7 Christian Films You Probably Haven’t Watched (But Really Should)

Turn on the news for ten minutes and you’d swear the world is one bad week from collapsing.

I get it. The headlines are heavy.

But I don’t buy the doom. And neither should you.

Jesus said it plainly: “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:17-19).

Read that verse again. Gates don’t chase anybody. Gates sit there.

Which means the Church isn’t crouched in a basement waiting things out. The Church is the one doing the kicking down.

By His power, through ordinary believers like you and me, the Lord “renews the face of the earth” (Psalm 104:30).

One of the quieter ways that renewal is happening? Film.

The 2017 Movieguide Report pointed out something Hollywood doesn’t love admitting. The top 10 movies of 2016 once again proved that films with strong Christian and morally serious content out-earn the ones that don’t.

That isn’t new either. Good Christian films have been quietly winning since the beginning.

And honestly, what bigger pulpit could we ask for? The screen reaches places a sermon never will.

So showing up matters. Buying the ticket. Renting the movie. Telling a friend. It’s stewardship.

The hard part is knowing what’s worth your time. Here are seven I’d put in front of any believer who asked me where to start.

The King of Kings (1927) — Rated G

Cecil B. DeMille’s silent epic is still, in my opinion, the greatest film ever made about Jesus.

H.B. Warner plays a Christ who is gentle without being soft. Authoritative without being cold.

You feel the political pressure closing in on Him. You feel the religious leaders sharpening their knives.

And because there’s no dialogue, the cross hits you in a way words can’t quite manage.

Lilies of the Field (1963) — Rated G

Sidney Poitier became the first Black actor to win Best Actor at the Oscars for this one (oscars.org). It’s easy to see why.

He plays a drifter handyman who stumbles onto a tiny group of German Catholic nuns out in the Southwest desert.

They want a chapel built. They have no money. He has no plans to stick around.

What unfolds is a sweet, funny, surprisingly moving little story about faith crossing every line it’s not supposed to cross.

The scene where he teaches the nuns to sing? The kind of moment that makes you put the remote down.

Pride and Prejudice (2005) — Rated PG

I know — what’s Jane Austen doing on a Christian film list? Stick with me.

This adaptation follows Elizabeth Bennet, the second of five sisters in turn-of-the-19th-century England, as she crosses swords with the proud Mr. Darcy.

It’s a romance, sure. But the bones of it are deeply Christian.

Pride is a sin. Prejudice is a sin. Repentance is real. And love is what’s left when both finally give way.

It’s also gorgeous to look at. Pour yourself something warm and settle in.

Spider-Man 1, 2, and 3 (2002, 2004, 2007) — Rated PG-13

Hear me out.

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is the best superhero run ever filmed. It’s also the most theologically loaded.

Peter Parker is a kid who keeps choosing duty over comfort. Sacrifice over self.

The Christ imagery in Spider-Man 2, especially that train sequence — arms outstretched, body broken, strangers carrying him gently — isn’t subtle.

Raimi wasn’t being shy. If you’ve only seen the newer ones, go back to these.

The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) — Rated G

Ermanno Olmi’s masterpiece won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Most American Christians have never heard of it. That’s a shame.

The film follows three peasant families in northern Italy at the turn of the 20th century.

Nothing huge happens. Crops come in. Babies are born. A clog breaks. A father does something quietly desperate to fix it.

But God is everywhere in this movie. In prayer at the table. In the saints over the bed. In the patience of people who have very little and yet seem to have everything.

It runs long. Don’t rush it.

Hacksaw Ridge (2016) — Rated R

Mel Gibson’s film about Desmond Doss is not an easy watch.

The R rating is earned. It’s one of the most graphic war movies ever made. Fair warning.

But it’s also one of the most powerfully Christian films of the last twenty years.

Andrew Garfield plays Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist medic who refused to carry a weapon into World War II. His own unit beat him down for it.

Then, on the cliffs of Okinawa, he prayed one of the most haunting prayers in modern cinema: “Lord, please, help me get one more.”

He dragged seventy-five wounded men to safety. Turn the other cheek, indeed.

Finding Nemo (2003) — Rated G

I’ll fight anybody who says this one doesn’t belong.

A father loses his son. He crosses an ocean to find him. Along the way he learns that love that grips too tight isn’t really love at all.

Pixar packed a small theological gem into a kids’ movie about a clownfish.

A handful of scenes may rattle a sensitive four-year-old, so use your judgment. Otherwise, it’s family night gold.

One Last Thought

A movie doesn’t have to say the name of Jesus to be a Christian movie.

Sometimes the most Christian films are the ones that quietly hold up what Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit — “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22).

Jesus Himself was a storyteller. The parables are short films in their own way.

Movies, at their best, are doing the same work He was doing two thousand years ago. Slipping truth in through the side door, where our defenses are down.

As Dr. Ted Baehr of Movieguide puts it: “Christians must uphold and support the good and the beautiful, while rejecting the bad.”

Amen to that.

For help picking what’s worth your evening, check out movieguide.org or grab the Movieguide app.

Then pop the popcorn, gather the people you love, and watch something good.