The Best Religious Movies

Not used to forums that don't allow swearing? Seems fairly common in my experience, but okay then.

Re: The Passion of the Christ. Couldn't disagree more. Whatever you think of the message, it's clearly an expertly made film. Well produced, well written, and very, very well acted. Given how extreme your comment is (he shouldn't even be allowed on a film set? I know this isn't literal, but yikes), I kinda have to wonder if your attitude towards religion in genreal might be overshadowing the film's artisitic merits here (no offense).

The Gospel According to St. Matthew

__________________
"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Although he didn't really make "religious" films per se, Robert Bresson is well known for making austere films about faith and love. Two such examples would be Au hasard Balthazar, the story of a simple donkey who suffers a life of burden but comes through it enobled, and The Diary of a Country Priest about a sick young man who faces all kinds of roadblocks while trying to tend an antagonistic flock of "followers".

On a grander, American scale, The Nun's Story about a brilliant nurse who becomes a Catholic nun so that she can work and study in Africa between the two world wars is a unique, rewarding viewing experience and features what may well be Audrey Hepburn's best performance. And, for those who know anything about me, Elmer Gantry is one of the most thought-provoking films about Christianity and is certainly the most-entertaining.

__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

The Exorsist
Dogma
The Order
The Reaping
Children of the Corn

I'm sure there are more I'm missing but this is a pretty good start.

__________________
But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. W.B. Yeats

I definitely discussed The Exorcist here some place, but it wasn't in this thread apparently. I'd agree that it's one of the most-powerful films on love and faith ever depicted, but it often gets lost because people would rather discuss split pea soup and rotating heads.

Yeah, people do seem to get off topic a lot. But what the hey, whatever makes 'em happy

I've a few good ones not mentioned yet:
Ingmar Bergmans Winter Light and The Seventh Seal are classics.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring is a beautiful film about Buddhism.
Saved is hilarious.
And then of course, there's Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

__________________
"Help, friends! A hamster tricked me"

Musician Jobs TV Jobs

Passion by Mel Gibson...