Life of Brian Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Life of Brian trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Monty Python's Life of Brian reached cinemas in 1979 with its studio money pulled days before shooting, a Beatle's cheque in its place and protesters waiting at the doors. Nearly half a century on, it still tops polls of the greatest British comedies. These 50 questions go past the famous quotes: the Tunisian shoot and its borrowed sets, the Pythons' multiple roles, the scenes that never made the cut, the television debate that backfired on the bishops, the councils that banned a film they had not watched, and the long second life of the song sung from the cross. Built for Python devotees and pub-quiz regulars alike, with answers and a one-line explanation for every question, playable on your phone or printable for a trivia night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which tradesmen do distant listeners at Life of Brian's Sermon on the Mount think Jesus has blessed?
The cheesemakers
The cheesemakers got the blessing because 'peacemakers' was misheard from the back of the crowd, which then debated whether it meant all makers of dairy products.
Q 02What catches Brian in mid-air when he falls from a tower while fleeing Roman guards in Life of Brian?
A passing alien spaceship
A passing alien spaceship was Terry Gilliam's fix for a hero stranded atop a tower: 'OK, spaceship for that', he recalled, noting that Star Wars had just come out.
Q 03Life of Brian's final song topped a 2014 British survey of music people want played at which occasion?
Funerals
Funerals: a 2005 Music Choice survey already had it as the third most requested song for Britons' own send-offs, and by 2014 it was the most popular of all.
Q 04Which destroyer's crew sang Life of Brian's final song while awaiting rescue after a 1982 Exocet strike?
HMS Sheffield
HMS Sheffield's sailors sang it as their ship burned in the Falklands War on 4 May 1982, and the crew of HMS Coventry later did the same.
Q 05Who plays Brian's mother Mandy in Life of Brian, bawler of the line polls have voted the funniest in film history?
Terry Jones
Terry Jones played Mandy in drag, and the line she bawls at the crowd outside her house has repeatedly topped polls as the funniest in film history; he also doubles as Simon the Holy Man.
Q 06Which 1960 epic's climax does Life of Brian parody when every crucified man claims to be Brian?
Spartacus
Spartacus's famous moment of mass loyalty is inverted: the rescuers free the wrong man, and 'I'm Brian, and so's my wife' has itself featured in polls of the film's best lines.
Q 07What does 'Romani ite domum', the graffiti a Roman officer corrects and makes Brian write out 100 times, mean?
Romans go home
Romans go home: Brian's first attempt was so garbled that the officer cared more about his grammar than his sedition, and the corrected slogan covered the palace wall by dawn.
Q 08In Life of Brian, a beggar grumbles that Jesus cured him of what, costing him his living?
Leprosy
Leprosy had been the ex-leper's trade: while pestering Brian for alms he calls Jesus a 'bloody do-gooder' for healing him and ending his begging income.
Q 09Brian's followers split into sects over which lost item, a schism the director likened to the Church's whole history?
A sandal
A sandal dropped in the chase became a holy relic, with followers arguing over its correct interpretation; the director called the quarrel 'the history of the Church in three minutes'.
Q 10Life of Brian returned to US cinemas in April 2004 to 'cash in' on the success of which film?
Passion of the Christ
The Passion of the Christ's huge grosses prompted the re-release, which ran until October on up to 28 screens and took $646,124.
Q 11Which Python wrote Life of Brian's final song using only jazz chords, and sings it from the neighbouring cross?
Eric Idle
Eric Idle wrote it on a Gibson J-50 using only jazz chords he had learned from a Mickey Baker course, while the Pythons were still hunting for a way to end the film.
Q 12Who picketed Life of Brian's 1979 New York screenings, one group prompting a Python to remark on their banners?
Rabbis and nuns
Rabbis and nuns picketed together ('Nuns with banners!' one Python observed); New York met the film first, because it opened in America months before Britain.
Q 13In Life of Brian, what name does PFJ member Stan adopt after asserting his right as a man to have babies?
Loretta
Q 21Which Welsh town lifted a supposed 30-year Life of Brian ban in 2009, its mayor having played Judith in the film?
Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth's mayor, the actress who played Judith, campaigned to end the ban, only to learn there never was one: councillors watched the film in 1981, found parts 'quite unacceptable' and still allowed it.
Q 22Which British morality campaigner's pamphlets and pickets against Life of Brian were felt to have boosted its publicity?
