Here at Movie Enthusiast we’ve historically taken a special interest in movies that have a thing or two to say about religious faith, something about which I have a thing or two to say myself. I’ve found that the ways filmmakers engage with faith can be pretty easily categorized into one of several types of film. Sometimes there’s overlap, but you can usually pick a primary category without breaking a sweat. So if you’ll allow me to sketch a rough and incomplete taxonomy:
The Crisis of Faith Film: This might be the most popular kind of faith film as it tackles one of the easiest aspects of faith to dramatize. Winter Light, Silence, First Reformed are all representative members of this category; something gentler like Ida fits too, where the crisis is more pocket-sized. Sometimes the crisis is between differing applications of theology, such as the Chilean liberation theology movie Enough Praying.
The Earnest Faith Film: In this one you get a pretty significant range in quality. I don’t know if something as cynical of a cash grab as the God’s Not Dead series belongs here (the whole output of the Evangelical film industry is sort of an intentional blind spot for me), but we can populate this category with things like The Ten Commandments and perennial Orthodox Christian Fellowship retreat staple The Island. The Character of Faith around which this type of movie is built isn’t struggling with their own faith so much as struggling with other things as a person of faith. Nasir is a good example of a Muslim in such a situation; Simon of the Desert fits here too. Does The Gospel According to Matthew belong here? Uh, good question, we’ll figure that one out later.
The Incidental/Environmental Faith Film: Maybe you wouldn’t include this one in your own taxonomy, but I’ve encountered enough movies where a character happens to be a nun or a priest without being the gravitational and/or thematic center of the film that I think this category justifies itself. See also movies with religious settings or aesthetic inspiration that aren’t directly about faith per se. Thunder on the Hill, The Phantom of the Monastery, possibly also The Ornithologist all belong here.
Faith-Meets-Gay Film: A category of more recent vintage for all the films about queer characters who come into conflict with a religious community over their sexual or gender identity. Beyond the Hills is a subtle example of this, Minyan is the Jewish version, Princess Cyd the rare, liberal-fantasy instance.
Joan of Arc Films: If you’re French and you make movies you gotta make a movie about Joan of Arc. I don’t make the rules!