Seven (1995), Forbidden Games (1952), The Night of the Hunter (1955), The Saragossa Manuscript (1965), The Green Pastures (1936), Jesus of Montreal (1989), Jacob's Ladder (1990), Pi (1998) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Religious Symbolism movies.
Storyline: A meticulous detective (Morgan Freeman) and the young officer (Brad Pitt) about to replace the veteran probe serial murders based on the seven deadly sins.
Plot Keywords: crime, thriller, mystery, psychological, dark, serial killer, detective ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A girl of perhaps five or six is orphaned in an air raid while fleeing a French city with her parents early in World War II. She is befriended by a pre-adolescent peasant boy after she wandered away from the other refugees, and is taken in for a few weeks by his family. The children become fast friends, and the film follows their attempt to assimilate the deaths they both face, and the religious rituals surrounding those deaths, through the construction of a cemetery for all sorts of animals. Child-like and adult activity are frequently at cross-purposes, however.—Doug Shafer <dsshafer@uncc.edu>
Plot Keywords: war, world war ii, french film, classic, child's perspective, tragedy, human nature ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: It's the Great Depression. In the process of robbing a bank of $10,000, Ben Harper kills two people. Before he is captured, he is able to convince his adolescent son John and his daughter Pearl not to tell anyone, including their mother Willa, where he hid the money, namely in Pearl's favorite toy, a doll that she carries everywhere with her. Ben, who is captured, tried and convicted, is sentenced to death. But before he is executed, Ben is in the state penitentiary with a cell mate, a man by the name of Harry Powell, a self-professed man of the cloth, who is really a con man and murderer, swindling lonely women, primarily rich widows, of their money before he kills them. Harry does whatever he can, unsuccessfully, to find out the location of the $10,000 from Ben. After Ben's execution, Harry decides that Willa will be his next mark, figuring that someone in the family knows where the money is hidden. Despite vowing not to remarry, Willa ends up being easy prey for Harry's outward ...
Plot Keywords: thriller, film noir, crime, mystery, psychological horror, classic, american film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In the Napoleonic wars, an officer finds an old book that relates his grandfather's story, Alfons van Worden, captain in the Walloon guard. A man of honor and courage, he seeks the shortest route through the Sierra Morena. At an inn, the Venta Quemada, he sups with two Islamic princesses. They call him their cousin and seduce him; he wakes beside corpses under a gallows. He meets a hermit priest and a goatherd; each tells his story; he wakes again by the gallows. He's rescued from the Inquisition, meets a cabalist and hears more stories within stories, usually of love. He returns to Venta Quemada, the women await with astonishing news.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: surrealism, psychological drama, mysticism, black comedy, absurdism, historical setting, dreamlike ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A preacher in a small African-American church in Louisiana tells his Sunday school class stories from the Bible as if the characters were part of a local fish fry. He starts with the creation of the world by God, known as "De Lawd" (Rex Ingram), and tells how God went on to create heaven, which is just like their farmland, and then created man and woman, followed by their fall and finally the coming of Jesus Christ. The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
Plot Keywords: religion, race, allegory, african american, bible, fantasy, musical ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A group of actors putting on an interpretive Passion Play in Montreal begin to experience a meshing of their characters and their private lives as the production takes form against the growing opposition of the Catholic church.—Keith Loh <loh@sfu.ca>
Plot Keywords: religion, faith, theater, performance, modern adaptation, moral dilemma, social critique ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Jacob Singer is trying to make sense of his fractured life and memories. Plagued by hallucinations, flashbacks, and conspiracies, he struggles down a path to enlightenment from these manic strains. With nothing but support from friends and loved ones will he be able to push through the haze of his PTSD.
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, supernatural, horror, mystery, war trauma, hallucination, psychological horror ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In NYC's Chinatown, recluse math genius Max (Sean Gullette) believes "everything can be understood in terms of numbers," and he looks for a pattern in the system as he suffers headaches, plays Go with former teacher Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis), and fools around with an advanced computer system he's built in his apartment. Both a Wall Street company and a Hasidic sect take an interest in his work, but he's distracted by blackout attacks, hallucinations, and paranoid delusions..
Plot Keywords: mathematics, psychological thriller, paranoia, mysticism, genius, new york, black and white ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A filmmaker's investigation into the destruction of giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan.
Plot Keywords: documentary, cultural heritage, religious conflict, history, art, destruction, war ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A gold mining camp in the California foothills is besieged by a neighboring landowner intent on stealing their claims. A preacher (Clint Eastwood) rides into camp and uses all of his powers of persuasion to convince the landowner to give up his attacks on the miners.
Plot Keywords: western, clint eastwood, revenge, gunfight, gold rush, american west, violence ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A thief awakens Valerie, just 13, taking earrings left to her by her mother. By morning, the earrings have been returned, Valerie's first period has begun, and a troupe and a missionary have arrived in her 19th century town. The thief is Orick; he reports to a cloaked constable who may also be the missionary. Attention to sexuality is everywhere: Valerie's grandmother's puritanical nature, the missionary's sermon to the town's virgins, the parish priest's attempt to seduce Valerie, and lusty adults at play. Valerie's nascent sexuality puts her in great danger. Can she navigate the passage from innocence to experience, a route teaming with vampires, a murderer, and an obscure family tree?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: fantasy, surreal, gothic, coming of age, dreamlike, vampire, sexual awakening ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Richard Burton) investigates the savage blinding of six horses with a metal spike in a stable in Hampshire, England. The atrocity was committed by an unassuming seventeen-year-old stable boy named Alan Strang (Peter Firth), the only son of an opinionated but inwardly-timid father and a genteel, religious mother. As Dysart exposes the truths behind the boy's demons, he finds himself face-to-face with his own.—Serenleono <verax@mindspring.com>
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, play adaptation, psychoanalysis, human nature exploration, criminal psychology, ethical dilemma, british film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A strange visitor in a wealthy family. He seduces the maid, the son, the mother, the daughter and finally the father before leaving a few days after. After he's gone, none of them can continue living as they did. Who was that visitor ? Could he be God ?
Plot Keywords: art film, italian cinema, religious metaphor, identity crisis, family breakdown, existentialism, surrealism ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A small village is renowned for its "Ruby Glass" glass blowing works. When the foreman of the works dies suddenly without revealing the secret of the Ruby Glass, the town slides into a deep depression, and the owner of the glassworks becomes obssessed with the lost secret.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: fantasy, allegory, surrealism, prophecy, medieval, visual poetry, mysticism ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Steven Shorter is the ultimate British music star. His music is listened to by everyone from pre-teens to grandparents. He has no trace of public bad habits or drug involvement. Everyone in Britain loves him. His handlers begin to use his popularity for projects like increasing the consumption of apples after a bumper crop as an aid to farmers. The handlers decide that Steven should support God and Country next. This leads to, among other things, a rock version of "Onward Christian Soldiers," and the inclusion of a Nazi salute to make it clear (to the viewer) how far the British population will be taken for love of God and Country under Steven's guidance. Steven is very plastic in his direction, shifting as his handlers point him toward new projects until he meets Vanessa Ritchie, an artist who makes him look at what's happening.—John Vogel {jlvogel@comcast.net}
Plot Keywords: dystopian, social critique, musical, british film, 1960s, political allegory, pop culture ...
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