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...
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
Le Quattro Volte ( Four Times ) (2010)
7.2/10
Director: Michelangelo Frammartino
Starring: Giuseppe Fuda, Bruno Timpano, Nazareno Timpano
An unclassifiably brilliant reverie on life, death, nature and the splendours of Calabria, "Le Quattro Volte" is a deceptively simple and playfully ph... Read more
Leap Of Faith (1993)
6.1/10
Director: Richard Pearce
Starring: Lolita Davidovich, Steve Martin, Debra Winger, Liam Neeson
Steve Martin turns in a terrific performance as Jonas Nightingale, a travelling preacher who uses high-tech razzmatazz directed by associate Debra Win... Read more
Leben fur Leben ( Life for Life ) (1991)
Director: Krzysztof Zanussi
In 1941, a young Silesian, Jan, manages to escape from Auschwitz. In retaliation, the camp commandant condemns 10 prisoners to the 'starvation bunker... 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
Little Buddha (1993)
6/10
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Bridget Fonda, Chris Isaak
Bernardo Bertolucci's exotic travelogue parallels the early life and spiritual enlightenment of Prince Siddhartha (aka Buddha, Keanu Reeves), with the... Read more
Lost Horizon (1937)
7.8/10
Director: Frank Capra
Starring: Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, John Howard
Frank Capra's hypnotic and perversely appealing adaptation of James Hilton's novel is a work of lost innocence and spiritual redemption. A plane fleei... Read more
Lucky (2017)
7.4/10
Director: John Carroll Lynch
Starring: David Lynch, Ed Begley Jr, Harry Dean Stanton, James Darren, Ron Livingston, Tom...
A 90-year-old atheist has outlived and out-smoked his contemporaries, and as he comes to terms with his own mortality, he searches for ever-elusive en... Read more
Luther (2003)
6.6/10
Director: Eric Till
Starring: Joseph Fiennes, Alfred Molina, Jonathan Firth, Claire Cox, Peter Ustinov, Bruno...
Joseph Fiennes delivers a fine performance in the title role of this affecting religious biodrama. When the Pope orders his priests to sell absolution... 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