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 Matrix (1999)
8.7/10
Director: The Wachowski Brothers
Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Hugo Weaving
Cutting-edge visuals and production design feature in this mind altering tale about a computer hacker (Keanu Reeves) who discovers he is living an ill... Read more
Magnolia (1999)
8/10
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Jeremy Blackman, Tom Cruise, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William...
Paul Thomas Anderson's third feature film is an exhilarating, almost reckless display of cinematic ambition. Weaving together more than a dozen charac... Read more
Joan of Arc (Sobieski) (1999)
6.7/10
Director: Christian Duguay
Starring: Leelee Sobieski, Peter O'Toole, Shirley MacLaine, Peter Strauss, Jacqueline Biss...
She was a visionary, a warrior, a heroine and a martyr, all before the age of 20. Leelee Sobieski stars as the French peasant girl whose devine vision... Read more
The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
7/10
Director: Josef Rusnak
Starring: Craig Bierko, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Gretchen Mol
This thought-provoking dark thriller, in keeping with "The Matrix" and "Dark City", is set in a computer-generated parallel world like 1930s L.A. with... Read more
Dogma (1999)
7.3/10
Director: Kevin Smith
Starring: Ben Affleck, Chris Rock, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Bud Cort
Wayward angels Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, exiled in Wisconsin for millenia, discover that a New Jersey church holds the theological key to their gett... Read more
Joan of Arc (Jovovich) (1999)
6.7/10
Director: Luc Besson
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Faye Dunaway, Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich
Aka "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc". French filmmaker Luc Besson's ("The Big Blue") lavish historical biodrama about the visionary French pe... Read more
The Straight Story (1999)
8/10
Director: David Lynch
Starring: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Everett McGill, Harry Dean Stanton
In a gentle, G-rated change of pace that still features his trademark fascination with rural American quirkiness, director David Lynch recounts the tr... Read more
What Dreams May Come (Blu-ray) (1998)
7/10
Director: Vincent Ward
Starring: Annabella Sciorra, Cuba Gooding Jr, Max von Sydow, Robin Williams
This stunning achievement in visual effects follows a man's literal journey through heaven and hell in an attempt to be reunited with his wife in the... Read more
Life is Beautiful (1998)
8.6/10
Director: Roberto Benigni
Starring: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi
Receiving Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor, Roberto Benigni's celebrated and popular film boldly blends a sentimental and humourou... Read more
The Truman Show (1998)
8.1/10
Director: Peter Weir
Starring: Ed Harris, Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Natascha McElhone, Noah Emmerich, Holland T...
Wellingtonian Andrew Niccol's clever and meticulously crafted script has Jim Carrey playing Truman Burbank, who lives the American dream in a postcard... Read more