Because they are all sourced from the one great story. The larger story. Our story. The giants of culture have been borrowing our story for years in the films they direct and produce. By identifying the redemptive stories embedded in all those great films, we feel like we are taking it back, one review at a time.
A former gunslinger has to decide whether or not he wants to change his life by taking on some cattle rustlers and protect some ranches. Charley Watts (played by Kevin Costner) finds that becoming an honorable man cannot only redeem his past misdeeds and troubled life, but possibly lead to the love of a woman he thought he would never deserve.
The general who becomes a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an empire. Sound familiar? This allegorical film presents Maximus as a Christ figure that sacrifices his own life for the ransom and rescue of all of those in slavery. Winner of 5 Academy Awards out of 12 nominations. One of the best big budget epics ever made.
John Dunbar has to reject his identity as a civil war hero and soldier in order to get his life and heart back. In the process of befriending, earning the trust, and fighting for the hearts of the local Lakota Indians, he discovers a deeper understanding of who he is. Everyone feels like we are sometimes living a life that is not our own. John Dunbar’s journey requires that you think more deeply about your own life and its’ meaning.
This movie, based on the novel by Stephen King, takes us on a coming-of-age journey with a group of young boys to solve the mystery of a dead body. With an all-star cast featuring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, Richard Dreyfuss, and John Cusack.
In this movie from 1982, Robert Redford leads a team of misfits with complementary skills that test security systems. They’re hired by an imposter CIA operative to steal a secret black box that has powerful encryption ability. This predecessor to the “Oceans” franchise is full of mystery, adventure, and a lot of laughs.
A great comedy that doesn’t seem to fit in the cinematic canon with all John Hughes other teen films from the 80’s, but carries a similar sensibility that you will recognize. If you look past all the slapstick, you will find a powerful redemptive story. The ability to look past our own frustrations can often provide the simple path to overcoming…helping someone else with theirs.
This animated film is no Disney movie, but it has much of the heart and sentimentality that you would find in one. Sometimes we assume the worst and seek to destroy the things we do not understand.
Many of our own redemptive stories are a result of someone giving us a chance at just the right time. The reason some of us are given those unlikely chances is due to the paying forward from others own redeemed brokenness. Eric Marsh gives a young man a chance that no one would and risks lives,
This true story immortalized the words “Houston, we have a problem.” This is one of those classics you probably can’t even remember seeing, but should probably see again. Edge of seat suspense, great story telling, with the entire NASA space program and several lives hanging in the balance.
Turns out there quite a few Spider Men of different varieties and from different dimensions. Most notably, young teen Miles Morales who is trying to figure out his superhero body at the same time that his friends at school are trying to figure out their human ones.
What do you do if you are a classically trained African American pianist in the 60’s? You decide to take a tour of the deep South…and bring along a mafia tough guy to be your bodyguard. Beautiful story of how two men overcome hatred, anger, and fear to find a deep and loving lifetime friendship.
Alex Honnold may have just completed the most audacious athletic feat in the history of the world. His 9 year journey into climbing the 3,200 feet of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley with any ropes, harness, or anything else other than his hands, was so audacious that no one else had ever considered it before or since.
I am not particularly a fan of the whole comic book genre of Marvel the DC universes. Based on box office, pretty much everyone else in the world disagrees. What I did love about this one was the incredible telling of the origin story. We all come from somewhere and are a product of that journey we have taken.
What happens when an angry former auto worker who has just lost his wife has an asian family move into the house next door? Well first, a lot of anger and repressed racism, but then our protagonist (Clint Eastwood) experiences an aesthetic conversion of the heart.
It took 14 years to bring this sequel to market because director, Brad Bird, didn’t want to make the typical “money grab” parlaying the success of a film with a quick sequel, but waited until the right story emerged to follow up the first one…and it shows. This one packs a serious combination of doing the right thing, caring for others, and the love of family.
Fourteen year old Duncan’s life sucks and having to spend the summer at the beach house of his mom’s new boyfriend. His desire to escape the house, the boyfriend, and some unsettling things going on there, leads him to the local waterpark.
The true story of how four poor hispanic high school students in Arizona form a robotics club with their substitute teacher who is a recently laid off engineer. With only 800 dollars, some used car parts, and other inexpensive spare parts, they take on returning champ MIT and many other prestigious university team’s with college students and budgets more than ten times the size of theirs.
