Rosemary's Baby (1968), Deliver Us From Evil (2006), Becket (1964), Zelig (1983), The Godfather: Part III (1990), Elizabeth (1998), L'Age d'Or (1930), Il Divo (2008) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Vatican movies.
Storyline: Desirous of starting a family, the young Catholic housewife, Rosemary Woodhouse, and her struggling actor husband, Guy, move into the Bramford: New York's iconic building which brims with unpleasant stories of obscure dwellers and ghastly occurrences. Before long, the young couple is befriended by their somehow eccentric next-door neighbours, Roman and Minnie Castevet, and, shortly after, Rosemary gets pregnant. However, little by little--as the inexperienced mother becomes systematically cut off from her circle and friends--alarming hints of a sinister and well-planned conspiracy begin to emerge, enfolding Rosemary in a shroud of suspicion and mental agony. In the end, why is everyone so conveniently eager to help; furthermore, why is Guy allowing it?
Plot Keywords: satanism, female nudity, paranoia, devil worship, witchcraft, demonic possession, satanic cult ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Former Catholic priest Oliver O'Grady - Father Ollie in more familiar circumstances - talks about his life as priest, including what he saw as his many failings in that role. Although not stating it as one of those failings, he also speaks about the sexual abuse of minors, both girls and boys, in his role as a priest, where his victims number in the hundreds covering approximately two decades in Central California, with his youngest known victim being nine months old. He admits that he spent as much time planning his abuses, which included gaining the confidences of parents sometimes also in sexual means, than he did with actual ministering. A handful of his victims and their support networks speak of how the abuse was able to happen, how it has negatively affected their collective lives to this day (while Father Ollie walks seemingly happy a free man in his native Ireland), and how they are trying to regain their faith in a holistic manner. Experts talk about how items specific to the Catholic religious structure institutionalize such abuse where power rests in the hands of a small few, while the flock - the masses - are meant, as good Catholics, to be subservient to that power, and why the abuse of girls is treated differently by the church than that of boys. This documentary then opens up the discussion to the fact that clergy abuse within the Catholic church is not isolated only to Father Ollie, but is widespread, may be institutionalized psychologically, and efforts are still made at almost every step by those in positions of power, including the Pope, to protect the abusers at the expense of the victims. In Father Ollie's case, he was moved from parish to parish within his diocese (the Los Angeles Diocese) and often promoted, while his victims were told he would be moved not only into therapy but into positions where children could no longer be abused.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: ireland, theology, holy communion, molestation, celibacy, child molestation, investigation ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Debauched King Henry II installs his longtime court facilitator Thomas Becket as the Archbishop of Canterbury, assuming that his old friend will be a compliant and loyal lackey in the King's ongoing battles with the church. But Becket unexpectedly finds his true calling on the ecclesiastical side, and aligns himself against the king's selfish wishes, causing a rift and an eventual showdown not only between the two men, but also the institutions they represent.
Plot Keywords: religion, 12th century, england, friendship, based on play, martyr, fugitive ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Fictional documentary about the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s due to his ability to look and act like whoever is around him. Clever editing places Zelig in real newsreel footage of Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others.
Plot Keywords: mockumentary, disappearance, fat man, hypnotism, jew, song, baseball ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the final installment of the Godfather Trilogy, an aging Don Michael Corleone seeks to legitimize his crime family's interests and remove himself from the violent underworld but is kept back by the ambitions of the young. While he attempts to link the Corleone's finances with the Vatican, Michael must deal with the machinations of a hungrier gangster seeking to upset the existing Mafioso order and a young protege's love affair with his daughter.
Plot Keywords: opera, father son relationship, father daughter relationship, italian american, sicily, organized crime, mob hit ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: This film details the ascension to the throne and the early reign of Queen Elizabeth the First, as played by Cate Blanchett. The main focus is the endless attempts by her council to marry her off, the Catholic hatred of her and her romance with Lord Robert Dudley.
Plot Keywords: brutality, queen, catholic, throne, poisoning, orgy, inquisition ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Bunuel's first feature has more of a plot than Un Chien Andalou (1929), but it's still a pure Surrealist film, so this is only a vague outline. A man and a woman are passionately in love with each other, but their attempts to consummate that passion are constantly thwarted by their families, the Church, and bourgeois society.
