A comprehensive study of theology and film that explores how the Christian faith is portrayed in film throughout history.

Increasingly, thinking Christians are examining the influential role that movies play in our cultural dialogue. Reel Spirituality successfully heightens readers' sensitivity to the theological truths and statements about the human condition expressed through modern cinema. This second edition cites 200 new movies and encourages readers to ponder movie themes that permeate our culture as well as motion pictures that have demonstrated power to shape our perceptions of everything from relationships and careers to good and evil. Reel Spirituality is the perfect catalyst for dialogue and discipleship among moviegoers, church-based study groups, and religious film and arts groups. The second edition cites an additional 200 movies and includes new film photos.

Experience God in the movies! A valuable resource guide examining over thirty films and their theological impact. Excellent for film buffs and church leaders alike.

Watching a movie is more than an opportunity to be entertained. Watching a movie is an opportunity to meet with God. In a few brief chapters, How to Talk to a Movie will forever change the way you watch movies by opening your eyes and ears to what movies are saying, how they are saying it, and how God might be speaking to you through them.

This informative guide helps readers combine their love of movies with their desire to grow closer to God. Foremost experts on faith and film, all connected with the Reel Spirituality Institute at Fuller Seminary, explore forty leading movies from the last four decades to encourage movie lovers and small groups to reflect critically and theologically on their film choices. God in the Movies introduces and analyzes the spiritual content of top films from the 1980s through the 2010s, opening viewers up to a conversation about life, faith, and God. Following a format similar to Barsotti and Johnston's successful Finding God in the Movies, this completely new book covers different films spanning four decades. This engaging resource contains production notes and film synopses, relevant Scripture texts, theological reflection, discussion questions, film stills, recommended film clips, and more, serving as a treasure chest for hours of film viewing, discussion, and ministry. Clips from the movies referenced in each chapter are available online.

Reel Spirit is your personal guide to spirituality in the movies. This insightful book includes 400 movies with reviews of films from various genres that span the history of the cinema, from the early 1900s through 1999. Inside you'll find a discussion of each of 150 "Main Attraction" movies, with a short synopsis of the story line and a review of the film's main spiritual ideas followed by related films and questions to help draw out themes and issues for discussion.

The Alien films are perceived to be a fractured franchise, each one loosely related to the others. They are nonlinear, complicated, convoluted: a collection of genre movies ranging from horror to war to farce. But on closer examination, the threads that bind together these films are strong and undeniable. The series is a model of Catherine Keller’s cosmology as a cycle of order out of chaos, an illustration of her concept of evil as discreation. When viewed through the lens of Keller’s Face of the Deep, the Alien films resolve into a cohesive whole. The series becomes six views of the idea of evil-as-exploitation, its origins, and its consequences. Each film expands on the concept of evil set forth by its predecessors, complicating that conception, and retroactively enriching readings of the films that came before.

Three media experts guide the Christian moviegoer into a theological conversation with movies in this up-to-date, readable introduction to Christian theology and film. Building on the success of Robert Johnston's Reel Spirituality, the leading textbook in the field for the past 17 years, Deep Focus helps film lovers not only watch movies critically and theologically but also see beneath the surface of their moving images. The book discusses a wide variety of classic and contemporary films and is illustrated with film stills from favorite movies.

With a new introduction, acclaimed director and screenwriter Paul Schrader revisits and updates his contemplation of slow cinema over the past fifty years. Unlike the style of psychological realism, which dominates film, the transcendental style expresses a spiritual state by means of austere camerawork, acting devoid of self-consciousness, and editing that avoids editorial comment. This seminal text analyzes the film style of three great directors—Yasujiro Ozu, Robert Bresson, and Carl Dreyer—and posits a common dramatic language used by these artists from divergent cultures. The new edition updates Schrader’s theoretical framework and extends his theory to the works of Andrei Tarkovsky (Russia), Béla Tarr (Hungary), Theo Angelopoulos (Greece), and Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey), among others. This key work by one of our most searching directors and writers is widely cited and used in film and art classes. With evocative prose and nimble associations, Schrader consistently urges readers and viewers alike to keep exploring the world of the art film.