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...
The Razor's Edge (1984)
6.6/10
Director: John Byrum
Starring: Bill Murray, Catherine Hicks, Denholm Elliott, Theresa Russell, James Keach
Bill Murray gives a finely balanced comic and dramatic portrayal as Larry Darrell, a man searching for meaning after World War I in this adaptation of... Read more
Jacob's Ladder (1990)
7.5/10
Director: Adrian Lyne
Starring: Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena, Danny Aiello
An original, highly psychological thriller that explores the thin line between reality and illusion. Jacob is a Vietnam veteran who becomes haunted by... Read more
Dersu Uzala (Blu-ray) (1975)
8.2/10
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Yuri Solomon, Maxim Munzuk
Kurosawa's remarkable, personal tale of the friendship between a wise old man and a young Soviet explorer, filmed in the beautiful expanse of Siberia,... Read more
Back to the Future (4K Ultra HD) (1985)
8.5/10
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Michael J Fox, Crispin Glover, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Marc McClure
Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd are a time-travelling duo who journey from the past to the future and back again in this now-classic sci-fi comed... Read more
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Blu-ray) (2005)
6.7/10
Director: Scott Derrickson
Starring: Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Campbell Scott, Jennifer Carpenter, Colm Feore
Inspired by real events, this is as much courtroom drama as supernatural chiller. It tells in flashback the tragic story of 'Emily Rose' (Jennifer Ca... Read more
The Elephant Man (Blu-ray) (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
A Man for All Seasons (1966)
7.9/10
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Wendy Hiller, John Hurt, Leo McKern, Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Orson Welles, S...
Adapted by Robert Bolt and Constance Willis from Bolt's hit stage play, this is a literate, penetrating treatment of the conflict between Thomas More... Read more
Henry Poole is Here (2008)
6.5/10
Director: Mark Pellington
Starring: Luke Wilson, Radha Mitchell, Adriana Barraza, George Lopez, Cheryl Hines, Richar...
Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) has a great life, a beautiful fiancee and he's just found out he's going to die. Hoping to drop out and live his final days... Read more
The Ten Commandments (1956)
7.9/10
Director: Cecil B DeMille
Starring: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G Robinson, Yvonne De Carlo, D...
For sheer pageantry and spectacle, few motion pictures can claim to equal the splendor of Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 remake of his epic "The Ten Commandm... 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