My Father My Lord (2007), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Source: The Story of the Beats and the Beat Generation (1999), Walkabout (1971), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Jesus of Montreal (1989), Institute Benjamenta (1995), Gambling, Gods and LSD (2002) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Spiritual Quest movies.
Storyline: The leader of a small ultra-orthodox community in Tel Aviv, Rabbi Abraham Edelman (Assi Dayan) is absolutely inflexible about doctrine. It's a trait that has won him no shortage of respect from his peers, but it's beginning to cause conflict with his son (Ilan Griff). Little Menahem has a growing fascination with the natural world, and simply can't understand why his father must shoo a mother bird from her nest, or insist that dogs have no souls.
Plot Keywords: family, faith, conflict, father-son relationship, religious extremism, tradition, modernity ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A teacher and three schoolgirls at Appleyard College disappear in 1900.
Plot Keywords: mystery, drama, psychological thriller, historical, literary adaptation, female perspective, surrealism ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Filmmaker Chuck Workman charts the achievements of Beat notables Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady.
Plot Keywords: documentary, counterculture, american culture, rebellion, social change, cultural revolution, underground culture ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A privileged British family consisting of a mother, a geologist father and an adolescent daughter and son, live in Sydney, Australia. Out of circumstance, the siblings, not knowing exactly where they are, get stranded in the Outback by themselves while on a picnic. They only have with them the clothes on their backs - their school uniforms - some meagre rations of nonperishable food, a battery-powered transistor radio, the son's satchel primarily containing his toys, and a small piece of cloth they used as their picnic drop-cloth. While they walk through the Outback, sometimes looking as though near death, they come across an Australian boy who is on his walkabout, a rite of passage into manhood where he spends months on end on his own living off the land. Their largest problem is not being able to verbally communicate. The boy does help them to survive, but doesn't understand their need to return to civilization, which may or may not happen based on what the Australian boy ends up ...
Plot Keywords: adventure, survival, australia, wilderness, coming of age, cultural clash, isolation ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Juliet lives in a beautiful house by the ocean. Her sisters, and especially her Mother overshadow her with their beauty. She is a spiritual, superstitious and naive woman. She visits a psychic seer who tells her she must follow the sex trade in order to be happy. Not long after she meets her eccentric and sexy neighbour, Suzy, who, by all counts appears to be a high class prostitute and encourages Juilet into sexual acts which make her guilty and nervous. A rare night when her husband is at home she wakes up to catch him talking to another woman on the phone. He calls out the name "Gabriella" while sleeping, but when she questions him he lies his way out of it. She finds out who Gabriella is and fears her husband will leave her. Juliet begins having visions who accuse and terrorize her. The pinnacle of the visions comes at the end where it is implied she realizes she would be better off without her husband and is ultimately emotionally emancipated.
Plot Keywords: fantasy, surrealism, feminism, psychological drama, italian cinema, dreamlike, colorful ...
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: Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: surrealism, allegory, black and white, dreamlike, absurd, mysticism, gothic ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A filmmaker's inquiry into transcendence becomes a three-hour trip across countries and cultures, interconnecting people, places and times. From Toronto, the scene of his childhood, Peter Mettler sets out on a journey that includes evangelism at the airport strip, demolition in Las Vegas, tracings in the Nevada desert, chemistry and street life in Switzerland, and the coexistence of technology and divinity in contemporary India. Everywhere along the way, the same themes are to be found: thrill-seeking, luck, destiny, belief, expanding perception, the craving for security in an uncertain world. Fact joins with fantasy; the search for meaning and the search for ecstasy begin to merge.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: gambling, religion, documentary, experimental film, faith, addiction, surreal ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Bloomington, Minnesota, 1967: Jewish physics lecturer Larry Gopnik is a serious and a very put-upon man. His daughter is stealing from him to save up for a nose job, his pot-head son, who gets stoned at his own bar-mitzvah, only wants him round to fix the TV aerial and his useless brother Arthur is an unwelcome house guest. But both Arthur and Larry get turfed out into a motel when Larry's wife Judy, who wants a divorce, moves her lover, Sy, into the house and even after Sy's death in a car crash they are still there. With lawyers' bills mounting for his divorce, Arthur's criminal court appearances and a land feud with a neighbour Larry is tempted to take the bribe offered by a student to give him an illegal exam pass mark. And the rabbis he visits for advice only dole out platitudes. Still God moves in mysterious - and not always pleasant - ways, as Larry and his family will find out.
Plot Keywords: black comedy, jewish culture, moral dilemma, existentialism, fate, religion, midlife crisis ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Eastern Europe, 1904. A Jewish woman, Yentl, has a thirst for knowledge but is prohibited from learning due to the restrictions of her religion. When her father dies, she sets off to increase her knowledge, posing as a man in order to gain admission to a Jewish religious school.
Plot Keywords: musical, drama, romance, jewish, feminism, religious conflict, coming of age ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Shaken by the death of his father and discouraged by his stalled career, writer Sal Paradise goes on a road trip hoping for inspiration. While traveling, he is befriended by charismatic and fearless Dean Moriarty and Moriarty's free-spirited and seductive young wife, Marylou. Traveling across the American southwest together, they strive to break from conformity and and search the unknown, and their decisions change the very course of their lives.
Plot Keywords: road movie, novel adaptation, self-discovery, counterculture, american literature, travel, friendship ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Paul Gauguin feels smothered by the atmosphere prevailing in Paris in the year 1891. Around him, everything is so artificial and conventional: he needs authenticity to renew his art. Failing to convince his wife Mette and his five children to follow him to Paradise Lost, he sets out for Tahiti alone. Once there, he chooses to settle down in Mataiera, a village far away from Papeete, installing himself in a native-made hut. He soon starts working passionately, painting and carving in a style close to the primitive art specific to the island. During his two-year stay the artist will experience poverty, cardiac problems and other displeasures but also happiness in the arms of Tehura, a beautiful young native girl.—Guy Bellinger
Plot Keywords: biography, history, art, painter, france, 19th century, creation ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Vic Mathews (Tom Conti) is a disillusioned schoolteacher who works with the challenged students of the Blessed Edith Semple School in Glasgow, Scotland. The school officials are searching for two more examples of Edith's miracle-working ability so she can be granted sainthood status. In between pursuing teacher Ruth Chancellor (Helen Mirren) and helping a needy student (Ewen Bremner), Vic's faith is challenged by strange occurrences that may or may not be the proof the school is looking for.
Plot Keywords: religion, faith, comedy, miracle, scotland, teacher, students ...
Movie Details Click Here !