Reel Truths: How Catholics can find God In Cinema?

We Catholics have a bit of a love-hate relationship with modern movies. We enjoy a good film just like anyone else, and many of us want to see all the big blockbusters our friends rant and rave about. But when we sit down to watch a Hollywood movie, we often deem some of the content objectionable or even offensive. Mainstream cinema is full of sex, violence, and themes that run contrary to our faith, so we find ourselves in a bit of a pickle: should we watch all of these films anyway, or should we turn our backs on this seemingly godless industry?

If you ask me, the answer lies somewhere between those two extremes. We shouldn’t leave our faith at the door when we enter a movie theater, but we also don’t need to be cinematic Pharisees. Instead, when we watch a film, we should follow St. Paul’s advice and “test everything; hold fast what is good, [and] abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22). To be fair, that’s easier said than done (but then again, what isn’t?), so let’s talk about some concrete ways we can put these wise words into practice in our moviegoing lives.

1) Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
As you might be able to guess, the starting point of a Catholic approach to any art form, cinematic or not, isn’t our own personal preference or the fads and trends that dominate pop culture. Instead, the foundation of our moviegoing philosophy comes straight out of Sacred Scripture:

“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” - Philippians 4:8

St. Paul says a lot in that one verse, but the Catholic tradition often condenses his words down to three main ideas: we should occupy ourselves with truth, goodness, and beauty. These are the things that feed our souls and lift us up to God, so they’re the primary attributes we should look for in the movies we watch.

But what do they look like in cinematic form? It’s easy enough to point out instances of truth, beauty, and goodness in the real world, but what does it mean to see them in a movie? Let me give you a few clear examples of what I’m talking about.

To begin, truth generally takes the form of a deep insight into the human condition or the world around us. For instance, the wrestling drama The Iron Claw is a heart-rending exploration of the inescapable reality of death, and the tragically underseen sci-fi flick The Creator uses its AI storyline to craft a moving allegory about the universality of human dignity.

In contrast, beauty often resides in the more technical aspects of a film, like its cinematography and set design, so this tends to be the most explicitly artistic of the three. Last but not least, we have goodness. As I’m sure you can guess, this usually refers to depictions of heroic virtue, like in The Lord of the Rings and Cabrini, so if a movie inspires you to be a better person, it almost certainly scores high on this count.

2) Good Is Good Enough
Unfortunately though, a lot of modern movies are somewhat of a mixed bag. Many films today display falsehood, ugliness, and evil alongside their good qualities, so it can be tough to find a movie that knocks it out of the park on every level. You may have to endure a few things you’d rather not see to get to the good stuff, and that can give rise to a frustrating dilemma: should you watch these films anyway, or should you limit your viewing to movies that don’t have any objectionable content whatsoever?

Generally speaking, I’d say the first option is the way to go. Sure, some movies just aren’t worth watching (for instance, if the entire message is contrary to our faith), but as the old saying goes, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. In other words, a film doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth your time. To take an easy example, a number of years ago, I wrote an article giving a Catholic interpretation of Guillermo del Toro’s movie Pan’s Labyrinth, and in that article, I noted that the film’s moral compass is a bit skewed.

On the whole, it has a number of great messages that fit perfectly with our Catholic faith, but it mixes those important truths with a big error. There’s a scene that presents euthanasia as a good thing, but as Catholics, we know this practice is contrary to human dignity. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t get too hung up on that one flaw. As I said, if you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, you’ll see that the majority of the movie’s message is spot-on. In fact, it’s surprisingly Catholic, so like a lot of other modern films, Pan’s Labyrinth is definitely worth a watch despite its imperfections.

3) Depiction vs. Endorsement
If you’ve ever studied the Bible, you might be familiar with this next point. Scripture contains numerous accounts of heinous sins, even some committed by the heroes of salvation history, but that doesn’t mean the Bible is endorsing these acts. To take just one example, when we read that David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then arranged for the woman’s husband to be killed in battle, it’s not holding his behavior up as an example for us to follow. It’s simply describing his sins, and when we watch movies, we have to make that same distinction.

Take The Exorcist, for instance. There’s a scene where the possessed girl does something shockingly sacreligious with a crucifix, but the film isn’t endorsing this profanity. It’s just showing us how evil the demon inside her truly is, so even though this moment may be off-putting to some viewers, it’s not promoting sin.  And that’s a key distinction because a lot of movies, especially in the horror genre, get criticized for promoting or glorifying evil when they’re actually doing the exact opposite.

Granted, there are films that genuinely merit this criticism, and they’re generally not worth your time. But there are also plenty of movies that merely depict evil without endorsing it, and for Catholic viewers, there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, accurately portraying evil is an important function of art. As Pope St. John Paul II said in his 1999 Letter to Artists, “Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, artists give voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption.” (Letter to Artists, 10). 

4) A Sad Ending
And the pope’s words don’t just apply to evil in the middle of a film. They also apply to evil at the very end, so we don’t have to reject a movie simply because it has a downer ending. Sure, seeing good triumph over evil is incredibly uplifting, and it dovetails very nicely with our belief that Jesus will ultimately conquer sin and death when he comes again. But not every story has to end on a happy note.

Take Avengers: Infinity War, for example. In that film, the villain prevails against the combined might of (almost) every single hero in the Marvel universe, and that heartbreaking finale perfectly embodies John Paul II’s advice to artists. It highlights the hard truth that evil won’t suffer its ultimate defeat until Jesus’ second coming, so in the meantime, there are no guarantees. As long as we live in a fallen world, there will be times when the bad guys come out on top and get away scot-free, so God is the only one who can fully set things right.

Along similar lines, movies with sad endings can also function as cautionary tales, and this is a tradition that stretches at least as far back as Jesus himself. His parable of the rich fool ends with the titular character being told by God that he’s going to die, but we don’t criticize the story for its dour finale. No, we recognize that it’s a cautionary tale against trusting in riches, and many great films take that exact same approach.

Consider the 2018 sci-fi thriller Upgrade. I don’t want to spoil the film if you haven’t seen it, but suffice it to say that this story doesn’t exactly end on a good note. It’s a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of technology, especially artificial intelligence, and the sad finale hammers that point home with an emotional gut punch that’s impossible to ignore. It’s a great message we’d all do well to heed, so we shouldn’t write the film (and others like it) off simply because it doesn’t leave us feeling warm and fuzzy inside.

5) What Not to Watch
Last but not least, I want to say a few words about movies we shouldn’t watch. Even though we don’t have to reject Hollywood in its entirety, there are some films Catholics should definitely steer clear of. Most obviously, unless you’re a movie critic, it’s generally a good idea to avoid overtly anti-Catholic films or films that strongly promote ideas and practices that are contrary to our faith. In the same vein, if a movie is going to lead you into sin, don’t watch it. Period.

That being said, it’s often tough to know where to draw the line. Since movies don’t have to be perfect to be worth our time, at what point does the bad in a film begin to outweigh the good? When does a movie stop being merely imperfect and become legitimately evil? Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to those questions, so each one of us has to grapple with this problem and come to the best conclusions we can.

I can’t make those decisions for you, but I can give you one piece of advice: don’t ever feel like you have to watch something. If you’re not comfortable seeing a movie, it’s always okay to give it a pass. And if you’re really struggling, there’s nothing wrong with putting a film off until you can learn more about it or get some advice from someone you trust. Your relationship with God should always be your top priority, and if you ever think a movie might compromise that relationship, don’t hesitate to give it the boot.