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 Seventh Seal (1957)
8.2/10
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson
Disillusioned and exhausted after a decade of battling in the Crusades, a knight (Max von Sydow) encounters Death on a desolate beach and challenges h... 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
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1956)
6.6/10
Director: George Stevens
Starring: Max von Sydow, Charlton Heston, Carroll Baker
An all star cast highlights this glossy biblical epic about the life of Jesus. John Wayne is the Roman centurion overseeing Christ's crucifixion. Max... Read more
Forbidden Planet (1956)
7.6/10
Director: Fred M Wilcox
Starring: Robby the Robot, Warren Stevens, Walter Pidgeon, Leslie Nielsen, Anne Francis
'The best of the science fiction interstellar productions of the fifties', according to Pauline Kael. The action takes place in the year 2257 on the p... Read more
The Night of the Hunter ( Blu-ray ) (1955)
8/10
Director: Charles Laughton
Starring: Lillian Gish, Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters
Robert Mitchum gives one of his best performances as Harry Powell, a psychotic self-styled preacher who is after the stolen money of a hanged man. Set... Read more
A Man Called Peter (1955)
7.2/10
Director: Henry Koster
Starring: Richard Todd, Jean Peters, Jill Esmond, Robert Burton
Richard Todd stars in the true story of Peter Marshall, the Scottish-born minister who became Chaplain of the U.S. Senate. After completing his religi... Read more
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
8/10
Director: Charles Laughton
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish
Robert Mitchum gives one of his best performances as Harry Powell, a psychotic self-styled preacher who is after the stolen money of a hanged man. Set... Read more
Sansho the Bailiff (Sansho Dayu) (1954)
8.4/10
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Starring: Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyoko Kagawa, Eitaro Shindo
One of the great films, 'Sansho the Bailiff' is set in the harsh feudal world of 11th-century Japan and is based on an ancient legend. When a humane l... Read more
Ordet (1954)
8.2/10
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Starring: Henrik Malberg, Emil Hass Christensen
A tale of miraculous resurrection brought about by human love, Carl Dreyer's Ordet is an extraordinary expression of spiritual optimism without being... Read more
The Robe (1953)
6.8/10
Director: Henry Koster
Starring: Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Michael Rennie
A lavish costume drama set during the crucifixion of Jesus and the birth of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Richard Burton, Jean Simmons star. Trivi... Read more