Top Ten Catholic Films 10.Les Miserables (1998)
Les Misérables (literally "The Miserable Ones"; usually pronounced /leɪ ˌmɪzəˈrɑːb/; French pronunciation: [le mizeʁabl(ə)]), translated variously from the French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims , is an 1862 French novel by author Victor Hugo and is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. It follows the lives and interactions of several French characters over a twenty-year period in the early 19th century, starting in 1815.
The novel focuses on the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption. It examines the nature of law and grace, and expounds upon the history of France, architecture of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. The story is historical fiction because it contains factual and historic events.
Les Misérables is known to many through its numerous stage and screen adaptations, most notably the stage musical of the same name, sometimes abbreviated "Les Mis" (pronounced /leɪ ˈmɪz/).-wikipedia
Braveheart is a 1995 American epic drama film directed by and starring Mel Gibson. The film was written for the screen and then novelized by Randall Wallace. Gibson portrays William Wallace, a Scottish warrior who gained recognition when he came to the forefront of the First War of Scottish Independence by opposing King Edward I of England, also known as "Longshanks" (Patrick McGoohan).
The film won five Academy Awards at the 68th Academy Awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director, and had been nominated for an additional five.-wikipedia
The Bells of St. Mary's is a 1945 American film which tells the story of a priest and a nun at a school who set out, despite their good-natured rivalry, to save the school from being shut down. It stars Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. The character of Father O'Malley had been previously portrayed by Crosby in the 1944 film Going My Way, for which Crosby had won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
The film was written by Leo McCarey and Dudley Nichols, and directed by McCarey. The film was produced by McCarey's production company, Rainbow Productions.
It won the Academy Award for Best Sound, Recording, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Bing Crosby), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Ingrid Bergman), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, Best Music, Song (for Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Johnny Burke (lyrics) for "Aren't You Glad You're You") and Best Picture. Adjusted for inflation, it is considered the 50th highest grossing film of all time.
A television adaptation on videotape of The Bells of St. Mary's was shown in 1959, starring Claudette Colbert, Marc Connelly, Glenda Farrell, Nancy Marchand, Barbara Myers, Robert Preston and Charles Ruggles. It was directed by Tom Donovan. The film has come to be commonly associated with the Christmas season, due most likely to the inclusion of a scene involving a Christmas pageant at the school, and the fact that the film was released in December of 1945.-wikipedia
Jesus of Nazareth is a 1977 Anglo-Italian television miniseries dramatizing the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus based on the accounts in the four New Testament Gospels.
The miniseries was directed by Franco Zeffirelli, and produced by Lew Grade through his ITC Entertainment company. Zeffirelli co-wrote the screenplay with Anthony Burgess and Suso Cecchi d'Amico. It was filmed entirely on location in Tunisia and Morocco. The total runtime is about 6 hours, 20 minutes.
Jesus of Nazareth premiered March 27, 1977 on British television on the ITV network courtesy of ITC's parent company, Associated Television; it made its American premiere as an NBC Easter special, on April 3, 1977. For its fifth airing on American television at Easter 1987, TV Guide called Jesus of Nazareth "the best miniseries of all time" and "unparalleled television".-wikipedia
The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue (from Greek δεκάλογος), is a list of religious and moral imperatives that, according to the Hebrew Bible, were spoken by God (referred to using several names) to the people of Israel from the mountain referred to as Mount Sinai or Horeb, and later authored by God and given to or written by Moses in the form of two stone tablets. They are recognized as a moral foundation in Judaism and Christianity, and their substance also figures in Islam.
The phrase "Ten Commandments" is generally used to refer to similar passages in Exodus 20:2–17[4] and Deuteronomy 5:6–21. The passages in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, traditionally divided into fourteen or fifteen verses, are each identified in the biblical text as containing ten elements.These passages declare the Lord, who brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, to be their God; prohibit worship of other gods before the Lord, and the making or worshiping idols; threaten punishment for those who reject the Lord and promise love for those who love him; forbid misuse of the Lord's name; mandate observance of the Sabbath and honoring one's parents; and finally prohibit murder, adultery, theft, false testimony, and coveting of one's neighbor's goods. Various religions and denominations translate and interpret the Commandments in different ways.-wikipedia
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim,[3][4] dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother's desperate attempts to win back her daughter through an exorcism conducted by two priests. The film features Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Kitty Winn, Lee J. Cobb, Jason Miller, and Mercedes McCambridge. The film is one of a cycle of 'demonic child' movies produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Rosemary's Baby and The Omen.
