Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Holy Grail gets quoted. Life of Brian gets argued about. Brian Cohen is a regular guy born one stable over from somebody famous, and he spends the whole movie getting mistaken for a prophet he never wanted to be. Drop a sandal and suddenly a crowd is worshipping the sandal. The satire goes after followers, committees and splinter groups, not faith itself, and the People’s Front of Judea fighting with the Judean People’s Front is still the best joke ever made about meetings. John Cleese asking what the Romans have ever done for anybody, then getting buried in good answers, is perfect. The honest problem: a random spaceship detour shows up in the middle and the story loses its thread for a bit. It made $20.9 million worldwide on a reported $4M budget. A 9.1 because it’s the sharpest Python movie and it hasn’t aged a day. $58.88 says you correct somebody’s grammar this week and feel like a Roman centurion doing it.

What works: The rival rebel groups bickering, Cleese’s rant about the Romans, and satire aimed at mobs and committees instead of belief.

What doesn’t: The spaceship detour in the middle is random even by Python standards and stops the story cold.

Who it’s for: People who love satire about crowds and committees, and anyone who has sat through a meeting that should have been an email.