The Fifty Best Catholic Movies of All Time

ic ^ | August 15, 2009 | William Park

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

What’s this? No QUO VADIS on the list?

[Desdemona]

First off - no "Bells of St. Mary's". My sainted grandmother LOVED this film.

Second - why does "On the Waterfront" keep appearing on lists of Catholic films. This was a political statement on the part of Elia Kazan and the film that earned him enmity from a lot of Hollywood. The Church was used as a backdrop.

Casablanca? Along with On the Waterfront, my FAVORITE, but, um, there's a lot more there than just the single sacrifice on Rick's part. And his relationship with Renault was not exactly on the level.

This list leaves a lot to be desired, actually.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

**THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW (1964)

Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini: Simply the best of all the life of Jesus films.**

Saw it. DULLLL! Poorly edited and poorly dubbed.

[Friends of Mr. Cairo]

This is my top 50 Catholic Movies, in alphabetical order:

Agony and the Ecstasy, The - Charlton Heston, Rex Harrison 1965
Angels in the Outfield - Paul Douglas, Janet Leigh 1951
Angels With Dirty Faces - James Cagney, Pat O’Brien 1938
Assisi Underground, The - Ben Cross, James Mason 1984
Au Revoir, Les Enfants - Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejto 1987
Becket - Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole 1964
Ben Hur - Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd 1959
Bells of St. Mary - Bing Crosby, Ingrid Bergman 1945
Boys Town - Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney 1938
Brideshead Revisited - (TV miniseries) Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews 1981
Cardinal Mindzenty Story: Guilty of Treason – Charles Bickford, Bonita Granville 1949
Citizen Saint - Carla Dare, Julie Haydon 1947
Come to the Stable - Loretta Young, Celeste Holm 1949
Detective, The - Alec Guinness, Peter Finch 1954
Diary of a Country Priest - Claude Laydu, Jean Riveyre 1951
Exorcism of Emily Rose, The - Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson 2005
Fighting Father Dunne – Pat O’Brien, Daryl Hickman 1948
Fugitive, The – Henry Fonda, Dolores del Rio 1947
Full Confession – Victor McLagen, Joseph Calleia 1939
Going My Way - Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald 1944
Gospel According to St. Matthew, The - Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso 1964
Great Heart, The - Carey Wilson 1938 (short film)
Hoodlum Saint – William Powell, Ester Williams 1946
I Am David - Ben Tibber, James Caviezel 2003
I Confess - Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter 1953
Informer, The – Victor McLagen, Heather Angel 1935
In This House of Brede - Diana Riggs, Judi Bowker 1975
Joan of Arc - Ingrid Bergman, Jose Ferrer 1948
Joan of Paris – Michele Morgan, Paul Henreid 1942
Keys of the Kingdom, The - Gregory Peck, Edmund Gwenn 1944
Lilies of the Field - Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala 1963
Long Gray Line, The - Tyrone Power, Maureen O’Hara 1955
Man For All Seasons, A - Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw 1966
Men of Boys Town - Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney 1941
Miracle of the Bells, The - Fred MacMurray, Alida Valli 1948
Miracle of Marcelino, The - Jose Marco Davo, Rafael Rivelles 1980
Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, The - Susan Whitney, Gilbert Roland 1952
Monsieur Vincent – Pierre Fresnay, Aime Clariond 1947
Passion of Joan of Arc, The - (Silent) Maria Falconetti 1928
Passion of the Christ, The – James Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern 2004
Prisoner, The – Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins 1955
Quo Vadis? – Deborah Kerr, Robert Taylor 1951
Reluctant Saint, The - Maximilian Schell, Ricardo Montalban 1962
Robe, The – Richard Burton, Jean Simmons 1953
Rome, Open City - Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani 1945
Sally and Saint Anne - Ann Blythe, Edmund Gwenn 1952
Seven Cities of Gold - Richard Egan, Anthony Quinn 1955
St. John in Exile - Dean Jones 1988
Song of Bernadette - Jennifer Jones, Charles Bickford 1943
Three Godfathers - John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz 1948
Trouble With Angels, The – Rosalind Russell, Hayley Mills 1966
When In Rome - Van Johnson, Paul Douglas 1952

Have at it!

