For more than 50 years ABC, with very few exceptions, has offered “The Ten Commandments” as the network’s featured film for Holy Week.
Nothing says “Easter” like a showdown between Moses, the 13th-century B.C. Hebrew prophet, and the pharaoh, Ramses the Great, and the gods of Egypt.
“Why is ‘The Ten Commandments’ an Easter movie? Part of me thinks they play it because people think it’s a generic Christian movie,” said Joe Wilson, reached by telephone. He is one of the writers behind the 100 Movies Every Catholic Should See website. “Digging deeper, you could make an argument for Moses as a messiah figure leading the Israelites out of Egypt into a kind (of) baptism and resurrection, with their march through the Red Sea.”
Director Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 classic — with Charlton Heston as Moses — is a biblical epic appealing to Judeo-Christian audiences. It’s perfect for the Jewish Passover season that falls close to Easter, or Pascha on the ancient calendar of the Eastern churches. This is a year when Easter and Pascha fall on the same Sunday.
It is interesting, noted Wilson, that major networks have not through the years aired movies with traditional depictions of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, such as “The King of Kings.” NBC has created “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert,” the network’s take on the popular, but also controversial, musical.
Easter movies often appear on cable channels, such as Turner Classic Movies offering “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” Other options have included the four-part “Jesus of Nazareth” series directed by Franco Zeffirelli or the movie version of the musical “Godspell.” It would certainly be controversial to feature Mel Gibson’s R-rated “The Passion of the Christ” on basic cable, even the version without its most violent images.
Perhaps, said Wilson, a network should show “something like ‘Ben-Hur.’ That’s another classic, also with Charlton Heston, and it contains some Holy Week imagery — although it doesn’t show the resurrection.”
This Easter movie puzzle is a perfect demonstration of why feature films are so important in American culture. However, what many viewers consider a classic movie may be second-rate or even scandalous to others.
Thus, Wilson and his colleagues — Samuel Morales and Cameron DeLaFleur — decided to name their online project “100 Movies Every Catholic Should See” instead of “100 Catholic Movies.” DeLaFleur and Wilson recently addressed the “Catholic movie debates” when they published a list of short writeups of the website’s first 100 essays.
“All great films, regardless of genre, are ‘catholic’ in the sense that they touch on universal themes of human existence,” they wrote. “Our list reflects the wonderful diversity of cinematic history, including (we hope) something for everyone that can draw them into deeper contemplation of God, his truth, and the meaning and beauty of human life.
“There are many films with explicitly Catholic themes, including a couple (of) saintly biopics (‘A Man for All Seasons,’ ‘The Reluctant Saint’), biblical stories (‘Prince of Egypt,’ ‘The Passion of the Christ’), and even a story written by a pope and saint himself (‘The Jeweller’s Shop’). Catholicism’s rich symbolic tradition, complex doctrines, and well-known hierarchical structure have made it a common subject of filmmakers.”
There are many classic movies that include what are clearly Catholic themes, images and characters while also containing plenty of violence and bad language. To name an obvious example, said Wilson, “we put ‘The Godfather’ in our list. That’s a movie with a Catholic ethos and strong Catholic imagery — especially in the powerful baptism scene — that shows Michael Corleone’s descent into becoming, almost, a kind of anti-Christ.”
The website’s next 100 films will include “The Exorcist,” a landmark R-rated horror movie written by the late William Peter Blatty, a conservative Catholic.
There is more to this project than creating another list of “clean,” “safe” movies, Wilson explained. The goal was to address film in the same way that Catholic writers and leaders have addressed the fine arts and literature.
“Very often, it seemed like — at least when we encountered Catholics talking about films — it was all about what you shouldn’t see, what you shouldn’t go watch. You know, ‘This movie is offensive,’ ‘This movie has sex scenes in it,’ or whatever. … As young Catholics, we wanted to take a more positive approach.”

Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.