Enter to Win: Beliefnet Film Award Winner DVDs

How do I pick just ONE movie that has "touched my soul"?! Luckily, I read in the contest rules that I can enter once per day--so I guess that means I can post info on different movies??

OK, so the first movie that has touched my soul would be The Passion of the Christ. I've been a believer for many years, but it was a very powerful reminder of the sacrifice given and the love that Christ has for the lost. But even more powerful than the film itself was being able to sit back in a dark, crowded theater and watch the reactions of those in the audience. It was so moving to see so many people have such a strong emotional response to the film. As the film portrayed Christ's brutal torture and crucifixion, audience members were moved to tears. Some even quietly bowed their heads and prayed. I just kind of sat back and wondered what each audience member must be thinking or feeling--where were they in their walk with God? What was going on in their lives? But for me, the most awesome thing was the final scene in which it depicts the stone being moved away and Christ getting up to exit the tomb! As the audience members erupted in applause, that's when MY tears started to flow. It was like this big joyous celebration of the power of the resurrection and the victory over death! My life has not been an easy one--I've made many mistakes and several years ago I was the victim of domestic violence. I'd always thought that some of the things that happened to me were deserved. And that God must be really mad at me to allow those things to take place. Or maybe that the things I had done were too horrible for God to forgive. But the film The Passion of the Christ was a very powerful reminder that no one is beyond redemption--including me.

I remember seeing "The Passion of the Christ" with my husband on our anniversary. What really touched my soul was when Mary saw Jesus carrying the cross. When he had fallen, we see Mary thinking back to when Jesus was little and how she was there to pick him up whenever he was crying or got hurt. To me that was very touching because I guess I never really thought how Mary felt as a mother to see her son have to suffer the way he did and not be able to help him. As I put myself in her shoes being a mother, I cannot imagine the pain and heartache she must have felt at that time.

The most recent movie that has touched me the most would be "The Passion of the Christ". I first saw the movie in the theater with other members of our church. Several times throughout the movie I was moved to tears as were others around me, including my husband. We now own the DVD and have watched it during the Lenten season and I was moved to tears during the same scenes, even though I knew what to expect. I feel it is wonderful reminder of Jesus' great sacrifice for me/us even though I rarely deserve it.

There is no movie that has touched me except the bible, NOW THAT'S A GREAT MOVIEL.

The movie that moved me the most was "The Passion of Christ" I had back slidden for awhile and that movie brought me to tears and back to my Lord and Saviour. I think we all need a little reminder now and then of the great work He has begun in us and to Praise His Holy Name.

I've seen a lot of movies in my time, and I've cried a lot of tears, but I've never seen a movie that made a bigger impact on me than "Facing The Giants." Through that coaches actions, not words or deeds, he led his football team first to an active relationship with God, and then God led them all to victory on the football field. Also by the coaches and his wife's love for God, God granted him and his his wife the desires of their hearts. I cried not because the movie had a happy ending, but because the coach and his wife said that even if God never granted any of their prayers, they would still love Him. That, to me, is faith, pure and simple. Thank you

The movie that realy opened my eyes to the Good Lord was,"The Ten Commandments," with the late great Charlton Heston and late Yul Brynner. This movie(like all biblical stories) is no doubt timeless in the fact that the message it sends is a paradigm in each and every individual's life; providing one puts one's ear to the truth. For those who hear the call this movie is the benchmark as far as religious movie messages go. The words of the One True God truly does work wonders. From a personal perspective religion did not play that big a part in my life simply because my self-esteem was at an all time low due to indulging in alcohol and psychotropic drugs. These were crutches. Now because of abstinence living an ascetic lifestyle and reading the bible; my self-esteem has improved a great deal by rediscovering who I really was all along. Telling others that I pray and include them helps as well.

I just recently watch "Shadowlands" the story about C.S. Lewis and his marriage with Joy. It touch my soul, because it was a true story of a man who loved a woman. When you see this, you see the love of God working in a human being.

