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Movies

How to Sort Through Which Movies are Worth Seeing

I highly recommend Christianity Today’s Our Top Rated Movies page on their website.   

When I am looking for a movie to see, I am in the habit of checking the reviews on Christianity Today’s Movie site.  I will hardly ever see a movie that didn’t get at least 3 out of 4 stars from them.   I just don’t want to spend two hours filling my head with complete filth and it is hard to judge a DVD by its cover in the video store. 

For your convenience, they have placed all of their 3 1/2 and 4 star rated movies on one page called Our Top Rated Movies.  I admit that I have sometimes printed that page out and brought it to Blockbuster Video with me.   I have also wished that I had internet access on my phone so I could check out this page at the movie theater. 

You should know though that their "star ranking" is NOT a group process where all of Christianity Today’s editors watch a movie and then decide what it should be ranked!  No, the ranking is one Christian critic’s opinion.  I happen to think their 10 critics are pretty trustworthy voices but I also glance at why the movie has gotten the MPAA rating (PG-13, R, etc.) it has gotten.  (The review page for the movie gives all of this information in "The Family Corner" section of their review – how much violence, sex, etc.).  If it is rated R, I look a bit more closely at why the critic has given it such a high star rating before I see it.

Christianity Today also provides links to reviews by other Christian critics on each of their reviews:

Plugged In
Crosswalk
Catholic News Service
Past the Popcorn

They also have other lists that you might appreciate:
Most Redeeming of ’06 – they made this list as a group of critics
Critics’ Choice 2006 – they made this list as a group of critics
Readers’ Choice 2006

The reviews are also organized this way:

I will often also check the website Rotten Tomatoes which collates movie reviews and gives you a percentage of how many of the reviews by mainstream critics are positive.  Most of the high rated movies by Christianity Today also get a 85-95% positive reviews by all movie critics at Rotten Tomatoes.  If a CT review is very high and the mainstream critics give it a low rating, you might want to look more closely at CT’s review to see what they see that the mainstream critics don’t. 

Below I have pasted from Christianity Today’s Our Top Rated Movies page, the movies they have given 4 stars or 3
1/2 stars, that I have seen.  I have sometimes been disappointed, but not often. 

I should say also
though that few of these movies are "veg out and relax" movies.  Most
were ranked high by the critics because the themes were dealt with thoughtfully.  I have made a comment about each. 

4 Stars

3½ Stars

Ben Witherington is a New Testament scholar at Asbury Seminary.  This does not automatically make him a good film critic!  But I enjoy reading his take on things on his blog.   

He has recent reviews of:
The Bourne Ultimatum– The Ultimate Thriller
‘Hairspray’– Another Hare Brained Musical?
Live Free or Die Hard– or Live Hard and Die Free?…
‘Ratatouille’– A Midsummer’s Gourmet Treat

So, if you are like me and don’t have time to read every review of every film that comes out, listen to Christianity Today’s critics as a starting point.  Their 3 1/2 and 4 star rated films are at Christianity Today’s Our Top Rated Movies page.