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 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
La Petite Jerusalem (2005)
Director: Karin Albou
Starring: Fanny Valette, Elsa Zylberstein, Bruno Todeschini, Heidi Tillette deClermont Ton...
An orthodox Jewish teen living with her family in a tight-knit Jewish suburb in Paris attempts to balance her religious upbringing with her increasing... Read more
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
7.7/10
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Francois Truffaut
Power line repairman Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) has a 'close encounter' with an alien spacecraft when he is sent out to investigate a mysterious pow... Read more
Fearless (1993)
7.1/10
Director: Peter Weir
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Isabella Rossellini, Rosie Perez, Tom Hulce, John Turturro, Benici...
An off-beat exploration of mankind's spiritual side, focusing on Jeff Bridges inability to resume his normal day-to-day life after surviving a plane c... Read more
Rosetta / La Promesse (1999)
Director: Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Starring: Emilie Dequenne, Fabrizio Rongione, Anne Yernaux, Jeremie Renier, Olivier Gourme...
'Rosetta' (1999, 90 mins) Winner of the 1999 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and widely hailed as a masterpiece, 'Rosetta' is an extraordinary... Read more
Indigo (2003)
4.9/10
Director: Stephen Simon
Starring: Neale Donald Walsh, Meghan McCandless
A film about loneliness, redemption, and the healing powers and grace of the new generation of Indigo (psychic and gifted) children being born into th... Read more
Field of Dreams (1989)
7.5/10
Director: Phil Alden Robinson
Starring: Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones, Amy Madigan, Gaby Hoffmann, Ray Liotta, Burt La...
A magical fantasy about farmer Kevin Costner who hears messages from an invisible voice, leading him to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield. 'If... Read more
The Miracle Worker (1962)
8.1/10
Director: Arthur Penn
Starring: Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Victor Jory
Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke won Oscars for their roles in Arthur Penn's version of Annie Sullivan and her pupil, Helen Keller. The dramatic force of... Read more
Powder (1995)
6.6/10
Director: Victor Salva
Starring: Mary Steenburgen, Sean Patrick Flanery, Lance Henriksen, Jeff Goldblum
A rural teen (Sean Patrick Flanery) whose skin is ghostly white and whose nickname is Powder, is the local pariah; he's scary, shy, brilliant and seem... Read more
Molokai: The Story of Father Damien (2000)
6.9/10
Director: Paul Cox
Starring: David Wenham, Derek Jacobi, Sam Neill, Kris Kristofferson, Peter O'Toole
David Wenham plays the canonized Father Damien, a dedicated priest who sacrificed his own life in order to bring dignity and hope to the inhabitants o... Read more