Arts & Faith Top 25 Spiritually Significant Films on Crime and Punishment
The 2024 list considers the nature of crime, human and divine retribution, and our imperative to be both just and merciful.
Each year, the Arts & Faith website releases a top 25 list identifying the best spiritually significant films within a certain theme. This year our group chose to focus on the theme Crime and Punishment. The broadness of the theme initially proved daunting as a voter, but ultimately allowed for a vast array of film interpretations and insightful intersections with core principles of the Christian faith.
The end product is a list that includes a variety of genres and spans 95 years of cinema. But most importantly, the list encourages Christians to consider the nature of crime, human and divine retribution, and our imperative to be both just and merciful.
Visit the Arts & Faith website to see the full top 25 list and read all of the write-ups. In the meantime, you can read my contributions to the list below.
16. Judgment at Nuremberg
Stanley Kramer’s 1961 film, Judgment at Nuremberg, focuses on the trial of Ernst Janning, a fictional German jurist accused of crimes against humanity in one of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals that occurred following World War II. But the film isn’t just interested in examining Ernst Janning’s guilt, but the collective knowledge and guilt of the German people (defense attorney Hans Rolfe argues that exact sentiment in his opening statement).
The periodic examination of the German people’s guilt through Judge Dan Haywood’s daily interactions with others is as equally fascinating as the trial scenes. He casually asks a German couple about what life was like under the Nazi regime, only to be met with nervous and deflecting responses from the couple about how they were “not political” and knew nothing about it. “And even if we did know...what could we do?” asks the husband defensively.
Tim Keller once summarized Romans 1:18, saying: “We know, but we don’t know, because we don’t want to know.” While it may seem to be a confusing statement, this summarizes a powerful explanation of how humans (such as those seen in the film) “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” In reality, no matter how small or large a part we’ve played in the crimes and sins of the world, we all have sinned, and Judgment at Nuremberg places an uncomfortable lens on our hearts, on our actions and inactions, and asks what punishment a just jury – or a just God – should place on us as both criminals and as willing bystanders. And only by understanding our part in the “crime” and the punishment we deserve can we begin to understand the gift of salvation and mercy offered to us through Christ Jesus.
17. Minority Report
“The way we work, changing destiny and all…we’re more like clergy than cops.”
Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film Minority Report explores a future where “Precrime” technology (enabled by psychics with precognitive powers) allows law enforcement to arrest individuals before they commit crimes. John Anderton (Tom Cruise) leads the Precrime unit with conviction, believing wholeheartedly in the infallibility of the system. However, when the system predicts that Anderton himself will commit a murder, he goes on the run, questioning the very foundation of justice upon which he has built his life.
As the mystery of the film unravels and viewers discover the conspiracy that has led to these events, the imperfections of the Precrime unit become abundantly clear. Our capacity to stop crime and properly punish criminals is always hindered by the limitations of human judgment and the potential for systemic injustice. “The power has always been with the priests, even if they had to invent the oracle,” muses DOJ agent Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell). “If there’s a flaw, it’s human. It always is.”
While Christians don’t serve an “invented oracle,” we’ve seen all too well that the flaws in our religion don’t reside in our perfect God, but in the imperfect people who use Him for their own selfish gains. Take, for instance, Ezekiel 34, in which God condemns Israel’s leaders for abusing His people instead of protecting them.
Minority Report provides even further textual richness for Christian audiences, with themes like determinism versus free will and true sight versus blindness coming into play throughout. But in the context of crime and punishment, it’s important to view the film as a reminder of the ways in which religious, political, or law enforcement leaders can abuse their power, and the responsibility of those figures, the “clergy” changing people’s destinies, to do justice and love mercy while carrying out their duties.
25. Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can follows the semi-true story of Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), a teenage con artist who stole millions of dollars over the course of six years, posing as an airplane pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer, before ultimately being arrested and imprisoned in 1969. Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film offers a hilarious, exciting glimpse into Abagnale’s misadventures, but much like the main character himself, there’s a sadness beneath its glamorous exterior.
Deep down, Frank is just a lonely prodigal. Despite his lavish lifestyle and confident demeanor, he has a void he can’t seem to fill. Frank yearns for love within his own family, only to run away from home and begin his cons as a result of his parents’ separation. He looks to money and romantic relationships for temporary fulfillment,while the crimes of his past constantly threaten to catch up with him. Frank may be running from the law, but he’s just as much running from the loneliness of his broken life and home.
Few films on this year’s list look as empathetically at the “criminal” as Catch Me If You Can. We so easily understand and identify with Frank, not as a smooth criminal mastermind, but as a scared teenager just looking for belonging and a home. Towards the end of the film, Frank escapes captivity one final time and desperately seeks refuge in his childhood home. But instead of acceptance and forgiveness, he’s met with a harsh truth. His father is dead, and his mother has remarried and had another child. Frank is a prodigal son, but with no father or home to return to.
There’s a tragic inevitability to the story, thanks in large part to the story’s structure, starting with and periodically returning to Frank’s time in captivity. “You will be caught. You will go to prison. Where did you think this was going?” asks Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) on a phone call with Frank. He may as well be asking the audience the same thing. We may have fun with Frank’s cons in the moment, but we know where this story has to go. We know the punishment that inevitably has to come for his crimes. We know the wages that must be paid for his sins. But the film’s coda does offer us some hope. Maybe, just maybe, Frank’s skills and circumstances that had been meant for evil, can actually be used for good.