What Do The 2026 Oscars Have To Say About Religion?
Last year was a big one for film.
Theaters drew people in for a wide variety of stories. Moviegoers saw thrillers like Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” and Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme.”
They saw the returns of beloved characters with James Gunn’s “Superman” and James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire & Ash.”
They embraced the strange with “Bugonia,” the romantic with “Materialists,” and the tragic with “Frankenstein.”
But, as has increasingly been the case in recent years, droves of moviegoers also showed up for movies featuring religious themes.
Faith-based studios and directors produced a variety of faith-forward movies with family-friendly animated movies like “David“ or “Light of The World” and more mature films such as “Guns and Moses” or “The Last Rodeo.”
But faith also appeared in many religiously unaffiliated Hollywood films, such as the latest installment of the “Knives Out” franchise, which focused on the murder of a controversial Catholic priest and Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” which explored the clashes of spirituality and conventional religion.
As the Oscars are fast approaching this weekend, Religion Unplugged’s Culture Editor Jillian Cheney and Film Critic Joseph Holmes sat down with public intellectual and theologian Paul Anleitner. Paul is the president and CEO of Goodmakers and the author of “Based on a True Story: Vibe Shifts, the End of Deconstruction, & the Reboot of Meaning,” which comes out this summer and is available for pre-order now.
Cheney, Holmes and Anleitner discuss the spiritual and religious themes of some of this year’s most beloved Oscar nominees — including “Sinners,” “Train Dreams,” “One Battle After Another” and “F1.”
Can these films show us what Hollywood actually thinks about religion?
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Matthew Peterson is Religion Unplugged’s podcast editor and audience development coordinator. He took part in this past summer’s European Journalism Institute held in Prague, an annual program co-sponsored by The Media Project.