The movie starts out with Arthur, King of the Britons, looking for knights to sit with him at Camelot. He finds many knights including Sir Galahad the pure, Sir Lancelot the brave, the quiet Sir Bedevere, and Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Lancelot. They do not travel on horses, but pretend they do and have their servants bang coconuts to make the sound of horse's hooves. Through satire of certain events in history (witch trials, the black plague) they find Camelot, but after literally a quick song and dance they decide that they do not want to go there. While walking away, God (who seems to be grumpy) come to them from a cloud and tells them to find the Holy Grail. They agree and begin their search. While they search for the Grail, scenes of the knight's tales appear and why they have the name they have. Throughout their search they meet interesting people and knights along the way. Most of the characters die; some through a killer rabbit (which they defeat with the holy hand grenade), others from not answering a question right from the bridge of Death, or die some other ridiculous way. In the end, King Arthur and Sir Bedevere are left and find the Castle Arrrghhh where the Holy Grail is. They are met by some French soldiers who taunted them earlier in the film, so they were not able to get into the castle.

Two weeks before location shooting was scheduled to begin, the Scottish Department of the Environment withdrew permission for the Pythons to shoot within their castles, saying that the film's script would be "incompatible with the history and fabric" of the castles. The interiors of Camelot and Swamp Castle, and exteriors of Castle Anthrax, French Castle and the opening castle were all shot at Doune Castle (with various rooms redecorated and reused many times). Recently-rebuilt Castle Stalker was used for the Castle Aarrgg. Both of these were privately owned and could be used. The Constitutional Peasants' castle and Camelot are each 10ft high plywood models (hence Patsy's comment) which had a tendency to blow over in the middle of each take; hence the trailer shows another in-joke, with King Arthur knighting someone who just built a large castle but when the plywood building falls over Arthur stabs him.

Knights of Camelot:
[singing] We're knights of the Round Table, we dance whene'er we're able. We do routines and chorus scenes with footwork impec-cable, We dine well here in Camelot, we eat ham and jam and Spam a lot. / We're knights of the Round Table, our shows are for-mi-dable. But many times we're given rhymes that are quite un-sing-able, We're opera mad in Camelot, we sing from the diaphragm a lot. / In war we're tough and able, Quite in-de-fa-ti-gable. Between our quests we sequin vests and impersonate Clark Gable / It's a busy life in Camelot

[solo]


Knights of Camelot:
I have to push the pram a lot.

Continuity: During the sword fight between King Arthur and the Black Knight, the lighting repeatedly changes between overcast and a bright sunny day, and the fire in the tent in the background changes from lit to unlit to lit.

Words by Graham Chapman and John Cleese
Music by Neil Innes