12 More Movies for Easter

Eight years ago, we offered up a list of eight movies as the best movies to watch for Easter. While we think those picks still hold up, after nearly a decade we thought some more Easter recommends were in order. After all, it’s not as easy to find Easter weekend viewing material as it is for Christmas.

This time, we’ve opened things up with a few left-field picks, as well as added more historical epics for those who want to change up old standbys such as Ben-Hur.

As well, with COVID-19 lockdowns around the globe and most church services cancelled (or being live streamed) for Holy Week, we figure people might want some spiritual-minded viewing for Easter weekend, or just to reflect upon, in these difficult times.

Barabbas (1961) dir. Richard Fleischer

I remember Barabbas as one of the stranger biblical epics from the golden age of such films. The sets and other production values are dirtier and less bright, which complements the story’s focus on the notorious figure of Barabbas, the murderer who was set free instead of Jesus in the Passion story (see, e.g., Mark 15:6–15). At the centre of the film is Anthony Quinn’s great performance as Barabbas, who, the film speculates, remains haunted and is ultimately changed by the freedom he has won at Jesus’s cost. The intense conviction of Quinn’s performance sells the conversion narrative in a way that many such stories do not. (Anton)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) dir. Denis Villeneuve

You may be baffled by this inclusion, but bear with me. Not only is Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to Ridley Scott’s classic Blade Runner a worthy late sequel, but it also presents one of the most considered and in-depth Christologies in all of film, as I wrote about back in 2017. What I mean by that is that the film uses a Christ figure to spin a tale of redemption and personhood, centred around the android K’s (Ryan Gosling) quest to become something more than a machine and achieve a soul. In one sense, the film is a Pinocchio story, but in an even deeper sense, it’s about a person awakening to a new life: it’s a tale of baptism and metaphysical salvation. The original Blade Runner plays with Paradise Lost and the Greek myth of Prometheus; its sympathies lie with the tricksters and fallen creations. But Blade Runner 2049 has more sympathy for the lost sheep in search of a shepherd. K is like St. Paul or another one of the apostles of the Early Church, who finds the potential for more within himself and gives over his life to this new cause, which not only helps others, but also sanctifies himself in the process. Thus, the film is appropriate Easter viewing, showing the redemptive potential of new life and the possibilities of a spiritual cause, even for androids. (Aren)

Dekalog (1989) dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski

As should be obvious from the title, Dekalog is a 10-part Polish television series that engages with the Ten Commandments within the mundane realities of people living in an apartment complex in Warsaw in the late 1980s. Each episode deals with a specific commandment and different people within the complex, who rarely intersect with each other, but who all lead quiet lives faced with moral conundrums. Kieślowski weds his documentary-style realism with metaphysical quandaries and creates a series of films that are alternatingly heartbreaking (Dekalog: One), haunting (Dekalog: Five), and hilarious (Dekalog: Ten). Each film stands on its own as a compelling drama. When taken altogether, the series becomes something more profound and mysterious: a collection of cinematic parables for our modern times. No one film in the series engages directly with Easter, but that’s not the point of including Dekalog on this list. The series’ spiritual power and profound reflections might be just what people need this Easter weekend. (Aren)

Of Gods and Men (2010) dir. Xavier Beauvois

This French film about the real-life story of a group of Trappist monks who die a martyr’s death during the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s isn’t especially focused on the death and suffering of Christ, but the question of what it means to live like Christ. The monks, who live in service and harmony with their immediate Muslim neighbours, are challenged when a military fundamentalist group moves into the area. They must make a choice of how to best continue to serve God and whether they should return to France. The film opens with an epigraph, Psalm 82:6-7, “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.” A perfect film to contemplate Christ’s love in his act of sacrifice over Holy Week. (Anders)

Knight of Cups (2016) dir. Terrence Malick

Terrance Malick’s film about a Hollywood actor (Christian Bale) going through a spiritual crisis is overtly religious yet incredibly obscure. With elliptical editing and haunting, repetitive imagery, it’s among Malick’s most poetic and formally difficult works. The film opens with an old audio recording of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and Malick returns to that text throughout the film. The other key reference point is a more esoteric choice: the Hymn of the Pearl from the gnostic Acts of Thomas, which tells about a heavenly prince who goes away to a distant land and forgets his true nature. What’s more, the title refers to a Tarot card. Knight of Cups is probably the closest equivalent to a T. S. Eliot poem that cinema has achieved: as with Eliot’s poetry, on first encounter with the film it’s best to not try to sort out what exactly is going on, but rather to surrender to the total emotional effect the discordant images are trying to elicit. For, in spite of its impenetrability, Knight of Cups is a deeply affecting tale of the human struggle with what 1 John 2:16 identifies as the Lust of the Flesh, the Lust of the Eyes, and the Pride of Life, all the while yearning for redemption. (Anton)

The Miracle Maker: The Story of Jesus (2000) dir. Derek W. Hayes and Stanislav Sokolov

