Being a Christian in the 21st century is difficult at the best of times. Even without Mel Gibson constantly putting his foot in it, or Westboro Baptist Church spitting venom at the very people they are supposed to be helping, we have to contend with a media backlash whenever a seemingly ‘Christian’ film is released.

The problem seems to be that people don’t mind Christianity per se: if people are Bible-bashing in the streets, they can ignore them or talk back. What they resent, or appear to resent, are films with Christian undertones – allegories or parables which introduce Christian beliefs or ideas in a supposedly secular context. When The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe came out in 2005, The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee accused it of “invad[ing] children’s minds with Christian iconography… heavily laden with guilt, blame, sacrifice and a suffering that is dark with emotional sadism.” Ouch.

What Toynbee and others fail to realise is that Christianity runs deeper through cinema than the obvious allegories of Narnia, The Matrix and The Green Mile. Quite apart from the dozens of films made each year that are set around religion in some way, a select number of superficially secular or humanist films have Christian imagery or ideas coursing through their veins. Crucially, most if not all of them manage to convey these ideas or images without alienating non-Christian viewers.

The 50 films contained on this list are all intriguing for Christians and non-Christians alike, for one reason or another. Some wear their heart on their sleeve, others keep it hidden beneath several other layers – and precious few of them would turn up on a recommended viewing list for cosy Christian Union socials. I love God, and I love film – and I don’t believe the two are in contradiction.

 

THE LIST

 

A Canterbury Tale (1944)

We start with a gentle oldie from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, best known for The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus (see below). While doing away with the more raunchy aspects of Geoffrey Chaucer’s unfinished epic, the film manages to explore the notion of pilgrimage as a process of self-discovery and spiritual fulfilment. As this hapless and eccentric bunch of characters arrive in Canterbury, they gain a new sense of purpose bound up in the spiritual or fantastical connotations of both the location and the occasion it marks.

 

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Stanley Kubrick may have been an atheist, but several of his films entertain elements of Christianity. Much of his masterpiece is satirical towards Christianity, whether it’s the prisoners being forced to sing hymns, or Alex imagining himself as a Roman soldier, beating Christ on the road to Golgotha. But in his last scene, the chaplain stands up for the condemned men, arguing for their right to choose between right and wrong, even if it leads them to choose wrongly. The film both indicts organised religion and suggests that faith, or at least belief in a higher ideal, can have a purpose.

 

Alien 3 (1992)

Before David Fincher was hired to direct, Alien 3 was going to be helmed by Vincent Ward. He pitched the film to 20th Century Fox as “The Name of the Rose in space”, with Ripley coming to the aid of monks on a wooden planet. Although a little messy in either of its versions, much of Ward’s vision survives, and is complimented by Fincher’s direction. Ripley is the Christ figure who falls from the heavens to help the prisoners, and at first they do not accept their Messiah. The final shot of Ripley falling into the molten steel with her arms out cements her symbolic position.

 

Angel Heart (1987)

Alan Parker’s stylish and suspenseful noir takes Faust, mixes with Raymond Chandler and elements of The Wicker Man, and serves the whole mixture up via outstanding visuals and very graphic violence. Mickey Rourke is terrific as the fallen angel whom, it transpires, is a lot closer to hell than even he may realise… The film is worth seeing for a creepy-as-sin scene where Robert De Niro talks about the human soul while peeling a hard-boiled egg with his long fingernails.

 

Bad Lieutenant (1992)

Abel Ferrara’s most audacious work is a Catholic redemption tale dressed in enough sex, violence, nudity and drug abuse to make Requiem for a Dream look tame by comparison. Harvey Keitel is outstanding as the nameless lieutenant whose morality has been eroded by too many years on the beat. When assigned to a rape case involving a nun, he sees a vision of Christ in the church where the events took place, and crawls along the floor begging to understand how anyone could forgive such a horrendous act. A powerful film which proves that no-one is beyond redemption.

 

Being There (1979)

Peter Sellers was Oscar-nominated for what he considered his finest film, Being There. In Hal Ashby’s masterpiece he plays Chance, a simple-minded elderly gardener whose employer’s death forces him out of his life-long home. Coming into contact with dying billionaire Mervyn Douglas, his childlike comments lead him to advise the president and other people of influence. The film explores the idea of the world not recognising Christ when He was in plain sight, being simultaneously an anti-religious satire and a celebration of childlike faith and hope.

 

Black Narcissus (1947)

The second Powell and Pressburger entry on this list as a psychological thriller about nuns, and one of the main influences on Darren Aronofsky’s lovably bonkers Black Swan. The film explores religious devotion and faith through the language of sexual repression, with Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) having to resist both the amorous advances of Mr. Dean and the increasingly insane wantonness of the corrupted Sister Ruth. It’s a fascinating retelling of the Garden of Eden, which implies that temptation is caused as much by pride or perception as it is by external threat.

