I’m not even religious, I just want to know.
The Prince of Egypt isn’t a Christian movie, it’s Jewish. It’s literally from the old testament, the book of Exodus.
I don’t care if you’re religious or not, stop helping the Christians appropriate my culture.
You’re a bit late on that one - that particular appropriation happened 2000 years ago.
While you’re here, though, can your recommend any good Jewish religious movies?
They end up mostly being Holocaust movies for obvious reasons, but my personal favs are The Pianist and Fiddler.
Some of the veggitales bits were legit funny. I never saw passion of the Christ but I’ve heard people say it was well done at least.
The Passion of Christ is basically gore and I hated it. The hyper focus on Jesus’s suffering instead of focusing on his message is a huge problem in Christianity in my opinion. It’s had this bizarre tendency to normalize abuse in the name of one of the most loving human beings ever to walk the planet.
I 100% understand an emphasis on the suffer of Christ as a personal meditation on the nature of suffering and how we relate to God in our suffering. But the kind of glorification of the torture of Jesus that is common in a lot of Christianity is really twisted.
Yeah it’s a real extreme-Catholic/Orthodox thing to focus on the blood and pain I think. Catholic art, especially those little wax icons tends to show more of the blood running from the wounds on the cross. Mel Gibson is one of those extremists, hence his barely concealed antisemitism.
That shit is rampant among American evangelicals as well. Just Calvinism and puritanism at their worst
Huh, maybe it’s all Christians then… I don’t know I started to get the feeling like I wanted to explore more about faith (I’m a permanently wavering agnostic) and started reading the New Testament. And very early on in Matthew Jesus says something along the lines of don’t pray in front of all the others in the temple to show off how holy you are but do it in private. And that line of thinking inevitably leads to questioning the need for a church
Of course it was St Paul and not Jesus who formalised things a bit more.
To add a more recent film to those on the list, Silence (2016). It deals with Catholic missionaries in Japan during the years of the Shogunate. It asks questions about the moral dilemmas of faith and sacrifice, and is pretty dark, both in theme and cinematography (the colour palette of the movie is very very grey) which isn’t something a lot of modern Christian films ask or do.
Jesus Christ, Superstar was pretty awesome
Passion of the Christ was the first thing that came to mind. Surprised no one else mentioned it. Is it not considered good?
Just gonna copy/paste my response to another comment in this thread:
The Passion of Christ is basically gore and I hated it. The hyper focus on Jesus’s suffering instead of focusing on his message is a huge problem in Christianity in my opinion. It’s had this bizarre tendency to normalize abuse in the name of one of the most loving human beings ever to walk the planet.
I 100% understand an emphasis on the suffer of Christ as a personal meditation on the nature of suffering and how we relate to God in our suffering. But the kind of glorification of the torture of Jesus that is common in a lot of Christianity is really twisted.
And I’m a film buff. I love art house shit and I hated that movie
Well, let me ask you: is it good? Is it? Good?
“Hey guys, let’s put on a movie!”
“Sure! What should we watch?”
“I don’t know. Something good.”
“Say no more…”
I mean… I personally didn’t care for it, but then I usually have the exact opposite taste in films as the film buffs so…
I think Dude Where’s My Car is a good movie. I think Citizen Kane is boring as fuck. See what I mean here? lol
The Exorcist holds up pretty well
The Last Temptation of Christ is probably the best I’ve seen. 1988, directed by Martin Scorsese with Willem Dafoe as Christ as Harvey Keitel as Judas. It was nominated for Best Director at the Oscars.
Be warned - it’s not your standard Christian film, and is R rated for a reason.
Details on the film, and here are details on the novel that inspired it by Nikos Kazantzakis.
Damn, Willem Dafoe went deep.
Probably the best performance of his career, IMHO.
I really liked “Of Gods and Men” (2010) which is about the life of 8 French Trappist monks in Algeria during 1996.
I have a soft spot for Joseph King of Dreams.
If you liked that one you might like Joseph King of Dreams.
Ben Hur is an obvious choice? Why has nobody said this one? It’s one of the most famous movies of all time and overtly religious.
Stigmata is a classic