The film became the most profitable horror film of all time and one of the highest earning movies in general, grossing 1,400,000 worldwide (and a further 2,053,066 for the Director's Cut re-release in 2000),and at the time of release briefly became the highest-grossing film of all time, until being surpassed one year later by Steven Spielberg's Jaws. The film proved a huge effect on popular culture.The film earned ten Academy Award nominations—winning two, one for Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay, and losing Best Picture to The Sting. Along with the novel on which it was based, Blatty's script has been published several times over the years. The Exorcist was commercially released in the United States by Warner Bros. on December 26, 1973, and re-released on March 17, 2000, with a restored version released on September 22, 2000. It was named the scariest movie of all time by Entertainment Weekly and Movies.com and by viewers of AMC in 2006, and was #3 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.-wikipedia
Ben-Hur (or Benhur) is a 1959 epic film directed by William Wyler, the third film version of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It premiered at Loew's State Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1959. The film went on to win a record of eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, a feat equaled only by Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It is is also the last film to win the Oscar for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, until nearly 44 years later when Mystic River achieved the same feat.
3.It's a Wonderful Life (1946) It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and loosely based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern.
The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched and the contributions he has made to his community.
Despite initially being considered a box office flop due to high production costs and stiff competition at the time of its release, the film has come to be regarded as a classic and a staple of Christmas television around the world. Theatrically, the film's break-even point was actually .3 million, approximately twice the production cost, a figure it never came close to achieving in its initial release. An appraisal in 2006 reported: "Although it was not the complete box-office failure that today everyone believes … it was initially a major disappointment and confirmed, at least to the studios, that Capra was no longer capable of turning out the populist features that made his films the must-see, money-making events they once were."
It's a Wonderful Life was nominated for five Oscars without winning any, but the film has since been recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American films ever made, and placed number one on their list of the most inspirational American films of all time.-wikipedia
Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic drama film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.
The film was a box office success and recipient of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Score, as well as numerous other awards (7 BAFTAs, 3 Golden Globes). In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked the film 8th on its list of the 100 best American films of all time (up one position from its 9th place listing on the 1998 list).-wikipedia
1. The Passion of the Christ (2004)
The Passion of the Christ is a 2004 film co-produced (with Bruce Davey and Stephen McEveety), co-written (with Benedict Fitzgerald), and directed by Mel Gibson which dramatizes the Passion of Jesus largely according to the Christian Bible's New Testament Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
It stars Jim Caviezel as Jesus, Maia Morgenstern as Mary, Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene, Hristo Naumov Shopov as Pontius Pilate, Francesco De Vito as Peter, Hristo Jivkov as John, Mattia Sbragia as Caiphas, Claudia Gerini as Claudia, Rosalinda Celentano as Satan, and Luca Lionello as Judas Iscariot.
The Passion of the Christ largely covers the final twelve hours of Jesus' life beginning with the Agony in the Garden and ending with a brief depiction of his resurrection. Flashbacks of Jesus as a child, when Jesus worked as a carpenter, the Sermon on the Mount, the saving of Mary Magdalene from being stoned to death, and the Last Supper are also included.
It was produced independently and filmed in Italy — primarily at Cinecittà Studios in Rome and the old city of Matera. The estimated million production cost, plus an additional estimated million in marketing costs, were fully borne by Gibson and his Icon Productions. It was released on Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2004. It was rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America due to the violence. Newmarket Films distributed the film in the United States, and 20th Century Fox distributed the film internationally.
The film's dialogue is entirely in reconstructed Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew with vernacular subtitles. Fr. William J. Fulco, a Jesuit and professor of ancient Mediterranean studies at Loyola Marymount University, translated the original English script into the ancient languages and also served as the production's theological consultant.
The Passion of the Christ generated significant controversy during production and in the weeks before and after its release Critics alleged that the film propagated anti-Semitism and was historically inaccurate in presenting the Passion narrative; supporters agreed with Mel Gibson's contention that the film was less about who killed Jesus and more about his willing sacrifice on behalf of mankind. The question as to who should have been portrayed killing Christ in the movie has never been addressed by opponents. According to ABC News' Diane Sawyer on an episode of Primetime called "Mel Gibson's Passion", at the behest of Maia Morgenstern, a Romanian Jew whose father was a Holocaust survivor and whose grandfather died at the Auschwitz concentration camp, Mel Gibson removed a subtitle referencing Matthew 27:25, in which a "potential curse" upon the Jewish people is stated by Caiphas, the high priest of the Sanhedrin, after Pontius Pilate washes his hands: "His blood be upon us and upon our children". Gibson denied the existence of a curse, but stated the citation — in Aramaic — is audible "under the crowd". The level of graphic violence, particularly during the scourging and crucifixion scenes, also led to accusations that Mel Gibson deliberately exacerbated the violence.
A number of independent websites such as MyLifeAfter.com and Passion-Movie.com were launched to promote the film and its message and to allow people to discuss the film's effect on their lives. Documentaries such as Changed Lives: Miracles of the Passion chronicled stories of miraculous savings, forgiveness, new-found faith, and the story of a man who confessed to murdering his girlfriend after authorities determined her death was due to suicide. Another documentary, Impact: The Passion of the Christ, chronicled the popular response of the film in the United States, India, and Japan and examined the claims of anti-Semitism against Mel Gibson and the film.
In its initial theatrical release, The Passion of the Christ was a major hit, grossing in excess of 0.6 million in the United States. Ultimately, The Passion of the Christ became the highest grossing non-English language film ever. -wikipedia
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