Mary Whitehouse
Mary Whitehouse and other traditionalist Christians picketed cinemas showing the film, while leaflets argued the Wise Men would never have approached the wrong stable.
Q 23Who plays Life of Brian's Pontius Pilate, the governor whose speech impediment the Passover crowd mocks with 'r' names?
Loretta is the name the group uses from then on, agreeing that the right to give birth is not theirs to take away; 'sibling' then replaces brother or sister in their debates.
Q 14Life of Brian's director insisted the film was not blasphemy but what, since it mocked dogma rather than belief?
Heresy
Heresy was the director's word: the film never touches belief in God, only the way followers fight over how the teaching is interpreted, which he said had been the pattern for two thousand years.
Q 15What does Mandy reveal about Brian's birth that drives him into the People's Front of Judea?
His father was a centurion
His father was a centurion, making Brian half-Roman, a twist scholars read as a nod to the old polemic that Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier called Panthera.
Q 16Which prime minister cited Life of Brian's feuding Judean fronts when an MP asked what Labour had ever done for us?
Tony Blair
Tony Blair reached for the joke at Prime Minister's Questions on 3 May 2006, answering a Labour MP's question about what the government had ever done for us, itself a parody of Reg's PFJ speech.
Q 17Which joke title did one Python give reporters for the third Python film, before any Life of Brian script existed?
Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory
Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory was the flippant answer, a play on the UK title of the 1970 film Patton, tossed out after Holy Grail's success when no third film had even been discussed.
Q 18Which film alone ranked above Life of Brian in Empire magazine's 2016 list of the 100 best British films?
Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean's desert epic, alone outranked a comedy that several British town councils had banned on its release in 1979.
Q 19At which 2012 event did the writer of Life of Brian's final song perform it live to a global television audience?
London Olympics closing ceremony
The London Olympics closing ceremony gave the song a slot in its 'Symphony of British Music', 33 years after its first single failed to chart; the singer added a verse about being stuck on the world's stage.
Q 20Which heavy metal band is known for playing Life of Brian's final song as its concerts end?
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden send crowds home with it, one of many adoptions that range from football terraces to Harry Nilsson's 1980 cover on his album Flash Harry.
Michael Palin
Michael Palin's Pilate finally agrees to 'welease Bwian', and Palin also plays Mr Big-Nose, the Boring Prophet and the guard Nisus Wettus, a name never spoken in the film.
Q 24Which Radio 1 breakfast DJ revived Life of Brian's final song, driving a 1991 reissue to UK No. 3?
Simon Mayo
Simon Mayo's breakfast show had a habit of reviving old novelty songs; Virgin reissued the track on 23 September 1991 and it peaked at No. 3, twelve years after the film.
Q 25Which subject, among several John Cleese taught at his prep school, did he draw on for a Life of Brian scene?
Latin
Latin, which Cleese taught for two years while waiting for a Cambridge place, fuels the scene where his officer marks Brian's wall slogan like homework and sets it as a hundred lines.
Q 26Which rival faction fights Brian's PFJ in Pilate's palace over who planned the kidnap first?
Campaign for a Free Galilee
The Campaign for a Free Galilee had the same kidnap plan, and the two factions fight each other until Brian is the only survivor, pausing only to agree that the common enemy is the Judean People's Front.
Q 27Which Hitler-moustached extremist leader was almost entirely cut from Life of Brian, surviving only at the crucifixion?
Otto
Otto arrives with his 'crack suicide squad', which scatters the Roman soldiers then stabs itself to death; the scene stayed only because the bodies were visible throughout the rest of the sequence.
Q 28Before attacking Life of Brian on BBC2, what did Malcolm Muggeridge and Bishop Mervyn Stockwood reportedly do?
They arrived 15 minutes late
They arrived 15 minutes late to the preview, it was later claimed, missing the opening that shows Brian and Jesus are different people, and so argued the film sent up Jesus himself.
Q 29Which Goon Show star landed in a Life of Brian crowd scene while visiting his old wartime battlefields in Tunisia?
Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan was added to the scene shot that morning as a prophet ignored by the crowd, then left in the afternoon before any close-ups or publicity shots.
Q 30Which 2007 comic oratorio, premiered at Toronto's Luminato festival, retold Life of Brian?
Not the Messiah
Not the Messiah, a Handel spoof written with John Du Prez after Spamalot's success, was conducted at its premiere by Peter Oundjian, the writer's cousin, and later played the Royal Albert Hall.