The movie that had the greatest impact on me was the Passion of Christ.
I never realized what Jesus did for me, I have heard about the stuff but to actually see it, i couldnt stop crying , it was just unbelieveable that a person went throught that for people he didnt even know and then there was so many people that didnt even care or understand what he was doing. It has touched my heart so much that i cant just give up, i know i can do anything as long as Christ is walking by my side, for he makes me stronger. I dont watch it over and over because i cry so much but i will never forget the meaning of Jesus and his teachings.

I wish they would make more Christian movies so we can have something to watch without worrying about lanuage, sex, filth, etc.

Thank you and may God bless you everyday
Jackie

The movie that I watched lately was the "Final Inquiry". It made me look at my faith and realize they had Christ with them and still did not believe. When the Holy Spirit visits or hearts and we can look up and know that he lives and we soon will be with him. All God ask us to do is believe on his only begotten son for us to have an eternal resting place. I'm looking forward to sitting by the cool waters and enjoy an eternity listen to Noah, Moses, Paul and most of all Jesus Christ himself. That movie shows us that we only have to believe and our prayers will be answered. Another great movie is "The Hiding Place".

May God bless all you do to spread the gospel.

SAS

I am from the South and raised in church,but I never knew the story behind the song Amazing Grace till I watched the movie. How we as a Christian nation could have treated another race of people the way we did with the African Negoes had to have grieved the heart of God! We now go into foriegn countries and condem them for the same things that we have done and still do with illegal immigrants.I do ask God to forgive our weaknesses as a nation and to let His Love and Blessings overflow in America.Dorothy E

I recently rented a movie made by a German filmmaker called "Nowhere in Africa" which won the Oscar the best foreign language film in 2002. This film was based on an autobiographic novel of the same title. It was about a small family of German Jews who escaped the Holocaust in 1938 and lived in Kenya during that time. There were so many things about this film that moved me, especially the story and the actors, not to mention the photography. It's amazing to think of the level of persecution that these people were fleeing; and also important to understand that this is in fact still a problem in the world today. I lost members of my family in the Holocaust and I understand the evil that these people were escaping from. It was an amazing story, how this young couple and their little daugher came to adjust to life in a completely alien culture and society. They were forced by external circumstances to leave everything they knew back home in Germany and live in Africa during this time. It's a moving story of the spirit and - I would like to think- how God protected this small family from the brutality of the Holocaust so many miles away.

Passon of the Christ was the most amazing movie I have ever seen. We don't realize what Jesus went through to save our souls. I cried so hard I had to get my grandson to go to the restroom to get me TP to wipe my eyes with. I don't know how his mother, Mary, stood to watch her son beaten and crucified. I don't understand how one human being could beat, torture and crucify another human being so badly. I bought a copy of the movie for each of my siblings and my friends so they would see and seek him. I pray for them everyday and pray for them to let God into their heart. I wish everyone could see this movie and realize what he did to save us.

Whistle Down the Wind, a 1961 film, has challenged and delighted my faith like no other film. It stars Hayley Mills and a bunch of other children along with Alan Bates. It was directed by Bryan Forbes and produced by Richard Attenborough. The plot is simple and yet not so simple. Some children discover an escaped convict in their barn and mistakenly think he is Jesus. In their innocence they treat this “con” as Jesus and actually do seem to transform him into a different person. In the process, they raise for me the question that Jesus himself posed for his disciples: What if we were to treat everyone as if they were Jesus? Remember Mt. 25:40—as you do it to the least of these you do it to me? The film also plays on the startling innocence of children and another of Jesus’ statements “You must become like a little child to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mk. 10:15) The ending is ambiguous and leaves much to the viewer’s own imagination. This film, based on a book by Mary Hayley Bell (Hayley Mills' mother), also has been made into a musical by Andrew Lloyd Weber that is still touring today.