 

Blade Runner (1982)

Although Ridley Scott’s masterpiece is most prominently about what it means to be human, its approach to this is bound up in Christian notions of morality, sacrifice and love conquering all. The debate over whether or not Deckard as a replicant as secondary to the film’s main message – because, in the end, it is impossible to divide people, the only emotion that can prevail is pure, unconditional love. The tears in rain speech, famously improvised by Rutger Hauer, is a confession of Man’s humble place in the universe, and with it a desire to reach the heavens that lie beyond.

 

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

The Christian elements of Tim Burton’s superior version of Roald Dahl’s classic tale lie in one of its most controversial creative decisions. The themes about materialism and excess are there in plain sight, as are the deification of Wonka as the man who can create absolutely anything. But beneath all that we have the scenes between Wonka and his dentist father (Sir Christopher Lee), which are an interesting retelling of the prodigal son.

 

Cronos (1993)

Like A Clockwork Orange before it, Cronos is mainly concerned with the failures of the church rather than the faith it claims to uphold. Guillermo del Toro’s chilling debut contains many striking images of the threat posed to organised religion by the vampiric device – the most striking being a cockroach crawling out through the eye of a statue of an angel. The film retunes the idea of vampirism as a defiance of God by demonstrating the weakness of the flesh: Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) recites the Lord’s Prayer while allowing the device to bite him a second time.

 

Dune (1984)

David Lynch has practically disowned Dune and continues to dodge questions about it in interviews. But while the finished product is a mess in any of its four versions, there are moments in which its spiritual ideas come together in a powerful way. While most of Frank Herbert’s novel is concerned with Zen or Eastern mysticism, there are little Christian motifs throughout, culminating in the revelation of Paul Atreides as the god-like being who will end all wars and unite all peoples.

 

Eraserhead (1977)

Go a few years back in time, and you will find the Bible’s fingerprints all over David Lynch’s terrifying debut feature. On one level Eraserhead explores the Old Testament concept of the sins of the father being visited upon the son, with the twisted mutant baby as the manifestation of the darkest and blackest parts of Henry’s soul. The man in the moon pulling levers at the beginning and end also suggests God has set all of these events in motion. But it’s not all doom and gloom, as the final scene with the Girl in the Radiator points towards redemption, suggesting that in heaven, everything is fine.

 

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Kubrick’s last film has been called many things – a powerful commentary on the role of sex in Western culture, a slow-burning character drama, or “the inane ramblings of a man who needed to get out more” (Mark Kermode). But Bill and Alice’s romantic odyssey also has an air of Eden about it. Alice recounts a nightmare about leaving a garden, while at Zeigler’s party both Bill and Alice are tempted by the advances of the opposite sex. One could argue the film is set just after the eviction from Eden, with the two wandering around in darkness and finally finding each other.

 

Gladiator (2000)

Gladiator is proof that you can have metaphysics and fist fights in the same film. Beginning and ending in the Elysian fields (the Roman conception of Heaven), Ridley Scott’s third masterpiece explores the nature of devotion and sacrifice, with Maximus willing to die in the name of not just what is right, but what he loves. The final confrontation between Maximus and Commodus is both a rip-roaring fight scene and a kinetic exploration of Man’s relationship with God, death and the earthly powers, whose presence distracts and obstructs us from our heavenly calling.

 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts I & II (2010-11)

The conservative church will live to regret its opposition to the Harry Potter series of novels and films. Not only are its comments about them “encouraging witchcraft” utter nonsense, but the later instalments rival Narnia as a form of Christian allegory. The last two films find the Christ figure Harry wandering the wilderness, encountering various temptations and trying to protect the people he loves. This first part is preparation for his equivalent of ministry, finally having the strength to confront Voldemort, appearing to die and then returning triumphant.

 

Heartless (2010)

Philip Ridley’s back catalogue is littered with Christian imagery, from Brendan Fraser’s warped fundamentalist in The Passion of Darkly Noon to the post-apocalyptic retelling of Eden in The Pitchfork Disney. Heartless, like Angel Heart before it, reinterprets Faust for the 21st century, blending gritty visuals of London’s East End with fantastical imagery which is worthy of Pan’s Labyrinth. The final scene, involving a death-bed reconciliation between Jamie and his father, is both chilling and heart-breaking.

 

If…. (1968)

Lindsay Anderson’s subversive masterpiece is another film in this list to take a stab at the institutions of the church without reviling the teachings of Christ. In a key scene about three-quarters of the way through, the chaplain of College School preaches about fighting the good fight and cowardice being an unforgivable sin. But he is soon forced to eat his words when confronted by Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell), carrying a loaded rifle. Anderson’s film demonstrates how once-noble ideals have been corrupted by institutions to the extent that they now mean the opposite of what was intended.

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