Top 100 Spiritually-Significant Films

(part 1, ordered alphabetically by original title, with year of release and

director)

1. 13 Conversations About One Thing,

2001, Jill Sprecher

About the loosely-connected lives of a group

of New Yorkers: Troy (Matthew
McConaughey) - a smug, hot-shot lawyer,
Gene (Alan Arkin) - a fatalistic and bitter
insurance adjuster, Beatrice (Clea Duvall) - a
beatific housecleaner, Walker (John
Turturro) - a college physics professor with a
failed marriage to Patricia (Amy Irving), and
the people around them who intersect as
they ponder fate and how to achieve
happiness in the face of life's cold
unpredictability and senselessness.

2. 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968,

Stanley Kubrick

3. The Addiction, 1995, Abel Ferrara

In an unusual twist of the vampire genre, The

Addiction uses the bloodlust of the undead
as an original metaphor for original sin and
mankind's ultimate addiction to evil. Kathleen
Conklin (Lili Taylor), an NYU doctoral student
in philosophy, finds herself with a new
perspective on the nature of ultimate evil and
redemption after being bitten by a vampire
(Annabella Sciorra) in New York City as she
walks home one night.

4. Amadeus, 1984, Milos Forman

Told in flashback, Amadeus is the story of

institutionalized Antonio Salieri (F. Murray
Abraham), an envious composer who cannot
tolerate the genius of Mozart (Thomas
Hulce) and who cannot comprehend that
God would give so great a musical gift to so
vulgar and sinful a person.
5. American Beauty, 1999, Sam Mendes

American Beauty looks at the quietly-

desperate and miserable suburban and
materialistic life of Lester Burnham (Kevin
Spacey) who finds himself in a classic mid-
life crisis, although living the American
dream with real estate wife Carolyn (Annette
Bening). Lester begins to question whether
things have to be the way they are, after
meeting his daughter Jane's (Thora Birch)
cheerleader best friend (Mena Suvari).

6. Andrei Rublev, 1966, Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Rublev charts the life of the great icon

painter (Anatoli Solonitsyn) through a
turbulent period of 15th Century Russian
history. Eight acts follow Rublev through the
political and social upheavals of medieval
Russia. As famine, the Tartars, and torture
prevail, Rublev loses all sense of artistic
purpose and comes to renounce his voice,
his faith, and his art.

7. The Apostle, 1997, Robert Duvall

Robert Duvall, in a virtuoso performance in a

multi-faceted film, portrays Euliss “Sonny”
Dewey, a Southern Pentecostal preacher
whose stable domestic life crumbles after
committing a crime of homicidal jealousy
when he discovers that his wife (Farrah
Fawcett) is unfaithful. He leaves Texas,
gives up his identity, calls himself "The
Apostle E.F.", and takes up radio preaching
in the Louisiana town of Bayou Boutte. His
whole life, often succumbing to sensuality
and fits of violent anger, is ultimately
redeemed when he faces his sinful past.
Disturbing but thought-provoking depiction of
spiritual crisis.

8. Au Hasard Balthazar, 1966, Robert

Bresson

Balthazar tells the wrenching, visually-told

story of the life and death of a donkey (a
"dumb animal") named Balthazar and the
French country girl who grows up with him,
Marie (Anne Wiazemsky), the rebellious
daughter of a schoolteacher. His idyllic
childhood turns to a burdened life of hardship
as a laboring beast when he changes
owners over the years, as he stoically
observes human life around him - his life is
paralleled in the painful, cruel lives of the
villagers.
9. Babettes Gæstebud ("Babette's
Feast"), 1987, Gabriel Axel

Adapted from Isak Dinesen's short

story, Babette’s Feast is a feast in itself, for
the heart, the senses, and above all for the
spirit. Winner of the Best Foreign Film Oscar,
the film’s deceptively simple story is about a
Parisian culinary genius named Babette
(Ste'phane Audran) - with a secret - who is
taken in by two aging sisters, Martina
(Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodil Kjer),
daughters of a now-deceased Protestant
minister on the isolated Jutland coast of
Denmark.