Movies only have the power to "touch your soul" if you allow them to. It seems the more a person can identify with a particular character or situation, the more likely it is that there will be some sort of an emotional connection with that audience member. This may seem an odd choice for a movie that has "touched my soul," but "The Breakfast Club" is one of my all-time favorite movies for this very reason. I was such a screwed up kid and was raised in a fairly dysfunctional family with often little to no adult supervision. By the time I reached high school, I really struggled with my identity. I was so desparate for the attention and affection of friends, that I would succumb to all sorts of peer pressure. I tried hanging out with the "jocks," and participated in sports to try to fit in with that crowd. I tried fitting in with the "brains" and joined academic clubs. I tried hanging out with the "misfits" that no one really talked to. And I tried fitting in with the "druggies." I had this huge burden of thinking that I had to be like whatever crowd I was hanging out with at the time in order for them to like me, or to accept me. "The Breakfast Club" was a great portrayal of how high school kids typically form their own little cliques and how everyone who is different from them is usually ridiculed or ostracized. Some of the most moving scenes in the film involved the characters' individual awakenings to what it must be like to walk in the other person's shoes. For example, the scene where "the criminal" John Bender (played by Judd Nelson) imitated life at his house, revealing that he was the victim of physical abuse. Or the scene in which "the brain" Brian Johnson (played by Anthony Michael Hall) discloses that he contemplated suicide because he got an "F" on a project in shop class. And the scene where "the jock" Andrew Clark (played by Emilio Estevez) shared how he was ashamed that he had bullied a fellow student just to make his father proud of him. As a youth group leader today, I think this movie has several useful lessons for our kids about accepting one another as we are--flaws and all. I am so thankful that God accepts us as we are, for who we are, not because of how hard we try to make Him proud.

There is only one movie that I can't go without seeing at least once a year (and still cry everytime) and that's Steel Magnolias. I realize just how much my girlfriends, and I've lost 3 to cancer, mean to me along with my best friends, my sisters. One of my sisters has lost a child to a drunk driver and it's just like losing one of your own because we are such a close family. We grew up without a Mother, so we all depended on each other. Our Mother died when the 5 of us were all under the age of 8 and now we're all in our 50's, so hang on to the loves and friendships in your life because they only come around once in this lifetime of ours. God bless those who love one another.

1999 was a very difficult year for me. I had suffered the past four years of my life having my faith challenged from every direction. I decided I had had enough. That January I took Pascal’s Wager and turn it upside-down. I could not struggle with my faith any longer and gave up on God. Rather than spend a year trying to believe in God, I spent the next year trying not to believe. I stopped going to church. I stopped praying. I totally cut myself off from God. Then next January I figured I would reevaluate the year and see if my life were any worse because I no longer believed in God.

It was during this time I developed a fascination with religion and film. It is hard to say what exactly caused this. I am sure several factors were in play, but the largest of which was my growing dislike for my own world, and watching a film allowed me to live in another world, even if it was only for a couple of hours. I enjoyed dissecting this new world and finding what it was all about. I was in a totally fabricated universe made up by the director and enjoyed looking for God there, especially since I had given up looking for God in my own world.

November of that year Kevin Smith’s movie Dogma was released. A scene in that film hit me pretty hard. Two angels are talking and one is telling the other how humans are able to deny God’s existence and can go numb to the pain of not having Him in their lives… a privilege angels do not have. That is a privilege that I realized I did not have either. I had spent the year trying to deny God, but when it came down to it, I still believed.

God gave me a tremendous gift of faith and I could try to deny Him all I wanted, but could not really get away from Him. Dogma brought that to light for me. All I had accomplished in the past year was to get to know many false idols. I saw how my life had become filled with emptiness, and I did not like what that turned me into. I realize that I needed God in my life. Even if, for no other reason, than with God I am forced to try to see the world the way God sees it. Not focus on the negativity that happens, but rather all the potential for beauty and greatness there is. So, on Christmas Eve of 1999 I made my way to Church and confess a year’s worth of fleeing from God and thus in doing so lost the wager.

Nine year later I am in full time ministry and still look to the film Dogma as one on the main factors in my returning to faith. For that I will be forever grateful to Kevin Smith. I use Dogma and other films a lot in ministry because in my own life I have seen how God can use media challenge us to look beyond ourselves. When we do, we find God’s love in places we may never have expected.