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A provocative, serious-minded biblical drama that treats faith as a lived crisis rather than a stained-glass certainty. Scorsese’s direction, Dafoe’s vulnerable performance, and the film’s willingness to wrestle with doubt, desire, and sacrifice make it one of the most distinctive religious films ever made.
Where to watch: Buy
Sat · 2h 44m
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Paul Greco
Jesus, a humble Judean carpenter beginning to see that he is the son of God, is drawn into revolutionary action against the Roman occupiers by Judas -- despite his protestations that love, not violence, is the path to salvation. The burden of being the savior of mankind torments Jesus throughout his life, leading him to doubt.
Martin Scorsese
Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Paul Greco
A provocative, serious-minded biblical drama that treats faith as a lived crisis rather than a stained-glass certainty. Scorsese’s direction, Dafoe’s vulnerable performance, and the film’s willingness to wrestle with doubt, desire, and sacrifice make it one of the most distinctive religious films ever made.
Martin Scorsese turns a biblical story into a feverish interior drama, less concerned with pageantry than with the agony of belief. The film imagines Jesus as a man torn between divine calling, human fear, and the temptation to live an ordinary life, which gives the story an unusual emotional voltage.
Willem Dafoe’s performance is the anchor: tender, frightened, stubborn, and physically present in a way that makes the spiritual stakes feel immediate. Harvey Keitel’s Judas and the film’s rough, earthy texture push it away from sanctimony and toward a messy, human struggle over violence, duty, and salvation.
It remains controversial because it refuses easy piety, but that’s also what makes it endure. This is a film about faith under pressure, and about the cost of imagining holiness as something lived by a person rather than symbolized by an icon.
siobhan (3.5★) · 4420 likes
convinced that willem dafoe as jesus, david bowie as pontius pilate, and harvey keitel as judas with a new york accent shouting “whaddaya doin building crosses?” is historically accurate and that this was not a fiction but a documentary
Karsten (4.5★) · 2548 likes
I worship Paul Schrader, even though Paul Schrader has made it clear in multiple films that I shouldn’t worship Paul Schrader.
annabelle (3.5★) · 2486 likes
harvey keitel as judas be like eeeyyyyyy jesus i’m prayin here now kiss me square on the mouth you sonofabitch
Wesley R. Ball (5★) · 2042 likes
Before I begin, I would like everyone to understand that I grew up in a strictly Christian background (which I am thankful for and still adhere to). So when I speak about my beliefs, I'm not attempting to generalize everyone in the same boat as I am, religiously speaking, but rather I am trying explain the environment and beliefs that I personally was raised on (which, again, I still stick to and am eternally grateful for). I avoided Martin Scorsese's… more
Jake Cole (5★) · 1905 likes
Ironically, it is this mortal treatment of Jesus as a man that makes me more willing to think of him as a divine figure than the purified Gospels.
A neorealist, deeply human approach to the life of Jesus that pairs well with this film’s interest in spiritual seriousness and earthly texture.
Another ambitious meditation on grace, suffering, and the search for meaning, with a similarly poetic sense of the sacred in human life.
A sweeping religious drama about faith, violence, and conscience, with strong moral tension and spiritual grandeur.
For viewers drawn to metaphysical questions, inner conflict, and the collision between brutality and transcendence.
A contemplative historical drama that treats belief, encounter, and destiny with lyrical restraint.
A modern story of spiritual confusion and unanswered suffering, balancing dark humor with existential dread.
An atmospheric descent into religious mystery and personal revelation, with a strong sense of dread and the uncanny.
A landmark of religious horror that, like this film, takes spiritual conflict with complete seriousness.
A transcendent portrait of faith under pressure, driven by suffering, conviction, and intense close-up emotion.
A humane, devotional film about holiness as lived practice rather than abstraction.
A classic meditation on death, belief, and divine silence, with the same existential weight.
A more traditional biblical epic, useful as a contrast to this film’s radical intimacy and psychological focus.
faith and doubt, temptation, sacrifice, messianic identity, humanity vs divinity, religious controversy, spiritual crisis, redemption
biblical drama, religious cinema, psychological drama, historical drama, spiritual crisis, controversial, intense, 1980s, character study, art-house