Popular films with a Christian message/theme

mikemac

Well we have a thread for podcasts so why not one for films.

Post any films you enjoyed with maybe a Christian theme or message, do you have any?

Passion of the Christ is an obvious example
As were those sickenly sweet programs
Touched by an Angel. Main actress is from Derry so that's pretty cool
7th Heaven also. I wasn't a fan of these but they were extremly popular in the USA. So who wouldn't watch Jessica Biel??

We watched this in religion class, yeah I cried at the end
Truimoh of the Heart, Ricky Bell Story

My favourite film in this area was Facing the Giants, an incredibly low budget film that achieved massive succuss in DVD sales.
Love this scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vB59PkB0eQ

Manach

Offhand, The Lord of Rings trilogy. Source is "Dummies Guide to Middle earth" - [Ok perhaps this will not go down in the annals of this forum as the most authorative of quoted tome ]

Mickeroo

March of the Penguins. I remember some reviewers were referring to it as The Passion of the Penguin when it came out.

Kinda thought the first twilight movie was very christian in it's outlook, seemed to be all about abstinence.

Book of Eli is another.

homer911

Chariots of Fire

Wolfe Tone

Ben Hur, the 1959 one. Brilliant film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOT0ofuscU

Mickeroo

Funnily enough The Matrix series has lots of christian undertones too. Same could be said of any film involving a prophesised saviour of some sort though i suppose.

Fanny Cradock

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Ben Hur, the 1959 one. Brilliant film.

The chariot race is thrilling. I'm sure that people were terribly hurt while filming it.

Morbert

hivizman

Don't forget the other epics of the 1950s and 1960s (not just Ben Hur), like Quo Vadis, The Robe, and The Greatest Story Ever Told.

branie

How about The Song of Bernadette?

tvnutz

As someone mentioned the Matrix is a good one. I'm a religion teacher and have used the Lion King, some good themes on ritual, life and death etc.

Also from a moral teaching point of view there are so many movies you can use. I recently saw Shooting Dogs, a movie about the Rwanda genocide that I plan to use next year. Very good movie and raises moral questions on whether the UN should have prevented a massacre at the school or pull out like they did because they are not an army,just a peace keeping force.

Apart from movies, a lot Simpsons episode are great when discussing themes about religion.

Joe1919

'The Life of Brian', although a comedy, captures a side of Jesus that is often overlooked. i.e. That Jesus may have been a Cynic.

http://www-oxford.op.org/allen/html/acts.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism

Miao

The Rwanda issue is far too heavy for secondary school kids. I know girls who was traumatised for weeks because they saw a film in Religion class on Rwanda - and it went on for weeks - 40 mins a pop. Teachers should be more discerning on the DVD's which they show in class. These teenagers are kids after all - not adults.

Wolfe Tone

Miao wrote: »

The Rwanda issue is far too heavy for secondary school kids. I know girls who was traumatised for weeks because they saw a film in Religion class on Rwanda - and it went on for weeks - 40 mins a pop. Teachers should be more discerning on the DVD's which they show in class. These teenagers are kids after all - not adults.

I can not disagree more.

Sure we learned about the holocaust and saw videos on that. In particular the Hitchcock documentary. TBH most teenagers are hugely desensitized.

Mickeroo

When someone mentioned life of brian their i thought of another film that often gets criticised as "anti-religion" when it's anything but, is the very funny Dogma by Kevin Smith.

Shooting dogs is a great film, much better than Hotel Rwanda i thought.

tvnutz

Miao wrote: »

The Rwanda issue is far too heavy for secondary school kids. I know girls who was traumatised for weeks because they saw a film in Religion class on Rwanda - and it went on for weeks - 40 mins a pop. Teachers should be more discerning on the DVD's which they show in class. These teenagers are kids after all - not adults.

Rubbish. Some teens in particular can be sensitive but teens are not idiots and they need to learn about this kind of thing,about what happened. I'd usually only use it with 5th and 6th years anyway who are 16-18 years old. Well mature and can have great discussions.

Sure in the Junior Cert syllabus, you generally tackle the holcaust in first year.Teaching kids about morality, about right and wrong cannot be done by sheltering them from history. Rwanda was not that long ago and looking at the reasons how such things could happen. Besides, Shooting Dogs is rated 12s,so any of them could easily have rented it themselves.

Give teenagers some credit,most people don't.

kelly1

Jesus of Nazareth with Robert Powell is a classic!

Greaney

My sister is into her martial arts, choregraphed violence and thriller type movies and rented this. She invited me and the hubby over to see it. I was seriously impressed. The very cynical young fella (age 18) who's into his 'Banksy, DJ Shadow and graphic novels' really liked it too. Didn't do amazingly at the box office due to anti-Christian backlash in the states, dunno why, it's not propaganda or saccharine or anything. I thought it was pretty intellegent actually.

It's a post apocyliptic martial arts movie set in a decimated Earth after the 'Big Flash' when society has completley broken down and mankind has gone to pot. (Not that we didn't always have the potential:rolleyes:)

Check it out, the Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and plenty of other names. I've been gushing about it for about two months now:o