The Arts & Faith website has posted its “Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films.†My first question: Who is Arts & Faith? The site describes itself as “the best place on the Web for discussion of Christian faith, the arts, and much more.” With a little noodling around, I found that someone named Alan Thomas runs the site, but I can’t find one detail on his site or elsewhere about him. Christianity Today is satisfied with his credentials, given their recent publication of the list, with some commentary. I love movies, and I love lists, so I checked out A&F’s Top 100. Some comments:
(1) I have never heard of the (supposed) No. 1 spiritual film of all time: Rosetta. It is a Belgian film (1999) about the teen daughter of an alcoholic mother. Guess I’ll have to rent it.
(2) Second film on the list is a 1928 silent movie about Joan of Arc. I went looking for Roger Ebert’s review of that movie, and he raves, so guess I’ll rent it too.
(3) Actually, I had only heard of two of the top 10 on the list: all of which are foreign language films (5 French, 1 Polish, 2 Danish, 1 Italian, 1 Japanese).
(4) In other words, French-speaking nations have made half of the ten most spiritually significant films of all time. I didn’t know those French were so spiritual.
(5) The first U.S. film on the list is No. 11, 1997’s “The Apostle,†starring Robert Duvall. I love that movie.
(6) Other more recognizable films on the list include, “The Mission,†“Dead Man Walking,†“A Man for All Seasons,†“Chariots of Fire,†“Passion of the Christ,†“Tender Mercies,†“Jesus of Nazareth,†and “Schindler’s List.†They are all in the top 50. I’ll let you check out the rest of the Top 100 list for yourself.