Friends of Mr. Cairo

[Victoria Delsoul]

I love your post as well.  It's very moving.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. And your son is beautiful.

[Defiant]

Thank you, that was it. You are a font of knowledge.

[Defiant]

The Scarlet and the Black?

Yes, that's it.

[constitutiongirl]

Sauron would have triumphed if not for Sam’s devoted nature and his simple love of all things good.

[Cronos]

I would also include Hellboy I and II and also perhaps, the Spiderman movies.

[onedoug]

“Hand In Hand”, 1960

[nanetteclaret]

I can’t believe no one has mentioned “The Shoes of the Fisherman” with Anthony Quinn, Oskar Werner, David Janssen, Vittorio De Sica, Leo McKern, and Sir John Gielgud. It’s one of my favorites!

[deannadurbin]

You’d have to use a fine tooth comb to find Catholicism in Casablanca. Sorry. Just don’t agree with some of these choices.

[deannadurbin]

Hand in Hand is a fine little UK film but few have seen it today. It really preaches religious tolerance more than Catholicism or Judaism.

[ussc1863]

The Shoes of the Fisherman should also be included. Anthony Quinn played a powerful role in that movie.

[Varda]

Interesting list which I think stretches the idea of “Catholic movie”.

I’m a fan of “CASABLANCA (1942)” but it’s an anti-Catholic movie since it sets up the good guy bona fides of hero “Rick” by letting slip he fought for the “republicans” in the Spanish Civil War.

[Alex Murphy]

and also perhaps, the Spiderman movies

...Spider-Man has always been written as an essentially WASP-ish character (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant)...

"...one would have to assume that due to Peter Parker's Irish heritage (Parker/Fitzgerald), he's most likely of Christian Protestant beliefs, yet while there have been rare instances when he's reached out to God, it's not an important makeup of his character..."

-- from the website adherents.com: The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Characters

[Varda]

I thought the Spiderman 3 movie was explicitly anti-Catholic since the only character that was a practicing Catholic was the only irredeemable character. I thought the other movies were very good, though.

[Joe 6-pack]

Exorcism of Emily Rose is a hugely under-rated film; Tom Wilkinson is a hugely under-rated actor.

[TaxachusettsMan]

The Nun’s Story

Starring Audrey Hepburn and Dame Edith Evans, and directed by Fred Zinnemann (A Man For All Seasons) from the novel, actually a fictionalized biography, by Kathryn C. Hulme, based on the life of the woman who, having been the instrument of her conversion, sponsored Hulme for Catholic baptism, namely Marie-Louise Habets, who had been Sister M. Xaverine, SCJM (Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary, Zusters van Liefde van Jezus en Maria of Ghent, Belgium).

Hulme wrote the novel (1956), as she said, “to share with a largely non-Catholic readership the inspiring heroism of the Church’s vowed ones.” She was shocked and greatly dismayed - as she wrote to Reverend Mother Cesaire (the real life Mother Emmanuel) - at the negative reaction of many, especially American, Sisters, who thought it a too-negative presentation of religious life. “These Sisters fail to remember,” she wrote in explanation, “that I am NOT describing an American Religious Order in the 1950s, but a Belgian Order as it was in the late 1920s and through the early 1940s, an Order which has itself much changed today.” Hulme was clearly offering kudos to “Sister Luke” who had the integrity to leave the Order whose strict contemplative-active split Rule she could not observe, rather than stay and participate in the dismantling thereof.

One wonders what either of them would think today. Hulme died in 1981, Habets in 1986.

Not only a lovely movie with superb acting, glorious cinematography, and an enduring message of self-sacrificing love for Christ and one’s neighbor, but quite timely in light of the Vatican investigation of US religious Orders and the over-the-top and around-the-bend reaction of some of our beloved Leftist loons . . .

[constitutiongirl]

There’s nothing overtly Christian, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s one the authors favorites so they saw Rick sacrificing what he wanted for the greater good as a godly act. I love the movie also but I’m not particularly romantic. I always thought Rick was secretly happy that he wouldn’t be tied down with just one woman since he’d probably get bored anyway.:)