This is a list for all the atheists and agnostics (and maybe even for nuanced belivers as well) out there to celebrate the Easter holidays. Leaving religion behind can be painful, hard and scary, especially so for high-demand religion. These films and tv-shows have helped us process some of the trauma we have from religious dogma, even if some of these movies might not have anything to do with organized religion at first glance.
1. Dogtooth (2009). This film is a perfect example of the infantilization many high-demand religions inflict on their followers. It's got everything one might face in a cult- childhood indoctrination, patriarchal figure you must obey, boys are valued more than girls, women exist for the sexual gratification of men, gaslighting and straight up lying and distortion of reality. Is it any wonder it made the top of our list? Also, it is Lanthismos, so the whole movie is just weirdness incarnate.
2. Spotlight (2015). Our righteous fury movie. This is the one you watch when you wanna have some catharsis over the fact how many religious organizations simply just allow child sexual abuse to happen and even go so far as to cover it up, and do absolutely nothing to bring the culprits to justice. The scene with Mark Ruffalo's character exploding over the church hiding the abuse is the definitive point for us in the film - what happens when a religion that you have always thought was a force for good is actually commiting atrocities and trying to actively hide them from not just their members but the world.
3. Holy Spider (2022). Women's oppression by fundamentalist religious doctrine is something that many religious organizations take part in - we come from one as well. This film depicts the violence that women face in high-demand religions - how strict rules of dress, behaviour and women's role in the religion (mainly only allowing women to have certain jobs or staying at home) are forced on women and girls. Neither do women have any kind of power in these kinds of religions - their only status is to be a wife and a mother.
3. Silence (2016). Scorsese has some real philosophical ponderings about God, faith and doubt. He wonders what does it mean to have faith, how does one cope when it seems God is not answering in your greatest hour of need, are you still a believer if you are forced to renounce your faith publicly but still believe in your heart? This is a movie that would still allow those, who have left religion, to have some belief in higher power and also makes the case that there can be no faith without doubt.
5. Through a Glass Darkly (1961). One cannot have a list about films to do with religion without Ingmar Bergman. The man has always been interested studying religious philosophy through the medium of cinema. We truly appreciate the way Bergman looks at religion - not as something sacred but neither something evil. He sees religions more as philosophy, something that tries to give answers to the meaning and purpose of human life and death. He can also be critical of especially Christian ideas of knowing God is real and how God allowing suffering is good - Bergman himself is very conflicted about these things. In this film particularly one could argue Bergman connects the main character's religious fervour to worsening her mental illness that prevents the main character from healing.
6. Malcolm X (1992). His relationship with Nation of Islam in the movie is the most relevant part for this list. The fact that Malcolm X actually believed the women and his wife about the abuse his religious leader was perpetrating and that started his journey out of the cult, is something that many ex-religious people can relate to. Because if you close your eyes from the wrongdoings your religious organization is commiting, how religious can you really claim to be? The film also expertly portrays the hero worship that exists in cults in general.
7. The Handmaiden (2016). Leaving a cult can be such a freeing experience and here especially throwing away restricting gender norms bring actual freedom - you don't have to hide who you are or who you love (true for every queer person ever). This has another rage catharsis moment of the two women destroying the porn library of the perverted owner dude. Seeing yourself as a human being who has worth purely just as a human instead of a sex object for men is one of the major themes we love about this story. Since religions so often see women as lesser than men and heavily repress any kind of different expressions of sexuality, that leads to women being turned into "guardians of virtue" for men - women are culpabale of men's sexual desire and must always be available for men sexually. Something that this movie completely rejects and is one of the reasons we adore it.
8. Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995). The only series on this list. We've got an emotionally abusive father who only cares what his son can give him, children being indoctrinated into soldiers, adults constantly demanding emotional labour from children they're not equipped with, massive depression from the pressure to be perfect, identity crisis and crashing of your worldview. Quite accurate summary of plethora of high-demand religions. This is almost like a companion to Dogtooth, where the adult children are infantalized, whereas in Evangelion the actual children are forced into an adult world. There's plenty of religious imagery to boot.
9. Jojo Rabbit (2019). Extreme political ideology and extreme religious dogma are not that far from each other. In fact, they often merge. In this film the whole idea is that you are confronted with a person from a group your leaders have demonised and you start to realise that maybe they not only lied about this but also other things. Thus, the questioning of your own beliefs starts - the process of starting to think about things on your own instead of following what somebody else is telling you.
10. Music Box (1989). This film is here for the realization that your religious leaders weren't the actual saints they were painted as. Nay, not even saints, but truly human monsters in some sense. And the religion we come from, we were taught from a small age that the leaders of the church are like family - they're your fathers and grandfathers. So yeah, a movie that shows how your own father that you have loved and respected your whole life, turns out to be a war criminal, is something that really hit us hard. In a lot of high-demand religions it is quite often taught that your family is everything - so what does one do when it is one's own family that is the abuser, the criminal, the oppressor? Religions also teach the principle of forgiveness, but this can unfortunately lead to toxic family members or perpetrators thinking that they can just continue their abuse.
Honourable mentions: Any Ingmar Bergman (The Sevent Seal and The Virgin Spring, for example), Under the Banner of Heaven (for its obvious Mormon connections), The Truman Show (for the American ex-religious especially), Hinterland (corruption of leaders and thus the entire organization), Barbie (you wake up and realise you're not the same as everyone else) and Thirst (religion and the suppression of sexuality).