10. Bad Lieutenant, 1987, Abel Ferrara

An NC-17 rated film about a debased,

nameless police Lieutenant (Harvey Keitel),
a lapsed Catholic, who investigates
homicides, and has various 'bad' vices
including compulsive gambling, drug use,
and cavorting with prostitutes. The film has
an almost biblical structure, set in New York
during the seven games of the World Series
between the Dodgers and the Mets. When
he investigates the brutal rape of a young
nun by a couple of neighborhood youths on
her Spanish Harlem church altar, and she
refuses to identify her attackers, the
corrupted and defiled cop examines his own
life and commits an act of self-redemption
and forgiveness.

11. Bad ma ra khahad bord ("The Wind

Will Carry Us"), 1999, Abbas Kiarostami

A busy video producer/engineer from Tehran

named Behzad (Behzad Dourani) drives with
a camera crew of three to a remote hillside
Kurdish village in Iran to capture an obscure,
ancient burial ceremony for a soon-to-die
100 year old woman named Mrs. Malek. But
the 'subject' of his film doesn't die, forcing
the impatient man and his production crew to
slow down, linger in the serene village, and
mingle with the local families and understand
more fully their simple values.

12. The Big Kahuna, 1999, John Swanbeck

This film is a compelling dialogue between

three men, Larry and Phil (Kevin Spacey,
Danny DeVito) - two industrial lubricant
salesmen and a younger, naive, and earnest
first-time sales member (Peter Facinelli),
who are sent to a trade convention to make a
company-saving sale to Mr. Fuller - the
president of a large manufacturing company.
The three sales reps wait in a hospitality
suite of a Wichita hotel for the big man
('kahuna') who will change their lives.

13. Blade Runner, 1982, Ridley Scott

An intelligent and terrifying vision of the

future, Blade Runner is based on Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the
Philip K. Dick novel about the essence of
what it is to be mortal, and the urge to
confront one’s creator with questions about
human imperfections and the inevitability of
death.

14. Breaking The Waves, 1996, Lars von

Trier

Manly oilman Jan (Stellan Skarsgard)

becomes paraplegic after an accident. His
newly-wed, pious wife Bess (Emily Watson),
who prayed for his return to the Scottish
coastal village in the early 1970s, feels guilty;
even more, when Jan pleas with her that the
only thing that will give him the will to live, is
if she takes lovers and then describes the
sex to him.

15. Changing Lanes, 2002, Roger Michell

A taut, film noirish psychological thriller about

what happens one day in New York when
hotshot young Wall Street lawyer Gavin (Ben
Affleck) and struggling insurance agent
Doyle (Samuel L. Jackson) have an
automobile fender-bender on F.D.R. Drive. In
Gavin's haste, he leaves Doyle stranded on
the highway, causing the estranged middle-
class family man to miss attending a hearing
(hence being denied custody rights to his two
young sons) -- although Gavin leaves an
important file at the accident scene that has
been pocketed by Doyle.

16. Chariots of Fire, 1981, Hugh Hudson

A glorious, spirited sports film about two

British track athletes, one - Harold Abrahams
(Ben Cross), a determined Jew, and the
other - Eric Lidell (Ian Charleson), a devout
Christian, who compete in the 1924
Olympics held in Paris - a Best Picture
winner in Oscar history.
17. Code inconnu ("Code Unknown"),
2000, Michael Haneke

This film about intolerant racism and hatred,

Austrian director Haneke's first French
language feature film, includes in its subtitle
"incomplete tales of several journeys" of
individuals with social and moral crises. The
film - composed of 10-minute vignettes,
opens when a sullen French farm youth
(Alexandre Hamidi) throws a bag of half-
eaten pastry onto the lap of a beggar woman
at a crowded Paris shopping center - this
sets off a chain reaction and street scuffle. A
well-meaning African French teacher of deaf
children, Amadou (Ona Lu Yenke) orders
him to apologize, and the pair fight. The
youth gets off scot-free, but the teacher is
arrested and the Romanian refugee woman
Maria (Luminita Gheorghiu) faces
deportation. The film then branches off and
expands into a multi-form narrative of other
tales, including another story about French
actress Anne (Juliette Binoche).

