Where are all the NEW good Catholic films?

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I know about the sequel to The Passion of Christ that is being made; but, that is the only good modern, professional film about catholicism that I can think of.

In contrast, there are many technical masterpieces which talk about deep post-modern themes (like Blade Runner for example, which I watched recently). And sadly, there are also many movies today that promote themes like nihilism anf absurdism.

But today I was thinking, it would be awesome if we could use cinematography to tell the lifes of the Saints, in a modern, yet faithful way. A movie about Saint Francis, Dominic, Ignatius, any of the Teresas’ or any of the Church Fathers would be awesome, telling how they got closer to God from their youth.

I know I shouldn’t propose things if I am not going to do them myself but between engineering and a Lay Movement I got enough lol

I don’t think big studios would be a problem as many masterpieces were initially brought by small studios and even raise-funding. And there is no copyright to the Saints 😉
 
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AlbMagno said:
but, that is the only good modern, professional film about catholicism that I can think of.
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Lord of the Rings deals with very heavy Catholic themes, but it isn’t specifically a movie about Catholicism.
The Passion is probably the best religious film ever made IMHO.
 
Yeah, many people talk about LOTR also. The problem I have with LOTR it’s that it’s too indirect. It talks beatifully about Christ King, Prophet and Priest; about temptations, about God in nature and even about the Social Doctrine of the Chrurch…

But I never heard anyone being converted, or simply moved to Christianity, by watching Lord of the Rings. In evangelical matters, it has all the style but lacks substance.

A film about a Saint, well made cinematographily, would have all the substance (the Gospel) and the style (the art).
 
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I’m not sure what you mean by “films about Catholicism”.
If you’re looking for movies about the lives of saints, Formed has boatloads of them. They’re not all documentaries either, for example there is a 2013 one about Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko that is a film. Some of the films are subtitled as they were made in countries other than USA.

There are a lot of aspects to “Catholicism” other than films about the lives of saints, though.

Apart from saint films, I think films in USA are more likely to portray Christianity generally without getting into denomination. That way, they can get the biggest audience from people simply looking for a clean film where the characters pray and believe in Jesus. PureFlix has a lot of such “Christian” films. From a filmmaking standpoint, they vary in quality.
 
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It should be noted that while the Vatican list contains lots of great films and I’m not knocking it, many of those films are not focused on Catholicism specifically. For example, “Babette’s Feast” is very heavily Protestant, “Chariots of Fire”'s main characters are Jewish and Presbyterian (Not that Eric Liddell wasn’t an extremely holy and probably even saintly martyr-type guy), and “Gandhi” of course was not a Catholic. There is something to learn from all those films, plus they’re entertaining, but they might not be the best picks for converting people to Catholicism specifically.
 
I don’t think it is specifically “Catholic” but a lot of folks like the Jim Cavaziel movie, “Paul, the Apostle”, I have not seen it but I do want to. I have heard some of the soundtrack and I thought that was good.
 
There is great TV special “PBS Frontline From Jesus to Christ” in 4 parts. You can see on YouTube.
 
NEW meaning 2020? I’m unsure about that but here are a few notes.

if I were really curious about what are the NEW movies, by my own research, I’d check out “St. Ignatius Press” and “Leaflet Missal” and probably other Catholic supplies stores.

You have Leonardo De Fillipis, St. Luke productions and I thought is “Maximilian, St. of Auschwitz” one man acted show was great. The movie on St. Therese of Lisieux, I was not as big of a fan of that but it isat the below website as well as other films and plays. The John of the Cross movie was good as well.


St. Ignatius Press:
https://www.ignatius.com/Search.aspx?k=movies

https://www.ignatius.com/The-Book-of-Daniel-P168.aspx
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I haven’t seen this, the movie “Daniel”, that looks pretty good and with a few Italian names, it almost looks Italian, so perhaps, a Catholic movie. I know, I have watched a few movies on EWTN that are originally, Italian made.

Leaflet missal is another website, “Full of Grace” for example. I don’t know this movie at all.

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Here’s another that looks “recent”:

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So, as said “seek and ye shall find”.
 
Which major streaming service seems to be the most welcoming to Catholic content?
 
Victoria33 said:
I don’t think it is specifically “Catholic” but a lot of folks like the Jim Cavaziel movie, “Paul, the Apostle”, I have not seen it but I do want to. I have heard some of the soundtrack and I thought that was good.
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Actually, Paul, the Apostle was actually more Catholic than one might think.

It was co-produced by both Affirm Files (which is owned by Sony) and ODB Files (which is a Catholic film ministry).

They obviously down played the Catholic part in order to sell to everyone (most likely Sony’s call), but it was a very Catholic film, co-produced by a Catholic company.
 
The problem with a lot of overtly religious movies is that they’re about as subtle as a mallet to the head. They want to make sure you get “the message” so they absolutely beat you over the head with it. Problem is that’s not a good way to make a compelling movie. Characters end up being one dimensional and the whole thing falls flat.

That said, I’ve heard A Hidden Life is amazing.
 
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