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...
Tender Mercies (1983)
7.4/10
Director: Bruce Beresford
Starring: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Allan Hubbard
Robert Duvall gives yet another Academy Award winning performance as Mac Sledge, a self-destructive alcoholic and country singer who finds redemption... Read more
The Bible (1966)
6.3/10
Director: John Huston
Starring: Michael Parks, Richard Harris, John Huston, Stephen Boyd, Peter O'Toole, Franco...
An all-star cast, including George C Scott, Ava Gardner, Peter O'Toole and Richard Harris, heads this dramatic retelling of the first 22 Books of Gene... Read more
The Big Kahuna (2000)
6.6/10
Director: John Swanbeck
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Peter Facinelli
Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and Peter Facinelli are three industrial lubricant sales people attending a convention in Wichita. As they schmooze with cl... Read more
The Celestine Prophecy (2006)
4.9/10
Director: Armand Mastroianni
Starring: Matthew Settle, Thomas Kretschmann, Sarah Wayne Callies, Annabeth Gish, Hector E...
Based on the New Age best-seller from James Redfield following one disillusioned man's spriritual awakening. John Woodson follows a trail of synchroni... Read more
The China Syndrome (1979)
7.4/10
Director: James Bridges
Starring: Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas
The title infers a total atomic meltdown that would bore a hole through the Earth all the way to China. Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas and Jack Lemmon st... Read more
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
7.8/10
Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Billy Gray, Hugh Marlowe, Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe
A spacecraft lands in Washington D.C. and an alien emerges, with a menacing robot whose destructive powers defy imagination. So begins the science-fic... Read more
The Day the Earth Stood Still ( Blu-ray ) (1951)
7.8/10
Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Billy Gray, Hugh Marlowe, Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe
A spacecraft lands in Washington D.C. and an alien emerges, with a menacing robot whose destructive powers defy imagination. So begins the science-fic... Read more
The Decalogue (1988)
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Starring: Henryk Baranowski, Krystyna Janda, Daniel Olbrychski, Adrianna Biedrynska, Miros...
A.k.a. "Dekalog". Krzysztof Kieslowski's modern masterpiece, "The Decalogue", is one of cinema's greatest and most ambitious achievements. This extrao... Read more
The Education Of Little Tree (1996)
7.3/10
Director: Rick Friedberg
Starring: James Cromwell, Tantoo Cardinal, Joseph Ashton
James Cromwell ("Babe") stars in this heartwarming adaptation of the acclaimed bestseller about an orphaned eight-year-old Cherokee boy sent to live w... Read more
The Elephant Man (1980)
8.2/10
Director: David Lynch
Starring: Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Freddie J...
From the director of 'Eraserhead' and 'Dune', based on the true story of John Merrick, who suffered from a rare, physically distorting disease and was... Read more