Christianity Today published a list a couple years ago of its top ten movies about Jesus. In this list, I learned that Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings was so moving, no one made another movie about the Lord until after the director died. Not on this list are the films made by The Visual Bible, which I thought were very good.
Have you seen any of these? Which is your favorite or perhaps least disliked? What do you think generally about movies depicting Christ? Are they bound to get it all wrong from the start, or do you think it’s possible to make a good one?
I’m with you on The Visual Bible version of Matthew. Bruce Marchiano is, for me, the definitive screen Jesus. (Sorry; Jim Caviezel, you come in a strong #2.)
One of the stories I heard at the church where I worked in Florida was that the woman who played Mary Magdalene in DeMille’s “King of Kings” had been a member of the congregation at the end of her life (before I came on staff). In her honor they’d once rented the film and screened it for an evening meeting.
I like the Aslan from the old Narnia series that played on PBS.