James Braddock is a boxer down on his luck like every other Depression era American. Despite being banned from boxing due to some injury-related performances in the ring, he gets a back-door opportunity to fight again. This time, he is not only fighting for the health and safety of his family, but for the hopes and dreams of every other man in America.
One of the most famous stories of WWII comes for film in extraordinary fashion. One story told in three separate chronologies (one week, one day, one hour) that all weave together cohesively into one story in the end. From the austere landscapes, the pervasive sense of desperation, and eerily droning soundtrack by Hans Zimmer,
Pamela Travers is terrified of Walt Disney making her beloved “Mary Poppins” into a whimsical cartoon like other Disney movies she’s seen. She completely resists every attempt by Walt to win her over until Walt realizes something very important: treating the story well means treating Pamela’s own life story well.
Oakland A’s GM, Billy Beane has a problem. The budget he has to field a team is only a fraction of the teams he is competing against. But he makes a huge bet on Peter Brand’s mathematical approach by building a team with lower cost players to replace superstars in the aggregate. While thumbing his nose at 100 years of baseball tradition,
Based on the true story of a man in Texas who planned to launch himself into orbit. This is well before some well-known billionaires decided to throw their hat in the same ring. Farmer still carries the childhood belief that he can be anything he wants to be. For him, that is an astronaut. Okay, so I can’t really recommend you watch the movie, it is pretty mediocre, but the trailer is fantastic.
Walter lives a very tedious professional and personal life and compensates by regularly daydreaming a more significant story. One small decision leads him on a life-changing adventure that leads him to life, love, and becoming a completely different man. One of the more uplifting and inspiring films in recent years.
With Hitler rampaging across Europe, the newly elected Prime Minister of England, Winston Churchill, must convince his countries leaders to not negotiate but stand in the face of tyranny. One of 2017's most redemptive films was also one of my favorites.
The mostly true story of how one entrepreneurial cowboy, Carroll Shelby, and a racing purist, Ken Miles, took on the vaunted Ford Motor Company, Enzo Ferrari, and Le Mans…and won. A beautiful story of two men pressing through fear to find transformation in their industry and their own lives. One of the most fun movie experiences I have had in years.
This final episode in the vaunted series had everything you would pretty much expect. All the old gang appears in one way or another, there is a final battle, and the good guys prevail when all hope is lost. But there is something much larger going on here, something mythic and parable like. The First Order is our spiritual enemy, the final battle feels like Armageddon, and in the end, the garden gets restored. Sound familiar.
War is hell and the first World War was no different. In the same way, you may be experienced war for the first time through the lens of Steven Spielberg’s epic recreation of the invasion on Normandy in Saving Private Ryan, you get at taste of WWI in this one. The main difference is that director Sam Mendez has the advantage of technology over 20 years newer.
William Wallace was a man of peace that was drawn into war to protect the people of Scotland from the tyranny of England. The loss of everyone he loved set the table for him to form rebel force to take on the mighty English army. Along the way, he inspires all his people, gave his life, and left a legacy that inspired the world well beyond his death.
Astronaut Mark Watney is left for dead on Mars as the rest of his team narrowly escapes the planet. He has to learn to survive on 31 days worth of provisions with an estimated 4 years until he can be rescued. He says he is going to have to “science the $#(! out of it” in order to survive.
Be warned. While it is one of Quentin Tarantino’s least violent movies, it is still a Quentin Tarantino movie. But the one real violent scene is a rewriting of history. And what if that rewritten version had some of history’s real baddies getting back what they perpetrated in real life? That is the movie's surprising turn. Beautifully acted, incredibly scripted, and full of great music.
For a Christian film, this one is full of great music and good performances. It shows how staying true to who you are can be a painful adolescent journey, but the only one that stands a chance to change lives. A pure and innocent heart can change the lives of even those that seem the most unredeemable.
It was impossible to avoid this true story of the 13-year old champion female surfer who lost her arm to a shark attack. Bethany Hamilton’s journey is one of the best your family will ever watch together. Partly because so many movies of this type are not family-friendly, but also because her faith is given a lot of the credit for her ability to make the journey.
I don’t know how we missed this one when it was first brought to screen almost a decade ago, but it was a fun Saturday afternoon watch on a rainy day. It feels like a mash-up between The Goonies, Stranger Things, and ET. It has all the storytelling you expect from Stephen Spielberg and the explosive action of a J.J. Abrams film (since they were both involved).
