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The Full Monty

1997 film directed by Peter Cattaneo

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ775970
Source-derived summary

The Full Monty is a 1997 British comedy film directed by Peter Cattaneo, written by Simon Beaufoy, and starring Robert Carlyle, Tom Wilkinson and Mark Addy. The film is set in Sheffield in the North of England during the 1990s, and tells the story of six unemployed men, four of them former steel workers, who decide to form a male striptease act (à la Chippendale dancers) to make some money and for the main character, Gaz, to be able to see his son. Gaz declares that their show will be much better than the Chippendales because they will go "the full monty"—strip all the way.

Despite being a comedy, the film also touches on serious subjects such as unemployment, fathers' rights, depression, impotence, homosexuality, body image, working class culture and suicide. The Full Monty was a critical success upon release and an international commercial success, grossing $257 million from a budget of only $3.5 million. It was the highest-grossing film in the UK until it was outsold by Titanic. It won the BAFTA and European Film Award for Best Film, and the Academy Award for Best Original Score. It was also nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

The Full Monty was released in the United Kingdom by Fox Searchlight Pictures on 29 August 1997. The British Film Institute ranked the film the 25th best British film of the 20th century.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Full Monty” is 1997 film directed by Peter Cattaneo. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Full, Monty and film, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1997—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1997-08-13, 1997-08-29, 1997-10-30—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Full, Monty and film is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1997 film directed by Peter Cattaneo” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q775970. VIAF identifies the subject as 316754026. The Library of Congress control number is no2001087357. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Full Monty”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Full Monty primary sources, The Full Monty archive and Full research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Full Monty”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Full Monty” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.