Catholic Film Reviews

Rumors have circulated for a long time that acclaimed filmmaker and seminary dropout, Martin Scorsese, was planning on directing a movie adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s powerful novel, Silence, a masterpiece of Catholic fiction. The National Catholic Register is reporting that the rumors are true, and frequent Scorsese collaborator/legendary art director, Dante Ferretti, was doing research [...]

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Directed by Ronald Neame
Starring Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens
Based on a classic novel by Catholic writer, Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a flawed but mostly effective adaptation, thanks in large part to the heroic efforts of Maggie Smith. Her Academy-award winning performance as the title character manages to be both iconic [...]

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Directed by John Ford
Starring John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, and Vera Miles
John Ford’s The Searchers exists at the strange intersection between the Western’s early period of mythmaking (Stagecoach, Shane, A Fistful of Dollars) and the later revising of that same myth (Once Upon a Time in the West, Unforgiven). The push-pull tension between Ford’s desire [...]

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Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder
Martin Scorsese directing a Merchant-Ivory film might superficially describe The Age of Innocence, but it would do an injustice to both parties. This is a Marty movie through and through — beautifully filmed, expertly acted, and thematically obsessed with guilt, passion, and moral failings.
Newland [...]

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