Commonweal’s Best Film Essays

Article

Evil to Good to God

In 2005, William Blatty invited me to his home and said that as a philosopher I might be interested in his ideas about good and evil

By John Haldane

February 3, 2017

Feature

What We Can & Cannot Fix

Watching ‘The Mission’ thirty years on: Is there something new to learn?

By Jeff Guhin

May 11, 2017

Movies

Latin America

Social Justice

Article

'Chimes at Midnight'

Just in time to relieve the post-Oscar doldrums comes the reappearance of Orson Welles’s "Chimes at Midnight," the 1966 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays.

By Richard Alleva

March 10, 2016

Movies

Article

Last Word: A Faith for Failures

Reading 'Silence' shook me up and left me with uncomfortable questions. How deep is my faith?

By Jerry Ryan

December 14, 2016

Theology

Movies

Spirituality

Article

'How All Things Fit Together'

One way of understanding Malick's film is as an attempt to present a vision of, precisely, everything.

By Karen Kilby

December 18, 2013

Religious Life

Movies

Theology

Article

'The Use of Cinema to Do Theology'

There is no mistaking Malick’s theological intentions, nor for that matter the academic credentials he possesses to make such an effort.

By Luke Timothy Johnson

December 18, 2013

Religious Life

Movies

Theology

Article

Our problems with 'The Tree of Life' are likewise problems with Malick’s peculiar cinematic language.

What Is He Up To?

By Bernard G. Prusak

December 18, 2013

Religious Life

Movies

Theology

Article

Selling the Bible in Cinéma Vérité

A door-to-door peddler of Bibles faces a crisis of the spirit

By Dominic Preziosi

March 28, 2015

Media

Movies

Article

Love & Death in the Time of Pinochet

The Pinochet dictatorship’s effect on the country’s psyche is the unifying subject of this triology. But is it too flattering?

By Dominic Preziosi

July 10, 2013

Movies

Latin America

Article

An Interview with Martin Scorsese

The director talks about growing up on the Lower East Side, his early dream of making a film about Jesus in New York City, and what led him to Endo's "Silence."

By Rand Richards Cooper

December 15, 2016

Article

It wasn’t long after my wife and I saw Into Great Silence that the murders at Virginia Tech happened.

Of Monks & Madmen

By John Garvey

May 14, 2007

Columnists

Movies

Article

Bare Ruined Choir

The new adaption of Evelyn Waugh’s classic book refuses to accept the sincerity of faith and illuminates nothing

By Mollie Wilson O’Reilly

October 21, 2009

Movies

Article

‘The Passion' Redux

The Passion of the Christ in light of Gibson’s anti-Semitic outburst

By Paul Moses

February 5, 2007

Movies

Jewish-Christian Relations

Article

The Films of Robert Bresson

How Robert Bresson achieves religious mystery in his films

By Joseph Cunneen

June 4, 2004

Movies

Article

Messiahs & Temptations, Sandals & Centurions

On the life of Jesus, and life beside the divine, on film

By Dominic Preziosi

March 5, 2016

Movies

Television

Article

Bergman Meets Bresson

In 'Ida,' director Pawlikowski presents Bergman’s questions and Bresson’s answers

By Robert E. Lauder

August 4, 2014

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