Top 10 Christian Movies That Actually Deliver

The Chosen, created by Dallas Jenkins and launched in 2019 through the first-ever crowd-funded television series in history, has become the most-watched multi-season Christian series ever produced, with over 600 million views across 190 countries by 2024. Its achievement is making Jesus and his disciples feel like real human beings — flawed, funny, recognizable — without diminishing their theological significance. The casting of Jonathan Roumie as Jesus has been widely praised as one of the most humanizing portrayals of Christ in screen history. Season 4 set records for Christian streaming and theatrical release simultaneously.

Mel Gibson's 2016 film tells the true story of Desmond Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist conscientious objector who served as a combat medic at the Battle of Okinawa without ever carrying a weapon, saving 75 men while under enemy fire. Andrew Garfield won a BAFTA for his portrayal of Doss, and the film was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Hacksaw Ridge is the rare Christian film that tells its story through action rather than argument — Doss's faith is demonstrated by his extraordinary courage, and Gibson's direction makes the battle sequences among the most harrowing in cinema history.

William Wyler's 1959 epic remains one of the most awarded films in history, winning eleven Academy Awards — a record matched only by Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Charlton Heston's Judah Ben-Hur undergoes a story of revenge, suffering, and ultimate redemption that parallels the life of Christ, who appears at the margins of the narrative with extraordinary restraint — his face is never shown. The chariot race remains one of the most impressive practical stunts in film history. Ben-Hur demonstrated that a profoundly Christian narrative could be a cinematic event of the highest order.

DreamWorks Animation's 1998 retelling of the Exodus story remains the most artistically ambitious animated film ever made on a biblical subject, with a visual scope, musical score, and voice cast (Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock) that rival any live-action epic. Hans Zimmer's score and Stephen Schwartz's songs — including "When You Believe," which became a #1 hit for Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey — elevate the material to genuine operatic grandeur. The burning bush sequence and the parting of the Red Sea remain among the most visually stunning moments in the history of animation.

Kevin Reynolds's 2016 film takes the Resurrection story from the perspective of Clavius, a Roman tribune tasked by Pilate to investigate the disappearance of the body of Yeshua — and who encounters the risen Christ himself. Joseph Fiennes delivers a nuanced, restrained performance that makes Clavius's intellectual and spiritual journey genuinely compelling. Risen works precisely because it approaches the Resurrection from the outside in, through the eyes of a skeptic forced to confront evidence he cannot explain. It is the kind of intelligent, character-driven Christian filmmaking that the genre too rarely produces.

The 2018 biographical film about MercyMe frontman Bart Millard and the turbulent family history that inspired the best-selling Christian single of all time grossed over $83 million on a $7 million budget, making it one of the most successful faith-based films ever produced. J. Michael Finley's portrayal of Millard and Dennis Quaid's career-reviving performance as his abusive father who found redemption carry genuine emotional weight that transcends the genre's typical sentimentality. The film's honest engagement with abuse, forgiveness, and transformation makes it one of the few Christian films that earns its hopeful ending.

Stuart Hazeldine's 2017 adaptation of William Paul Young's controversial theological novel earned $96 million worldwide and divided Christian audiences sharply. The film follows a grieving father (Sam Worthington) who encounters the Trinity — God the Father as an African-American woman, Jesus as a Middle Eastern carpenter, and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman — in the shack where his daughter was murdered. Critics of the source novel's universalist undertones did not go quietly, but the film's emotional power and its visual meditation on grief, justice, and divine love reached millions who had never encountered its theological debates. Sam Worthington's performance is unexpectedly moving.

Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle's 2023 film about the Jesus Movement of the early 1970s — the California hippie revival that produced Calvary Chapel, Maranatha Music, and transformed American evangelicalism — became the highest-grossing Christian film in Lionsgate history, earning $52 million. Joel Courtney and Kelsey Grammer (as Chuck Smith) anchor a cast that captures the genuine strangeness and excitement of a generation of counterculture dropouts encountering Christianity. The film is historically specific enough to be educational and emotionally honest enough to be moving — a rare combination in faith-based filmmaking.

Christopher Spencer's 2014 feature film adaptation edited footage from Mark Burnett and Roma Downey's History Channel miniseries The Bible into a theatrical release that earned $67 million. Diogo Morgado's portrayal of Jesus emphasized warmth, humor, and physical approachability over traditional cinematic gravity, generating both criticism from traditionalists and genuine emotional connection from audiences encountering the Gospels for the first time. The film's distribution strategy — screening events hosted by thousands of churches simultaneously — pioneered the model of faith-based theatrical event programming that has shaped the genre ever since.

