TV series is replaced by a more focused approach which wrings every conceivable joke out of a given subject.

March 29, 2011 Full Review | Comment

Rob Fraser

Empire Magazine

A zany, hysterically funny, and sometimes brilliant if sometimes sophomoric send-up of every medieval movie ever made.

March 29, 2011 Full Review | Comment

TV Guide's Movie Guide

This has to be one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.

April 29, 2009 Full Review | Comment

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

Nonstop hilarity for families; some bawdy humor.

November 1, 2007 Full Review | Comment

Sandie Angulo Chen

Common Sense Media

... contains just about everything from the previous releases and a little bit more ....

July 10, 2007 Full Review | Comment

Felix Gonzalez Jr.

DVD Review

Troupe members Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones helmed this feature, bringing to it a visual style that is both cinematic and outrageously surreal.

July 10, 2007 Full Review | Comment

Felix Gonzalez Jr.

DVD Review

Thirty-one years, plus well over a decade since I was abruptly introduced to the film. It is, as it was then, extraordinary.

December 1, 2006 Full Review | Comment

Arthur Ryel-Lindsey

Slant Magazine

A wonderful charm filters through these almost collegiate efforts, as if these underfunded Brits, in doing their best, did it better.

December 1, 2006 Full Review | Comment

Arthur Ryel-Lindsey

Slant Magazine

It's still one of the funniest, silliest and all-out strangest films you'll ever see. Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.

October 7, 2006 Full Review | Comment

Jason Zingale

Bullz-Eye.com

Did we really need another version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail? No. But visual upgrades are always appreciated, and we got one here.

October 1, 2006 Full Review | Comment

James Plath

Movie Metropolis

I laughed so hard I thought I would stop breathing.

August 12, 2006 Full Review | Comment

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Combustible Celluloid

Thirty-one years after its release, this remains my favorite Python feature, and you probably already know if it's yours as well.

July 20, 2006 Comment

Andy Klein

Los Angeles CityBeat

Python's delightful and, on the whole, consistent reductio ad absurdum of the Grail legend.

June 24, 2006 Full Review | Comment

Derek Adams

Time Out

• 1. Sir Bedevere: Well, now, uh, Launcelot, Galahad, and I, wait until nightfall, and then leap out of the rabbit, taking the French by surprise - not only by surprise, but totally unarmed!
  – Submitted by Brianna E (2 months ago)
• 1. Dennis: Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.
  – Submitted by Brianna E (2 months ago)
• 1. King Arthur: I am your king.
  2. Dennis's Mother: Well I didn't vote for you.
  3. King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
  4. Dennis's Mother: Well how'd you become king then?
  5. King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king.
  6. Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
  – Submitted by Brianna E (2 months ago)
• 1. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: Who goes there?
  2. King Arthur: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England!
  3. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: Pull the other one!
  4. King Arthur: I am, and this is my trusty servant Patsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of knights who will join me in my court at Camelot. I must speak with your lord and master.
  5. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: What? Ridden on a horse?
  6. King Arthur: Yes!
  7. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: You're using coconuts!
  8. King Arthur: What?
  9. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: You've got two empty halves of coconut and you're bangin' 'em together.
  10. King Arthur: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercia, through...
  11. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: Where'd you get the coconuts?
  12. King Arthur: We found them.
  13. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: Found them? In Mercia? The coconut's tropical!
  14. King Arthur: What do you mean?
  15. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: Well, this is a temperate zone.
  16. King Arthur: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?
  17. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
  18. King Arthur: Not at all. They could be carried.
  19. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
  20. King Arthur: It could grip it by the husk!
  21. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
  22. King Arthur: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
  23. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
  24. King Arthur: Please!
  25. 1st Soldier with a Keen Interest in Birds: Am I right?
  – Submitted by Brianna E (2 months ago)
• 1. Black Knight: It's just a flesh wound!
  – Submitted by Tommy S (2 months ago)