Spiritual Cinema
"Movies containing spiritual, metaphysical, conscious or similar messages or themes".
Simon Keyes explains the idea behind Spiritual Cinema.
It is the extraordinary power of cinema, high or low, serious and exploitative, to move and disturb us that we should celebrate and embrace in all its diversity. Films can fertilise our inner lives and provide a counter-balance to that compartmentalisation of our "religious" selves that Thomas Merton dubbed our "personal holiness project". The feelings and shadows that films (well, perhaps not quite every movie) incarnate in us give us privileged access to the world beyond our immediate experience. The sights and sounds of cinema can resonate in the realms of the unconscious and the archetypal like no other medium, and there is much for us to learn about ourselves in this experience.
Below is a list of "the best of" this genre...
Seven Years in Tibet (1997)
7/10
Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Starring: Brad Pitt, David Thewlis, B D Wong, Mako
This grand historical adventure in Tibet is the story of Austrian mountain climber and Nazi party member, Heinrich Harrer (Brad Pitt), who after fleei... Read more
Seven Years In Tibet ( Blu-ray ) (1997)
7/10
Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Starring: Brad Pitt, David Thewlis, B D Wong, Mako
This grand historical adventure in Tibet is the story of Austrian mountain climber and Nazi party member, Heinrich Harrer (Brad Pitt), who after fleei... Read more
Shadowlands (1993)
7.4/10
Director: Richard Attenborough
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger, Joseph Mazzello
An intelligent, observant, handsome adaptation of William Nicholson's award-winning play, inspired by the late-blooming romance between the fifty some... Read more
Siddhartha (1972)
6.7/10
Director: Conrad Rooks
Starring: Shashi Kapoor, Simi Garewal
From the Nobel Prize-winning novel by Herman Hesse ("Steppenwolf"), "Siddhartha" is the story of a young Brahmin who leaves his wealthy parents to bec... Read more
Silence (2016)
7.2/10
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Ciaran Hinds, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano, Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver
Legendary director Martin Scorsese's "Silence" tells the powerful story of two 17th-century Christian missionaries (Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield) w... Read more
Sleepless In Seattle (1993)
6.8/10
Director: Nora Ephron
Starring: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Bill Pullman, Rob Reiner
A sweet, romantic comedy about a woman who, just engaged, hears a widower on a talk-back radio show talking about his departed wife and becomes obsess... Read more
Sliding Doors (1997)
6.8/10
Director: Peter Howitt
Starring: John Hannah, John Lynch, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeanne Tripplehorn
A likeable romantic-comedy about a woman who is given a chance to live her life twice, each time, choosing a different man. Will she get it right eith... Read more
Solaris (2002)
6.2/10
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: George Clooney, Jeremy Davies, Natascha McElhone, Viola Davis, Ulrich Tukur
Aboard a lonely space station orbiting a mysterious planet, terrified crew members are experiencing a host of strange phenomena, including resurrected... Read more
Somewhere In Time (1980)
7.3/10
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Teresa Wright
Christopher Reeve stars in this lush romantic fantasy about a lonely artist, obsessed with a beautiful Victorian woman's portrait, who inexplicably fi... Read more
Soylent Green (1973)
7.1/10
Director: Richard Fleischer
Starring: Brock Peters, Charlton Heston, Chuck Connors, Edward G Robinson, Joseph Cotten,...
This frighteningly prescient sci-fi tale about the dangers of the "greenhouse effect" was made long before the term became a popular buzzword. Charlto... Read more