18. Crimes And Misdemeanors, 1989,

Woody Allen

Two films in one: opthalmologist Judah

Rosenthal (Martin Landau) has had an affair
with unstable Dolores (Anjelica Huston) for
several years, and now she threatens to ruin
his life and tell his wife (Claire Bloom) if he
doesn't marry her. When his brother Jack
suggests to have Dolores murdered, Judah
is faced with a big moral dilemma: allow the
destruction of his life by coming clean, or hire
a hitman and murder his mistress?....And
documentary filmmaker Clifford Stern
(Woody Allen), in romantic love with
stammering Halley Reed (Mia Farrow), a
PBS producer, is commissioned to make a
portrait of successful but despised Hollywood
TV producer and brother-in-law Lester (Alan
Alda).

19. Days of Heaven, 1978, Terrence Malick

20. Dead Man Walking, 1995, Tim Robbins

Compelling exploration of issues surrounding

the death penalty, based on the true story of
idealistic Catholic nun, Sister Helen Prejean
(Sarandon, Robbin’s wife), who spiritually
advises, compassionately comforts and
saves the soul of convicted murderer
Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn) at
Louisiana's Angola State Prison, who killed a
pair of teenaged lovers. She emphathizes
with both the victim's family and the killer's
mother. She asks him to visualize her as he
dies in the execution chamber -- "I want the
last face you see to be the face of love."

21. Dekalog ("The Decalogue"), 1987,

Krzysztof Kieslowski

Ten one-hour television dramas made for

Polish TV, each one a modernized, free-
standing part based on one of the Ten
Commandments. Their themes include
compassion, lust, fidelity, revenge, love,
betrayal, death, idolatry, ethics, incest,
adultery, and trust. Each one documents the
lives of people living in a large Warsaw
apartment complex.

22. Dersu Uzala, 1975, Akira Kurosawa

A joint Soviet-Japanese production, told in

flashback - a deeply affecting portrait of
nature, friendship, and survival - about a
Russian army surveyor, Captain Arseniev
(Yuri Solomin) who is rescued in Siberia by a
rugged, nomadic, native Asiatic, aboriginal
(Goldi) tribesman hunter (Maksim Munzuk, in
the title role) - in 1901. They renew their
friendship years later when the explorer
returns at the head of a larger expedition.
Later, the hunter accompanies the explorer
back to civilization with a crushed spirit -
where all of his nature lore is of no help to
him - providing the film's cautionary advice
about how western civilization lacks respect
for nature.

23. Dogma, 1999, Kevin Smith

A thoughtful, ambitious and unique film -

starring two fallen angels Loki and Bartleby
(Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) who are cast
out of heaven for misdeeds. After 2,000
years in exile in Wisconsin, the two
renegades have discovered a loophole in
church dogma that may allow them back into
heaven, if only they can pass under the arch
at a Catholic church in New Jersey. Bethany
Sloane (Linda Fiorentino), a bitter abortion
doctor, is chosen by God to stop them from
crossing that threshold, since their return
would prove God was fallible. She is assisted
by Metatron (Alan Rickman), the voice of
God, Rufus (Chris Rock), the ignored 13th
apostle, Serendipity (Salma Hayek), a muse-
turned-stripper, and the Jay and Silent Bob
(Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) duo.

24. Dogville, 2003, Lars von Trier

A beautiful fugitive, Grace (Nicole Kidman)

fleeing her past, arrives in the isolated,
Rocky Mountain Colorado township of
Dogville on the run from a team of
Depression-era mob gangsters. With some
encouragement from Tom Edison, Jr. (Paul
Bettany), the self-appointed town
spokesman, the little community reluctantly
agrees to hide her. Later, when a "Wanted"
poster of Grace is tacked up and searches
occur, everyone’s accepting attitude changes
and the townsfolk's demands become more
arduous, mean and dangerous.

25. La Dolce Vita, 1960, Federico Fellini

Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a

young playboy and celebrity gossip
columnist/journalist, spends his days
between celebrities and rich people, looking
for decadence in parties and sex. When an
alluring Hollywood film star named Sylvia
(Anita Ekberg) comes to Rome, he contrives
to meet her, and when he does - at the Trevi
Fountain, he is totally charmed by her.

