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...
Gandhi ( Blu-ray ) (1982)
8.1/10
Director: Richard Attenborough
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, John Mills, Martin Sheen...
Richard Attenborough's Academy Award-winning epic follows the extraordinary life of Mahatma Gandhi (played by Ben Kingsley), from his beginnings as a... Read more
Gertrud (1964)
7.5/10
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Starring: Nina Pens Rode, Bendt Rothe
Acclaimed director Carl Dreyer's ('The Passion of Joan of Arc') final film, 'Gertrud' is the story of a woman's search for a romantic ideal of total a... Read more
Ghost (1990)
7/10
Director: Jerry Zucker
Starring: Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg
The highest-grossing film at the box office in 1990 is about a young artist who is killed in an apparent mugging. His ghost, left stranded on Earth, s... Read more
Ghost ( Blu-ray ) (1990)
7/10
Director: Jerry Zucker
Starring: Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze, Tony Goldwyn, Whoopi Goldberg
The highest-grossing film at the box office in 1990 is about a young artist who is killed in an apparent mugging. His ghost, left stranded on Earth, s... Read more
Groundhog Day (1993)
8/10
Director: Harold Ramis
Starring: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott
Pittsburgh weatherman Bill Murray finds that his worst nightmare has become a reality when he joins producer Andie McDowell and cameraman Chris Elliot... Read more
Harold and Maude (1971)
8/10
Director: Hal Ashby
Starring: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Cyril Cusack, Vivian Pickles
With the idiosyncratic American fable "Harold and Maude", countercultural director Hal Ashby fashioned what would become the cult classic of its era.... Read more
Harold and Maude ( Blu-ray ) (1971)
8/10
Director: Hal Ashby
Starring: Bud Cort, Cyril Cusack, Ruth Gordon, Vivian Pickles
With the idiosyncratic American fable "Harold and Maude", countercultural director Hal Ashby fashioned what would become the cult classic of its era.... Read more
Heart and Souls (1993)
6.9/10
Director: Ron Underwood
Starring: Alfre Woodard, Charles Grodin, Elisabeth Shue, Kyra Sedgwick, Robert Downey Jr
This sentimental fantasy follows the misadventures of Robert Downey Jr, who, at the moment of his birth is 'adopted' by a quartet of ghosts. Realising... Read more
Heaven Can Wait (1978)
6.9/10
Director: Warren Beatty, Buck Henry
Starring: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, James Mason, Charles Grodin, Dyan Cannon, Buck He...
In this remake of 'Here Comes Mr Jordan', Warren Beatty stars as a quarterback who is taken to Heaven before his time, but because his body on Earth i... Read more
Heaven Is For Real (2014)
5.8/10
Director: Randall Wallace
Starring: Greg Kinnear, Margo Martindale, Kelly Reilly, Connor Corum
Based on the #1 New York Times best selling book, this film recounts the story of a small-town father who must find the courage and conviction to shar... Read more