Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones's Monty Python and the Holy Grail opened in 1975, the first full Python feature and the only one made entirely without external pressure to behave. It was financed by an investor pool that included members of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, who were experiencing tax shelter difficulties. The film won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1976 and has been in continuous popular circulation since.

King Arthur (Graham Chapman) and his Knights of the Round Table are dispatched by God on a divinely commanded quest for the Holy Grail. The journey takes them through a constitutional debate with an anarcho-syndicalist peasant, a duel with the Black Knight (his limbs progressively dispatched, none of it slowing his combat readiness), the castle of the killer rabbit guarding the Cave of Caerbannog, and a final non-ending that has remained as funny as any single moment in cinema. The cast (Cleese, Idle, Palin, Gilliam, Jones, Chapman) play approximately twenty roles each.

The film became the source for Spamalot, Eric Idle's musical adaptation that won the Tony for Best Musical in 2005 and has since toured continuously. The Holy Hand Grenade, the African-versus-European swallow argument, the Knights Who Say Ni — these are not merely jokes but cultural reference units that have outlived most of the films of their decade.

Why it's an Editor's Pick: The most-quoted comedy film ever made, and a primer on what British absurdism could do once it stopped trying to be respectful. Almost fifty years on, it remains funnier than 95% of comedies released since.