Subject: Religion
Religious movements or phenomena happen on grand and quiet scales, whether it be a major world religion or a priest walking across the Gobi desert with a monkey god in tow.
Barabba (Barabbas)
- Director: Richard Fleischer
- Release Date: 1961
- Production Country: Italy
Freed in place of Jesus of Nazareth, Barabbas suffers from survivor's guilt even as he labors in sulfur mines and the gladiatorial games. Barabbas also survives earthquakes and other disasters, eventually gaining a reputation as the man who cannot die. However, when he falls in with Christians in Rome, he may find his luck coming to an end.
Ben-Hur
- Director: William Wyler
- Release Date: 1959
- Production Country: United States
Falling from wealthy merchant to galley slave, Judah Ben Hur returns to Jerusalem as the adopted son of the rich Roman whose life he saved and is intent on finding his family and punishing the childhood friend who unjustly imprisoned them—but his brief encounters with a strange carpenter from Nazareth may change everything.
Die Juden - Geschichte eines Volkes (The Jews: A People's History)
- Director: Nina Koshofer, Sabine Klauser
- Release Date: 2007
- Production Country: Germany
The Jewish people's history traces back 4,000 years, from the sands of the Middle East, to the Diaspora in classical times, to the modern-day Israel.
El crimen del Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro)
- Director: Carlos Carrera
- Release Date: 2002
- Production Country: Mexico, Spain, Argentina, France
Young Father Amaro finds that his fellow priests are less spiritual and more carnal and political in their devotions but Father Amaro may not have time to decide where his devotions truly lie: as the people's priest, or as their fellow man.
El pecado de Adán y Eva (The Sin of Adam and Eve)
- Director: Miguel Zacarías
- Release Date: 1969
- Production Country: Mexico
Adam remembers the good ol' days, before Eve tempted him and they were both ejected from the Garden of Eden.
End of the Spear
- Director: Jim Hanon
- Release Date: 2005
- Production Country: United States
Missionaries from the United States attempt to make contact with the Waodani people in Ecuador, but when all five of the men in the group are killed, their wives and families return home. However, several years later, two of the women return to the Waodani to attempt once again to convert the tribe to Christianity.
Esther
- Director: Amos Gitai
- Release Date: 1986
- Production Country: Austria, Israel, United Kingdom
Queen Esther prevents the murder of all the Jews in Babylon, after which the Jews exact bloody revenge on those who plotted against them.
Häxan (Witchcraft Through the Ages)
- Director: Benjamin Christensen
- Release Date: 1922
- Production Country: Denmark, Sweden
Women accused of witchcraft were doomed to terrible tortures and possible death, but were these women truly witches or was there something far more sinister at play in a culture that believed in the devil and his demonic forces? There may be a modern explanation for medieval Europe's fascination with hunting witches.
Hrafninn flýgur (When the Raven Flies and Revenge of the Barbarians)
- Director: Hrafn Gunnlaugsson
- Release Date: 1984
- Production Country: Iceland, Sweden
An Irish boy is left alone after Vikings kill his parents and kidnap his sister; once a man, twenty years later, he seeks his kidnapped sister and revenge in 9th-century Iceland.
Hvíti víkingurinn (Embla or The White Viking)
- Director: Hrafn Gunnlaugsson
- Release Date: 1991
- Production Country: Norway, Denmark, Sweden
To save his wife from the wrath of Norway's Christian king, pagan Askur must help convert Iceland to Christianity.
Í skugga hrafnsins (In the Shadow of the Raven)
- Director: Hrafn Gunnlaugsson
- Release Date: 1988
- Production Country: Iceland, Sweden
The traditions of the non-Christian 11th-century Icelandic people cause two rival clans to feud over a beached whale carcass, causing one leader's death and the need for his daughter to marry a Bishop's son in order to ensure peace, despite her love for a rival.
Il vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew)
- Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Release Date: 1964
- Production Country: Italy, France
Jesus teaches in parables, threatens revolt, and dies a terrible death only to live again.
Islam: Empire of Faith
- Director: Robert H. Gardner
- Release Date: 2000
- Production Country: United States
Founded by the prophet Mohammed in the late 6th century CE, Islam became one of the world's major religions, most especially in the Mediterranean world where it helped create and consolidate the Ottoman Empire, one of the largest and longest lasting empires in history.
Jesus Christ Superstar
- Director: Norman Jewison
- Release Date: 1973
- Production Country: United States
Judas Iscariot tries to decide whether he should support Jesus or betray him.
Jesus of Nazareth
- Director: Franco Zeffirelli
- Release Date: 1977
- Production Country: Italy, United Kingdom
In Palestine, a young boy matures into a holy man with a mystical presence and a polarizing message that threatens to upset the careful balance maintained by the Roman state government and local religious leaders. But when ordinary people continue to flock to his side, both ruling groups must determine whether creating a martyr by condemning Jesus to death is less dangerous than allowing this holy man to continue to spread his radical ideas of equality, love, and forgiveness.
Joseph
- Director: Roger Young
- Release Date: 1995
- Production Country: Italy, United States, Germany
Young Joseph, eldest son of his father's favorite wife, is sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, yet when Joseph arrives in Egypt, he finds himself working in the Pharaoh's palace, where his penchant for analyzing dreams allows him to become the most powerful slave in the land—which comes in handy when his brothers arrive years later, begging for shelter and food.
Le moine et la sorcière (Sorceress)
- Director: Suzane Schiffman
- Release Date: 1987
- Production Country: France
Intent on sniffing out heresy amongst the faithful, an inquisitor arrives at a poor peasant village where the local priest is more worried about compassion and comfort for the peasants than their comprehension of dogma. The inquisitor realizes he's found his heretic when he discovers that the single beautiful woman in the village lives at the edge of the woods, concocting herbal cures and leading the villagers in the worship of a local saint—who just happens to be a dog.
Little Buddha
- Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
- Release Date: 1993
- Production Country: Italy, France, Liechtenstein, United Kingdom
An American couple are not sure what to think when a Buddhist monk arrives on their doorstep from Bhutan with the announcement that their son may be the newly reincarnated Lama Dorje, especially since they are not Buddhist. But their need for a crash course in topics, such as Buddhism's founder Prince Siddhartha, is not their only problem; when they arrive in Bhutan, they discover that their son is not the only candidate to take the Lama's place.
Marketa Lazarová
- Director: František Vláčil
- Release Date: 1967
- Production Country: Czechoslovakia
A young girl on her way to a convent is abducted and becomes a pawn in a battle between pagan nobles and their newly Christian king.
Matka Joanna od aniolów (Mother Joan of the Angels or The Devil and the Nun)
- Director: Jerzy Kawalerowicz
- Release Date: 1961
- Production Country: Poland
Father Jozef Suryn arrives at a lonely convent in Poland where a local priest named Garniec was recently executed for causing the mass possession of the nuns. The Mother Superior, Mother Joan of the Angels, becomes his sole responsibility as Father Suryn struggles to exorcise the eight demons inside her body. But the priest may have to bargain with his own soul to save the tormented nun.