Plot Keywords: surrealism, absurd humor, cult film, absurdism, satire, avant garde, cow ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The story of Italian politician Giulio Andreotti, who has served as Prime Minister of Italy seven times since the restoration of democracy in 1946.
Plot Keywords: prime minister, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, catholic church, rome italy, mafia ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In World War II, the sanitation engineer and family man Kurt Gerstein is assigned by SS to be the Head of the Institute for Hygiene to purify the water for the German Army in the front. Later, he is invited to participate in termination of plagues in the concentration camps and he develops the lethal gas Zyklon-B. When he witnesses that the SS is killing Jews instead, he decides to denounce the genocide to the Pope to expose to the world and save the Jewish families. The idealist Jesuit priest Riccardo Fontana from an influent Italian family gives his best efforts being the liaison of Gerstein and the leaders of the Vatican.
Plot Keywords: ss, vatican, ss officer, german army, jew, pope, priest ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The 1981 hunger strike in an Irish prison, in which I.R.A. prisoner Bobby Sands led a protest against their treatment as criminals rather than as prisoners of war. It focuses on the mothers of two of the strikers, and their struggle.
Plot Keywords: bartender, cigarette smoking, classroom, class, coffin, conspiracy, courage ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Pope Julius II (Sir Rex Harrison) is eager to leave behind works by which he will be remembered. To this end he cajoles Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) into painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. When not on the battlefield uniting Italy, the Pope nags Michelangelo to speed up his painful work on the frescoes.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: based on novel, catholic church, artist, catholic, 16th century, pope, church ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: During WWII, a head priest, Henri Kremer, is mysteriously freed from Dachau concentration camp. He learns that he can return home, to Luxembourg, for a period of nine days, during which he will have to face a persuasive Gestapo chief who will put his faith to the test.—Anonymous9
Plot Keywords: conspiracy, forced labor, swastika, reference to jesus christ, prisoner, fast motion scene, eyeglasses ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Ukrainian Archbishop Kiril Lakota is set free after twenty years as a political prisoner in Siberia. He is brought to Rome by Father David Telemond, a troubled young priest who befriends him. Once at the Vatican, he is immediately given an audience with the Pope, who elevates him to Cardinal Priest. The world is on the brink of war due to a Chinese-Soviet feud made worse by a famine caused by trade restrictions brought against China by the U.S. When the Pontiff suddenly dies, Lakota's genuine character and unique life experience move the College of Cardinals to elect him as the new Pope. But Pope Kiril I must now deal with his own self-doubt, the struggle of his friend Father Telemond, who is under scrutiny for his beliefs, and find a solution to the crisis in China.
Plot Keywords: pope, based on novel, catholic church, cold war, religion, church, catholic priest ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A man named Owen Davian kills an IMF agent that was sent undercover by the legendary Ethan Hunt, who has retired from combat missions. Hunt now has a fiancé, Julia, who believes that he works for the traffic department when he really trains younger IMF agents to go into combat. He is assigned to his last mission. His mission, should he choose to accept it is to capture Davian, who is selling a toxic weapon called the rabbits foot. But Davian is reckless, cruel, and deathly. He promises Hunt that he will find Julia, hurt her, and Ethan will be too dead to help her. The mission is no more different to others, its dangerous, smart, and impossible; but now it's personal.
Plot Keywords: shot in the head, shot in the leg, shot in the shoulder, suicide, macguffin, secret agent, airplane ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Stephen Fermoyle has grown up in Boston at the turn of the twentieth century knowing that his destiny lies with the Catholic priesthood. Finally finishing his studies in Rome, he returns to America full of certitude and ambition to one day join the College of Cardinals. But his road to that office is a long one, paved with crises. In Boston, he must decide whether to save the life of his sister or her unborn child, conceived out of wedlock. In Austria, he confronts the question of whether to remain with the priesthood or abandon his oath so that he can be with the woman he loves. In Georgia, he contends with Rome's indifference in the face of racial bigotry. And in Austria, he finds himself personally involved in the church's dealings with the Third Reich.—Shannon Patrick Sullivan <shannon@mun.ca>
Plot Keywords: catholic priest, based on novel, nazism, vatican, veil, widow, woman in labor ...
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