The Chosen, created by Dallas Jenkins and launched in 2019 through the first-ever crowd-funded television series in history, has become the most-watched multi-season Christian series ever produced, with over 600 million views across 190 countries by 2024. Its achievement is making Jesus and his disciples feel like real human beings — flawed, funny, recognizable — without diminishing their theological significance. The casting of Jonathan Roumie as Jesus has been widely praised as one of the most humanizing portrayals of Christ in screen history. Season 4 set records for Christian streaming and theatrical release simultaneously.

Mel Gibson's 2016 film tells the true story of Desmond Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist conscientious objector who served as a combat medic at the Battle of Okinawa without ever carrying a weapon, saving 75 men while under enemy fire. Andrew Garfield won a BAFTA for his portrayal of Doss, and the film was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Hacksaw Ridge is the rare Christian film that tells its story through action rather than argument — Doss's faith is demonstrated by his extraordinary courage, and Gibson's direction makes the battle sequences among the most harrowing in cinema history.

William Wyler's 1959 epic remains one of the most awarded films in history, winning eleven Academy Awards — a record matched only by Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Charlton Heston's Judah Ben-Hur undergoes a story of revenge, suffering, and ultimate redemption that parallels the life of Christ, who appears at the margins of the narrative with extraordinary restraint — his face is never shown. The chariot race remains one of the most impressive practical stunts in film history. Ben-Hur demonstrated that a profoundly Christian narrative could be a cinematic event of the highest order.

DreamWorks Animation's 1998 retelling of the Exodus story remains the most artistically ambitious animated film ever made on a biblical subject, with a visual scope, musical score, and voice cast (Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock) that rival any live-action epic. Hans Zimmer's score and Stephen Schwartz's songs — including "When You Believe," which became a #1 hit for Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey — elevate the material to genuine operatic grandeur. The burning bush sequence and the parting of the Red Sea remain among the most visually stunning moments in the history of animation.

Kevin Reynolds's 2016 film takes the Resurrection story from the perspective of Clavius, a Roman tribune tasked by Pilate to investigate the disappearance of the body of Yeshua — and who encounters the risen Christ himself. Joseph Fiennes delivers a nuanced, restrained performance that makes Clavius's intellectual and spiritual journey genuinely compelling. Risen works precisely because it approaches the Resurrection from the outside in, through the eyes of a skeptic forced to confront evidence he cannot explain. It is the kind of intelligent, character-driven Christian filmmaking that the genre too rarely produces.

The 2018 biographical film about MercyMe frontman Bart Millard and the turbulent family history that inspired the best-selling Christian single of all time grossed over $83 million on a $7 million budget, making it one of the most successful faith-based films ever produced. J. Michael Finley's portrayal of Millard and Dennis Quaid's career-reviving performance as his abusive father who found redemption carry genuine emotional weight that transcends the genre's typical sentimentality. The film's honest engagement with abuse, forgiveness, and transformation makes it one of the few Christian films that earns its hopeful ending.

Stuart Hazeldine's 2017 adaptation of William Paul Young's controversial theological novel earned $96 million worldwide and divided Christian audiences sharply. The film follows a grieving father (Sam Worthington) who encounters the Trinity — God the Father as an African-American woman, Jesus as a Middle Eastern carpenter, and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman — in the shack where his daughter was murdered. Critics of the source novel's universalist undertones did not go quietly, but the film's emotional power and its visual meditation on grief, justice, and divine love reached millions who had never encountered its theological debates. Sam Worthington's performance is unexpectedly moving.

Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle's 2023 film about the Jesus Movement of the early 1970s — the California hippie revival that produced Calvary Chapel, Maranatha Music, and transformed American evangelicalism — became the highest-grossing Christian film in Lionsgate history, earning $52 million. Joel Courtney and Kelsey Grammer (as Chuck Smith) anchor a cast that captures the genuine strangeness and excitement of a generation of counterculture dropouts encountering Christianity. The film is historically specific enough to be educational and emotionally honest enough to be moving — a rare combination in faith-based filmmaking.

Christopher Spencer's 2014 feature film adaptation edited footage from Mark Burnett and Roma Downey's History Channel miniseries The Bible into a theatrical release that earned $67 million. Diogo Morgado's portrayal of Jesus emphasized warmth, humor, and physical approachability over traditional cinematic gravity, generating both criticism from traditionalists and genuine emotional connection from audiences encountering the Gospels for the first time. The film's distribution strategy — screening events hosted by thousands of churches simultaneously — pioneered the model of faith-based theatrical event programming that has shaped the genre ever since.