Were I to be catapulted one hundred years into the future, I would not be surprised to find the critical history of the twentieth century bookended by Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis and Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet. The critical reputation of both works is propelled by Read More …
In May of 2023, participants at Arts & Faith nominated and voted for their choices of the Top 25 “Spiritually Significant” Documentaries. Two rounds of voting were used to pick the finalists with the list being limited to one film per director. A final round Read More …
In a year of excellent documentaries—Cameraperson, The Witness, O.J: Made in America—Tower is a film of immense emotional heft. The film serves as a formal exercise in collective memory, a memorial recording both the horrors of human depravity as well as the redemptive courage that can emerge out Read More …
The delicate balance between ministry and madness—explored in other Top 100 films such as Ordet and The Apostle—takes a real life turn in Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher, an informative and revealing documentary that explores the life of a struggling evangelist trying to follow and Read More …
Scathing without being scandalous, Women Talking keeps the gaze on the titular women and avoids any attention to the men who have victimized them. The women of a small enclosed religious community are the victims of repeated sexual assaults, while the men who commit these crimes go Read More …
Spotlight is pervaded by incredulity, pain, and anger, laced with sadness and guilt. Working with a script co-written by Josh Singer, director Tom McCarthy brings precision and persuasive detail to a portrait of a specific time, place, and perspective: Boston, seen through the eyes of The Globe‘s Read More …
At turns inspiring, challenging, sobering, and finally devastating, The Overnighters is an existentially probing documentary with more layers than a twisty Hollywood thriller. Partly this is due to the compelling subject matter: a Lutheran pastor in a booming North Dakota oil town committed to showing Read More …
In Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, adapted from a Daphne du Maurier short story, an English couple (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) grieves over the accidental drowning death of their daughter. At their new home in Venice, a series of uncanny and portentous circumstances unfolds as Read More …
In 2012, readers at the Arts & Faith website voted on their Top 25 (Spiritually Significant) Road Films. The list and appreciations were originally published at Image Journal (which owned the A&F site at the time). To read an appreciation of one of the films, Read More …
