Announcing Big Hollywood's Countdown of the Top 25 Greatest Christian Films

This year Easter falls on Sunday April 24th, and that seemed a fitting time to do a countdown of The Top 25 Greatest Christian Films of All Time! …at least according to me. As with all of these countdowns, what we have here is the opinion of one person and art is entirely too subjective for one person to claim they’re creating some sort of definitive ranking, so that’s never been the point. What is the point, though, is to have the opportunity to delve into and to hopefully pass on to others a desire to see the films I love so much. Besides, lists are always fun. But they’re also a lot of work and that’s why I’m announcing this one well in advance of my deadline.

Simply put, I need your help through a nomination process.

As has always been the case with every single one of these lists, you the commenters are what make all the work involved in such an endeavor worthwhile. You’re also invaluable when it comes to jogging my notoriously bad memory about deserving films I might have otherwise forgotten or may not have yet seen. So please continue that tradition in the comments section here. The more titles you name, the more comprehensive the final list will be. With almost a couple months to go, there’s plenty of time for me to see and contemplate everything.

A few guidelines: These films should be openly Christian. I’m not interested in allegory or even subtlety. “Lord of the Rings” and “Narnia” are terrific, but once the floodgates open to that kind of thing it becomes impossible to draw any kind of line. But that doesn’t mean that the list will only include Biblical epics. There are plenty of mainstream movies, even dark and thematically complicated ones, where a Christian God is central or at least important to the story. Please feel free to nominate any of those and please feel free to nominate entries critical of the Christian faith. There’s nothing wrong with a smart, well-made, respectful story that forces us to think. Also, as far as the photo above, the Old Testament is an important part of our faith and anything in that arena should and will be considered.

Finally, please keep in mind that I’m no theologian. Far from it and will never pretend to be. Hell, if you’ve ever read my Twitter feed you know I’m not even a very good Christian. All I’m going to do here is express my love for 25 films from the position of an everyday movie fanatic who also happens to love him some Jesus. To aspire to anything more would only expose my ignorance, and I do that enough already.

P.S. I know there were a ton of requests for a Top 25 Conservative Movie countdown. Someday I would like to try something like that but enough time would have to pass so that my work wouldn’t pale in comparison to this excellent compilation put together by John J. Miller at National Review just a couple of years ago.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.