findall just returns the captured groups:
>>> re.findall('abc(de)fg(123)', 'abcdefg123 and again abcdefg123')
[('de', '123'), ('de', '123')]
Relevant doc excerpt:
Return all non-overlapping matches of
pattern in string, as a list of
strings. The string is scanned
left-to-right, and matches are
returned in the order found. If one or
more groups are present in the
pattern, return a list of groups; this
will be a list of tuples if the
pattern has more than one group. Empty
matches are included in the result
unless they touch the beginning of
another match.