Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

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 by The Boston Globe. Plot Six fish in a restaurant's tank greet each other, then see their friend being eaten. This leads them to question the meaning of life. In the first sketch, "The Miracle of Birth", maternity doctors ignore a woman in labour while trying to impress the hospital's administrator. In Yorkshire, a Roman Catholic man loses his job and informs his numerous children that he must sell them for scientific experiments ("Every Sperm Is Sacred"). A Protestant man looks on disapprovingly and proudly remarks that Protestants can use contraception and have sex for pleasure (although his wife observes that they never do).