Melanie McDonagh

The best films about faith to watch this Easter

  • From Spectator Life
Liam Neeson in Martin Scorsese's Silence (Shutterstock)

The best religious films aren’t always the obvious ones, featuring either clerics or bible stories (though there are some good movies of both kinds – and an awful lot of terrible ones). Rather, some of the best capture Christianity sideways, expressing the numinous or the fundamentals of faith through a human story or through a portrait of a way of life. This being Holy Week, when we’re right in the middle of The Greatest Story Ever Told (one to watch), it’s a good time to explore how film reflects religion, straight or infused.

The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson, 2004

It’s hard to imagine how even Mel Gibson got away with a film not just not in English, but in Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin. It was controversial on the basis that it was a) very violent and b) anti-Semitic, though we should remember the events of the Passion were appallingly violent and all the protagonists bar the Romans were themselves Jewish, including Christ.

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