Is it just me… or are Christian movies starting to not suck?

How Cabrini and other recent films are changing the trend

I’ll be honest — I gave up on “Christian” movies over a decade ago. Once I started getting into film and watching the really good stuff, I just couldn’t stomach anything coming from a Christian production company (think Pure Flix).

Of course, it’s not only Christians who make bad movies. Plenty of, well, trash, gets made for the screen from both Christians and non-Christians. But it seems like really great film, the kind that wins awards and is critically acclaimed, doesn’t come from studios owned and operated by Christians. It also seems like the movies with a Christian message or religious themes tend to be cheesy. I would be hard pressed to find a movie from a Christian studio or with an explicitly Christian theme that I’m excited to see and share with other people.

This is why I’m grateful for

Tory Crowley

! She’s been plugging recent Christian films and making me aware that they’re getting better. And she’s here today to talk about why they’re starting to, in her words, “not suck.” I hope you enjoy her musings on this topic and see some of the better Christian movies she recommends!

— HW

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Cabrini; Copyright: Angel Studios

The first trailers that came out for the movie Cabrini were pretty typical. They featured dramatic scenes, action shots, and lots of close-ups of the movie’s biggest star, John Lithgow.  

But after the movie came out in theaters, something surprising happened. The ads I saw shifted in their content. Every time I saw an ad for Cabrini, it proudly and loudly displayed the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score: usually around 99%. 

This is a fairly common advertising strategy, but historically not a common one for Christian movies. Why? Well… don’t get mad at me, but most “Christian” movies haven’t always been very good — at least critically.

Consider: God’s Not Dead (12% on Rotten Tomatoes), The Shack (21%), or Fireproof (38%). I’m not saying these movies don’t have heart and a nice message. Some of them have even personally encouraged me in my faith — War Room (32%), hello! But they’re certainly not racking up awards or breaking box office records. They’re not movies I’d recommend to my friends without a strong qualifier. 

But something is changing. Now, more often than not, when I see an ad for a Christian movie, I want to see it - not because I feel obligated to support it, but because it actually looks good.

I attribute much of this change to Angel Studios. Angel Studios recently produced The Shift, Sight, The Sound of Freedom, and crowd favorite The Chosen. These are just good movies (and tv). Good storytelling, good production, good acting. 

But it’s not only Angel Studios. Just this year, Unsung Hero and Ordinary Angels came out, both produced by Lionsgate. These are high-drama, high-stakes, likable movies that deliver an explicitly Christian message. 

There are also some very good movies that don’t have an explicitly gospel-centered message but wrestle with a Christian worldview. In recent years that list has included: Women Talking, A Hidden Life, and Silence. (All personal favorites of mine.)

While the quantity of Christian content has risen in recent years, there’s also been something changing stylistically. Here’s my theory: Christian films are having a moment right now because the trend in Christian movies today is to be less preachy. The message is more nuanced, more open for interpretation. The newer movies leave more room for the viewer to respond, rather than just submit.

Take Cabrini. There’s a scene in the movie where a prostitute confesses committing murder to Mother Cabrini. The woman tearfully says, “I don’t think there’s enough water in the world to make me clean.” Here it is, I thought. Tell her, Mother Cabrini! Tell her the blood of Jesus will make her clean. I could hear those words clearly in my own mind as I anticipated the lines coming on screen. 

But they didn’t come. That’s not how Mother Cabrini responded. The movie left the audience to wrestle with that statement, rather than have the title character spoon-feed the ‘right’ answer to her (and us). 

In Unsung Hero, the father character, though a follower of Jesus, is riddled with faults and makes multiple mistakes. The resolution at the end showcases God’s faithfulness, rather than a moral character doing the right thing all the time and remaining successful in the end because of his own behavior. The audience is intentionally left to grapple with this incongruence. 

And in Silence, the question resounds throughout the film: “Where is God when we suffer?” The movie does give an answer, but it’s not the feel-good one we want. We’re left to sit in the space between what we know and what we feel. It doesn’t feel victorious, even though it is. 

That’s not to say that Cabrini or any of these other good Christian movies are preaching a watered-down gospel. They’re just more subtle. They give the audience a little bit more credit, more space to work things out. These movies lead us to the water, but do not force us to drink. 

 And this is what we need right now. The world is deconstructing all of its institutions — and there’s healthy debate about how helpful or hurtful that is — including the church. But practically, that means our society is losing a common frame of reference. We’re losing shared values. And we’re losing a fundamental understanding of human purpose, which has led to individual and collective existential crises. 

Movies may seem like a superficial, unimportant part of life, but they’re not. We spend a lot of time watching, thinking about, and talking about movies. They can reveal truths and help us challenge our own assumptions in non-threatening ways. 

I don’t know. Maybe because fewer people are sitting in pews on Sunday we have more openness to spirituality in our local theater recliners on Friday night. 

I, for one, am just glad that there are some Christian movies that don’t suck. 

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