My two cents about
The Passion of the Christ.
The biggest fault of
TPotC in my opinion is that there’s really no context for the Passion. Mel, in choosing to depict only the last twenty-four hours of Jesus’ life (before the resurrection), sort of skimmed over that. Mel apparently took it for granted that his audience already knows the story and could fill in the gaps, but for a non-Christian who only barely knows the story of Jesus (or not at all), the whole film would be nearly incomprehensible, I think. It’s one guy being bullied to death by a bunch of dark-robed old men and a lynch mob
for some reason.
The Jewish leaders and the crowd want Jesus dead, but it is never clearly explained
why within the film. Yeah, you do get this flashback of Jesus saying that He is laying down His life, but that’s hardly an answer as to why Caiaphas and company is so bent on having Jesus crucified.
I think that’s what really engendered the accusations of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. IMHO Mel could have done better by inserting a flashback of say, Caiaphas saying his “better that one man should die for the people” line (John 11:50). That would have made some difference.
And that’s another problematic area of the film in my opinion: the character designs and the characterizations. Case in point: Caiaphas and Pilate. Caiaphas is portrayed as a sort of grumpy, smug, unkempt old man (with bad teeth

) in a long, dark, opulent robe, whereas Pilate is a clean-shaven, contemplative philosopher. And by comparison, his wardrobe isn’t as gaudy or bejeweled as Caiaphas’ is.
Pilate gets some character development - for example in that scene where he talks to his wife - whereas Caiaphas (along with the other Jewish leaders) remains a
two-dimensional baddie right to the very end. He doesn’t get ‘extra’ scenes like Pilate does where he contemplates about what’s happening or his motivations or anything. When he appears, he’s always a nasty piece of work. That lack of character development on the part of the Jewish antagonists is I think part of the problem. If Pilate gets it, why not Caiaphas or Annas?
So while I appreciate Mel’s film in many ways, I wouldn’t elevate it to the position that a few Catholics out there I’ve seen have, and I’m not hesitant to say that there are problematic elements in the film.