I’ve reviewed and recommended this animated account of the life and ministry of Jesus before, but my esteem for it has grown in the last half decade as my own children have gotten old enough for us to make it a part of our Holy Week traditions. It’s the rare Jesus film that takes the biblical accounts of Jesus seriously while being accessible to children. The Miracle Maker uses stop-motion animation, combined with hand-drawn sequences for parables, that lends it both a unique visual-style and a kind of verisimilitude, ironically, in recreating first century Palestine. With a lovely Middle-Eastern inflected score and all-star voice cast (including Ralph Fiennes as Jesus), the film takes a synoptic approach to the gospel accounts, framed from the perspective of a young girl Tamar, daughter of Jesus’ disciple Jairus (voiced by William Hurt), whom the film makes the young girl Jesus raised from the dead. It is also a rare Easter film that gives a significant weight to the resurrection accounts and beyond, culminating in Christ’s ascension. If I had to pick one Jesus movie, this might be it. (Anders)

My Neighbor Totoro (1988) dir. Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki’s beautiful children’s film might not seem like an obvious choice, as it isn’t specifically religious or even Christian. But it is a perfect thematic film for a season of rebirth and the arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere. This gentle and moving portrait of the friendship between two little girls, Mei and Satsuki, and a benevolent forest spirit, Totoro, speaks to the generative power of belief. Quiet and meditative, Totoro also deals with the realities of mortality, as the girls must deal with their mother being sick and in the hospital. A story of nature, spirituality, and rebirth, Totoro reflects the wisdom of Christ’s words: “Truly I tell you, anyone who does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Anders)

Risen (2016) dir. Kevin Reynolds

Most faith-based films nowadays are bad movies and even worse works of theology, but Risen is the rare film that actually works as a compelling drama while adding an interesting new perspective to the Easter story. The film is told through the perspective of a Roman tribune (Joseph Fiennes) who investigates the disappearance of Christ’s body in the days following his crucifixion. Much of the film plays as a detective narrative, with the tribune trying to comprehend the meaning of the body’s disappearance, while keeping the political strife in Judea from blowing over. Of course, his investigation leads him to a Christian conclusion about the truth of the Resurrection, but the film doesn’t get to that conclusion easily, and Fiennes makes it a compelling emotional journey along the way—seriously, he probably should’ve been considered for major awards due to his performance here. Risen is one of the few modern films to successfully pull off the classic biblical movie approach in disguising a tale of conversion as an entertaining sword-and-sandals drama. (Aren)

The Robe (1953) dir. Henry Koster and Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) dir. Delmer Daves

Is The Robe a good movie? Sort of. Doubtless, it is very significant, being the first widescreen feature film and an important colour historical epic. I mainly recommend it for those who’ve seen Ben-Hur too many times and want to branch out. Like Barabbus, The Robe embellishes a small story from the Passion, this time the story of the Roman tribune who wins Jesus’s robe in a game of dice during the Crucifixion (see Mark 15:24). As with Barabbas, the interaction with Jesus spurs a transformation. The film’s heavy-handed religious message is less persuasive than Barabbas, but The Robe has more splendid production values. The sets and costumes are great, and the final colosseum scenes are quite captivating. For more Christians and gladiators, track down the decent follow-up sequel, Demetrius and the Gladiators. (Anton)

The Sign of the Cross (1932) dir. Cecil B. DeMille

Cecil B. DeMille’s early Christian black-and-white epic is a pious pic with many other objects of fascination and more lurid appeal. Here’s a film with an Roman Empress (Claudett Colbert) in a milk bath. There are Roman orgies and truly gruesome Christian martyrdoms at the hands of lions in the Colosseum. At the same time, the story’s also a gripping thriller of sorts about early Christians struggling to survive Roman persecution through secrecy, special codes, and, ultimately, patient suffering. The story, setting, and atmosphere have an appeal that recall later French Resistance movies such as Casablanca or Army of Shadows. As I’ve argued about Samson and Delilah, like all DeMille movies, the energy of The Sign of the Cross derives not from hypocrisy, as many charge, but in the film’s divided, fractured thematic interests. DeMille’s a filmmaker who doesn’t sugarcoat pious content to make it go down; rather, he’s intensely interested in both eroticism and piety and the powerful holds that each can place on people’s hearts. (Anton)

Silence (2016) dir. Martin Scorsese

Silence, Martin Scorsese’s long planned adaptation of the Japanese novel by Shusako Endo, ranks among the most powerful cinematic meditations on the question of what it means to have faith in a hostile world. Following the journey of Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Garupe (Adam Driver) through seventeenth-century Japan to find their former mentor who has supposedly apostatized under the brutal persecutions of the Tokugawa era, both the characters and the film viewer must confront the question of what faith looks like when the supports of our belief are stripped away and death is the alternative to a symbolic act of trampling on the image of Christ (fumi-e). What does it mean for Rodrigues to uphold true faith if it means the further persecution of the Japanese Kirishtans? One of the films most haunting images is that of the Japanese martyrs being crucified on a rocky seashore, a powerful depiction of suffering for Christian faith. The film’s ending is unforgettable for its complex, riddling exploration of the nature of apostasy and how best to serve God’s will in a messy world. And that voice that speaks, urging Rodrigues to trample the fumi-e: Who is it? Christ? The Devil? His own human frailty? Few films offer much richer and hauntingly beautiful material for rumination on the harder questions related to Easter. (Anders and Anton)