Bernard McKenna

Writing

Bernard McKenna

Acting credits

Life of Brian poster
7.8

Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he's not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python's signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian's life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.

Life of Brian

1979

Yellowbeard poster
5.6

For years Yellowbeard had looted the Spanish Main, making men eat their lips and swallow their hearts. Caught and convicted for tax evasion, he's sentenced to 20 years in St. Victim's Prison for the Extremely Naughty. In a scheme to confiscate his fabulous treasure, the Royal Navy allows him to escape and follows him, where saucy tarts, lisping demigods and some awful puns and punishments await.

Yellowbeard

1983

What the Pythons Did Next... poster
NR

A look at the careers of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam in the years after Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969).

What the Pythons Did Next...

2007

Group Madness poster
9.0

A behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of 1983's Yellowbeard

Group Madness

1983

Customer Service From Hell poster
NR

John Cleese training video about customer service

Customer Service From Hell

1989

Colleagues From Hell poster
NR

John Cleese corporate training video series

Colleagues From Hell

1989

Who Sold You This, Then? poster
6.5

A BAFTA award nominated, light-hearted, documentary looking at the part the service engineer can play in making or destroying his company's reputation.

Who Sold You This, Then?

1972

Effects poster
5.0

Some crew members of a company shooting a horror film begin to suspect that the "killings" in the movie are real, and that they are actually making a "snuff" film.

Effects

1979

My Ain Folk poster
7.3

When Jamie's maternal grandmother dies, he and his brother Tommy are separated - Tommy is taken off to a welfare home and Jamie goes to live with his other grandmother and uncle. His life is far from happy, filled with silence, rejection and bouts of violence.

My Ain Folk

1973

My Childhood poster
7.2

The first part of Bill Douglas' influential trilogy harks back to his impoverished upbringing in early-'40s Scotland. Cinema was his only escape - he paid for it with the money he made from returning empty jam jars - and this escape is reflected most closely at this time of his life as an eight-year-old living on the breadline with his half-brother and sick grandmother in a poor mining village.

My Childhood

1972

After Effects: Memories of Pittsburgh Filmmaking poster
7.5

A documentary that looks back at the making of a "lost" movie made by an enterprising group of Pittsburgh filmmakers.

After Effects: Memories of Pittsburgh Filmmaking

2005

Behind the camera