Sometimes, there are valid reasons why the critics hate a movie when the public wildly disagrees. But more often than not, it is because the movie is overtly hopeful, redemptive, and paints Christianity in a positive light. That certainly was the case with this film. A rare find of a film that takes on more challenging issues like homelessness, racism, and cancer,
One of the more hopeful and invigorating documentaries we have seen in a really long time. “Rags to riches” is a very familiar movie trope, but this one plays out very differently than most. A 7-year old Kenyan orphan somehow survives and claws his way to wild financial success.
The best selling book by Louis Sachar has become a movie! Stanley Yelnats IV looks to be the next in the long line fulfilling the 100-year curse of his family. After being charged with a crime he didn’t commit, he gets sentenced to Camp Green Lake to be rehabilitated with a rogue’s gallery of other boys.
Will Hunting is a genius and a janitor that roams the halls of MIT at night. His solving of “unsolvable” problems left on chalkboards by professors at this Ivy league school draw the attention of officials. His fighting draws a similar level of attention from the law.
I’ll never forget watching the powerful reenactment of the Normandy invasion near in this film. I can still hear the muffled cries of the elderly sitting around us who must have known and lost people in that bloody landing.
Yet another live-action remake of a Disney classic. While it wasn’t reviewed well, we really enjoyed this retelling of the beloved animated film. Yifei Liu is fantastic in the title role as a girl who disguises her gender in order to save her family and their family honor.
Okay, so things are bleak in this dystopian story about people trying to escape earth to flee a global-wide pandemic. The critics aren’t wrong. But the way things are trending, it didn’t feel too far-fetched! I am not sure I would wholeheartedly recommend this one,
A minister ends up doing the horrifying things that many soldiers have to endure during the Civil War. He believes the hardship and treachery he is experiencing in his life is a punishment from God for all he did.
Vincent Papale has never known darker times. It is 1978 and he has lost his job and his wife has just left him. He is a broken man that decides to risk all on a one-in-a-million shot at walking on to his favorite Philadelphia Eagles.
The okay movie from the unbelievable book. If you are a reader, don’t miss the experience of this incredible true story of Louis Zamperini. There is so much incredible narrative that this could have filled an entire season of a TV drama or at least a trilogy of feature films. If you read, please go grab a copy of this book.
This New Zealand film fits in a very narrow vein of humor that will either make you love this film or not be able to get through very much of the footage. I happen to love the director Taika Waititi and this type of humor and really enjoyed this ride.
While this movie played on a lot of the cliches of many military films, it differentiates itself in some very important ways. It works hard at showing the challenges and humanity of the soldiers on both sides of the war.
Funny, adventurous, and hopelessly romantic, this movie somehow made it to release during all the chaos of movie offerings in 2020. This one is a little young and formulaic, but a nice ride nonetheless.
I am always a sucker for parent-child stories, but this is one of the freshest takes I have ever seen on that idea. Borrowing directly from Field of Dreams, Good Will Hunting, About Time,
I’ve never seen a movie so ridiculously hyped that lived up to the expectations. Tied itself to the original story, but didn’t feel contrived. Was clearly rooted in the other film, but improved on the classic in every category.
This last installment of the Daniel Craig version of James Bond didn’t disappoint. At this point in this well-established franchise, you pretty much know what you are getting into when you sit down for a viewing.
A Batman for the present age? It seemed right vs. wrong wasn’t always clear, the world felt gritty and compromised, and our protagonist didn’t seem like he even wanted the job of superhero.
Confession, if my future son-in-law’s brother wasn’t the editor of this film, I would have never probably seen it, but I am glad I did. As beautifully filmed as all those incredible National Geographic documentaries
The trailer drew me in, but I was second-guessing the decision to watch pretty early into this one. But it just continued to sneak up on me and surprise me.
There wasn’t anything about another Nicolas Cage vehicle that would have interested me, but I kept hearing good things about this movie.
Watered down in my subconscious by all the less-quality sequels, a rewatch of this movie immediately brought me back to how fun this ensemble story was. Humor,
What does the pursuit of excellence look like? It might come in the form of 85-year-old Jiro Ono who runs what many believe to be the best sushi restaurant in the world.
