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...
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
Hereafter (2010)
6.5/10
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Matt Damon, Richard Kind, Cecile De France, Bryce Dallas Howard
Director Clint Eastwood's poignant film examines the possibility of an afterlife through a host of emotionally evocative characters. It centers on a m... Read more
Hereditary (2018)
7.5/10
Director: Ari Aster
Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Toni Collette, Ann Dowd, Alex Wolff, Millie Shapiro
When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about... Read more
Hereditary (Blu-Ray) (2018)
7.5/10
Director: Ari Aster
Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Toni Collette, Ann Dowd, Alex Wolff, Millie Shapiro
When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about... Read more
I Am Not a Witch (2017)
6.8/10
Director: Rungano Nyoni
Starring: Benfors 'Wee Do
Following a banal incident in her local village, 8-year old girl Shula is accused of witchcraft. After a short trial she is found guilty, taken into s... Read more
Ikiru (1952)
8.3/10
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Kyoko Seki
A brilliant study of a man who finds he is dying of cancer and determines to spend his final months giving meaning to his life by constructing a child... Read more
Illuminating Angels and Demons (2005)
Starring: Simon Cox
Based on Dan Brown's book, ('Angels and Demons'), this documentary investigates the mysterious worlwide organisation dating back centuries known as th... Read more
Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom (Blu-Ray) (1984)
7.6/10
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Amrish Puri, Dan Aykroyd, Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Philip Stone, Ric Young,...
A prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) set in 1935, the year before, the professor, archaeologist and adventurer by the name of Indiana Jones is... 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
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
8.6/10
Director: Frank Capra
Starring: Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Donna Reed
Classic bittersweet comedy/drama that is the quintessential Frank Capra film. James Stewart is a banker living in the typical American small town of B... Read more