It’s been my honor to once again participate in The Arts & Faith Ecumenical Jury for 2024. As is stated on the site, the organization has sponsored a jury every year since 2014 to recommend films to Christian audiences. Jury members submitted films for nomination in December, the vote commenced at the end of the year, and the winners were announced this week on January 10, 2025 with write-ups from jury members on each of the nominated films.
I had the privilege of writing about two of the winners — The Bikeriders and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga — for the Arts and Faith site, and what makes it particularly suited for a faith audience. The winners and my write-ups are listed below, and be sure to check out the write-ups for the other winners and honorable mentions of 2024.
The 2024 Arts & Faith Ecumenical Jury
Flow
Perfect Days
Wildcat
The Bikeriders
“What do you think this is? What did you ever think this was gonna be?”
Writer and director Jeff Nichols’ film follows the Vandals motorcycle club (based on the real life Outlaws motorcycle club) from their early days in the 1960s through their drastic evolution in the 1970s. As violence and drugs infiltrate the club, its original members start to question the Vandals’ identity and their place in the evolving organization.
Members of the Vandals are free spirits, priding themselves in their rebellion against the law and discardment of society’s rules and standards. But this search for freedom proves ironic as they ultimately submit to countless rules as a part of the motorcycle club – a source of the club’s division and ultimate downfall. In seeking freedom and belonging, they find themselves captive to a destructive system of their own making. And as the characters learn, there isn’t an easy way out.
The rejection of the law and their eventual entrapment within their own rules mirror a deeper human condition. We all hope for something more, for freedom from the restrictions and trappings of this life, for a belonging that fills the void inside us. But we’ll never find the freedom or belonging we’re looking for apart from Christ, and that comes with a responsibility to serve and to love.
“Christ has set us free! This means we are really free. Now hold on to your freedom and don't ever become slaves of the Law again. My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don't use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love.” - Galatians 5:1,13
The film’s haunting final frames hint at this inner longing, relying solely on a wordless gaze from Benny (Austin Butler), whose far off half-smile communicates a dozen emotions at once. Has he found the life and meaning he was looking for? His wife Kathy (Jodi Comer) certainly seems to think so. But his distant look seems to hint that he’s still searching for a freedom and belonging he’s yet to find.
8. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Serving as a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa is a sprawling tale of vengeance and hope that brings something both familiar and new to George Miller’s famous post-apocalyptic world.
The film frequently serves as a story of pain and suffering, beginning with Furiosa’s kidnapping, and taking us through chapters of her life that include losing loved ones, enduring torture, and being traded from captor to captor. But, as we are reminded by the film’s end, suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Every hardship she experiences is building something new in her, moving her beyond vengeance and creating an internal stream of purpose amidst the surrounding wastelands.
So, in the words of the film’s storyteller, “as the world falls around us, how must we brave its cruelties?” With hope. Furiosa carries a fruit tree seed throughout the film, representing that very hope – not yet realized, but sure to come. And when that seed is finally planted, it quite literally grows from the pain of her past. We all are called to carry a seed of hope for Christ's restoration of a better world and a dedication to being a part of that restoration.
This hope is what makes Furiosa such a powerful prequel. The events of this film lay the emotional groundwork – her suffering, her perseverance, her character, her hope – for the promise of what’s to come in Fury Road.
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” - Isaiah 43:19