Filmwell's "Religion in Film"

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From the source:

M. Leary wrote:

Religion in Film – A List of Films for the Religious Studies Classroom
When teaching courses on basic concepts in religious studies and comparative religion, I often find myself wondering what resources the history of cinema has to offer the classroom. Simply talking about rites of passage, religious language, or variations in Buddhist dogma while scribbling lecture aids on the chalkboard works well enough. But I often wish I could step back and integrate more cinema into the learning experience.

There are a lot of lists out there for people interested generally in “religion and film” or “spirituality and film,” but many of these lists are too general to be of much use in helping people experience the finer points of different religious traditions. Day of Wrath and Winter Light, for example, are great films about faith and existence, but they aren’t necessarily films about the observable phenomena of religion. And while films like Youth Without Youth, The Last Wave, or 2001 usher us very generally into the gravity of sacred time, apocalypse, and myth, they aren’t that interested in comparative religion. Something like The Mission is certainly a religious film, but is it really a film about religion? So, that being said, what are the great films out there about the specifics of religious practice?

The first impulse is to list relevant documentaries, of which there are many. And episodes of shows like Big Love, West Wing, and Caprica certainly belong in the religious studies classroom. How great are Jed Bartlett’s prayers as discussion starters about American civil religion? But I am curious about films that we leave with a greater sense of why and how people practice the nuts of bolts of religion, which are talked about in the classroom in terms of rites of passage, ritual, doctrine, sacred time and space, etc…

So here is a starter list of films that in some way show us religion in action. Please feel free to suggest more in the comments.