For this month’s Undefended lists, in the spirit of Holy Week, FilmFisher’s writers selected the best depictions of faith on film. Chime in with your own selections in the comments!
Timothy Lawrence
- Andrei Rublev (1966, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky)
- Hail, Caesar! (2016, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)
- Ordet (1955, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer)
- The Passenger (1975, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni)
- To the Wonder (2013, dir. Terrence Malick)
Remy Wilkins
Hail, Caesar! has not only the most important comma in all movie titles, but also my favorite throwaway joke of all time. When the assistant asks the actor playing Jesus if he’s a principal and he answers, “I… I think I’m a principal.”
- Silence (Martin Scorsese, 2016)
- Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, 1981)
- Gattaca (Andrew Niccol, 1997)
- Beyond the Hills (Cristian Mungui, 2012)
- A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
A.C. Gleason
I’m doing the films I’d like to watch with family on Easter Weekend:
- Raiders of the Lost Ark/Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Lord of the Rings trilogy (theatrical)
- The Prince of Egypt
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Robert Brown
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Faith in action:
- Amazing Grace (2006, dir. Michael Apted)
- A Hidden Life (2019, dir. Terrence Malick)
- Star Wars (1977, dir. George Lucas)
Faith amidst doubt:
- The Tree of Life (2011, dir. Terrence Malick)
- The Polar Express (2004, dir. Robert Zemeckis)
Bonus: When I read the prompt, I was almost immediately reminded of two recent big loud blockbusters involving time travel in which heroes take action against the forces of nihilism in the confidence that the arc of history really does, somehow, bend toward justice: Avengers: Endgame and Tenet.
“Everything’s going to work out exactly the way it’s supposed to.”
“What’s happened, happened. Which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world. It’s not an excuse to do nothing.”
Tom Upjohn
- A Serious Man (Ethan and Joel Coen, 2009)
- The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
- The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
- Signs (M. Night Shyamalan, 2002)
- The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015)