Monty Python's Life of Brian that the council had not seen the film, and had based their opinion on what they had been told by the Nationwide Festival of Light, a grouping with an evangelical Christian base, of which they knew nothing. Some bans continued into the 21st century. In 2008, Torbay Council finally permitted the film to be shown after it won an online vote for the English Riviera International Comedy Film Festival. In 2009, it was announced that a thirty-year-old ban of the film in the Welsh town of Aberystwyth had finally been lifted, and the subsequent showing was attended by Terry Jones
Monty Python's Life of Brian half of the film "cumulatively hilarious," with "a splendidly tasteless finale, which even Mel Brooks might envy." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" had a negative opinion of the film, writing that it was "a cruel fiction to foster the delusion that 'Brian' is bristling with blasphemous nifties and throbbing with impious wit. If only it were! One might find it easier to keep from nodding off." "Life of Brian" has regularly been cited as a significant contender for the title "greatest comedy film of all time", and has been named as such in polls conducted by "Total Film" magazine