The Best British Humour Movies and TV Shows

What it's about: King Arthur, accompanied by his squire, recruits his Knights of the Round Table, including Sir Bedevere the Wise, Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot and Sir Galahad the Pure. On the way, Arthur battles the Black Knight who, despite having had all his limbs chopped off, insists he can still fight. They reach Camelot, but Arthur decides not to enter, as "it is a silly place".

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Life's questions are 'answered' in a series of outrageous vignettes, beginning with a staid London insurance company which transforms before our eyes into a pirate ship. Then there's the National Health doctors who try to claim a healthy liver from a still-living donor. The world's most voracious glutton brings the art of vomiting to new heights before his spectacular demise.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Starz), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Starz) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a British sketch comedy series created by the comedy group Monty Python and broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines. It also featured animations by Terry Gilliam, often sequenced or merged with live action. The first episode was recorded on 7 September and broadcast on 5 October 1969 on BBC One, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV.The show often targets the idiosyncrasies of British life, especially that of professionals, and is at times politically charged. The members of Monty Python were highly educated. Terry Jones and Michael Palin are Oxford University graduates; Eric Idle, John Cleese, and Graham Chapman attended Cambridge University; and American-born member Terry Gilliam is an Occidental College graduate. Their comedy is often pointedly intellectual, with numerous erudite references to philosophers and literary figures. The series followed and elaborated upon the style used by Spike Milligan in his ground breaking series Q5, rather than the traditional sketch show format. The team intended their humour to be impossible to categorise, and succeeded so completely that the adjective "Pythonesque" was invented to define it and, later, similar material.

Where to Watch: 45 episodes (88%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix). 5 episodes (10%) are available to stream on a TV everywhere service (BBC America). 51 episodes (100%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 1 service (iTunes).

What it's about: A collection of Monty Python's Flying Circus skits from the first two seasons of their British TV series.

Where to Watch: Available to rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl is a 1982 concert film in which the Monty Python team perform many of their greatest sketches at the Hollywood Bowl, including several pre-Python ones.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (iTunes).

What it's about: Celebrate the last night of the Pythons on the big screen! - With John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & Prime Video).

What it's about: Steve Martin presents selected sketches from "Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969)". It's the well known sketches, though the parrot sketch is not included. Steve Martin has some funny comments on the Pythons.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $9.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: The story of Monty Python through brand new interviews with the Pythons: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones & Michael Palin and archive material from the late Graham Chapman.

Where to Watch: 6 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: With unprecedented access, this program reveals the humour, chaos and passion that went into bringing the Flying Circus to the stage cumulating in the legendary One Down, Five To Go.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $4.99 on 1 service (iTunes).

What it's about: In March 1998 in Aspen, Colorado, the surviving members of the Monty Paython team - John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin - shared a stage together for the first time in 18 years. Even more remarkably, Graham Chapman was there too....in an urn! The occasion for this renuion was the US Comedy Arts Festival Tribute to Monty Python, hosted by Robert Klien in front of a live audience.

Where to Watch: Available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Not The Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy) is a comic oratorio based on Monty Python's Life of Brian, which retells the tragic tale of Mandy, impregnated by a Roman soldier, giving birth to Brian, a reluctant revolutionary of the People's Front of Judea who falls in love with Judith, gets mistaken for a Messiah and is arrested by the Romans and sentenced to be crucified. It ranges in reference from Handel, through a naughty Mozart duet, to the Festival of Nine Carols, Bob Dylan, and the classic finale "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".

Where to Watch: Available to rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A discussion between John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones about their film The Meaning of Life

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam pay tribute to their late Monty Python colleague Graham Chapman in this hilarious, 3-D animated adaptation of Chapman's brazenly fictionalized life story. (TIFF)

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Sundance Now), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).