26. The Elephant Man, 1980, David Lynch

Based closely on a true story, with

strong Pygmalion themes: John Merrick
(John Hurt), a severely deformed man with
Proteous Syndrome, is rescued from life as a
sideshow freak by Victorian Dr. Frederick
Treves (Anthony Hopkins) who comes to
care for him. He becomes the toast of
London society, only to wonder whether this
attention is just another kind of freak show --
and what his place in this world is after all.
27. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
2004, Michel Gondry

Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) has broken up with

his love, Clementine Kruczynski (Kate
Winslet), only to find that she has had all
traces of him deleted from her memory. In an
act of despair, Joel decides to undergo the
same procedure through the inventor of the
erasure process, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak
(Tom Wilkinson). The viewer travels (in
reverse) through his experience of meeting
and passionately loving her, and the
wonderful and painful memories that the
romantic experience generated. Along the
way, Joel comes to the realization that he
doesn't really want to forget Clementine after
all.

28. Fearless, 1993, Peter Weir

Adapted from the book of the same

name, Fearless explores the impact of an
airplane crash on the lives of the survivors,
Max Klein (Jeff Bridges) and Carla Rodrigo
(Rosie Perez) -- who is racked with grief and
guilt since her baby died in the crash. They
and their families must come to terms with
their fear of death, their own humanity, and
the nature of salvation.

29. Fight Club, 1999, David Fincher

When a nameless thirty-ish yuppie (Edward

Norton) grows bored of his comfortable life,
he becomes involved in an anarchic
subculture called "Fight Club", led by
charismatic Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), who
quickly becomes a cult hero of epic
proportions - a new messiah for a dead
generation. Fight Club is about what
happens when people respond against a
dehumanizing culture by reacting violently.
Ultimately, they create their own
dehumanizing aggressive culture, and
anything meaningful they might be fighting
for is only further trampled during the
experience.

30. Le Fils ("The Son"), 2002, Jean-Pierre &

Luc Dardenne

A richly-challenging film that closely follows a

middle-aged carpenter named Olivier (Olivier
Gourmet) working as an instructor with
troubled teens at a vocational training and
rehab center. He refuses to take a new,
mysterious 16 year-old teen named Francis
(Morgan Marinne) as his apprentice, but then
begins to follow the boy through the hallways
and streets to discover a shocking secret. A
nearly religious parable of humanity,
fallenness, and grace.

31. Fuori dal mondo ("Not of This World"),

1999, Giuseppe Piccioni

A comedy-drama about the stressed,

anxiety-prone, self-absorbed owner (Silvio
Orlando) of a Milan dry-cleaning firm who
joins together with a pious nun, Sister
Catarina (Margherita Buy), to care for an
abandoned baby.

32. Grand Canyon, 1991, Lawrence Kasdan

Kasdan's version of The Big Chill for the

90s, Grand Canyon revolves around six
residents from different backgrounds whose
lives intertwine in modern-day Los Angeles.

33. Groundhog Day, 1993, Harold Ramis

Phil Connors (Bill Murray), a selfish and

cynical weatherman, gets doomed to repeat
the same tedious day again and again until
he learns to become a better person. He
moves from initial disbelief to amusement,
despair, and exploitation before accepting
his predicament and realizing that if he only
has one day to live, he needs to live it to its
fullest.

34. Hell House, 2001, George Ratliff

Director George Ratliff takes us behind the

scenes in the construction of a haunted
house organized by the Trinity Church
(Assemblies of God) and Trinity Christian
School in Cedar Hill, Texas. The elaborate
exhibits are designed by well-intentioned
young churchgoers who want to “encourage”
kids to turn to Jesus by scaring them away
from the evils of drugs, sex, alcohol and
other temptations of the devil. It shows them
melodramatic, bloody, nightmarish
spectacles of sinful behaviors like suicide,
abortion, domestic violence, and more.
35. Henry V, 1989, Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh's gritty, breakthrough

adaptation of William Shakespeare's play
about the English King's bloody conquest of
France. Henry's small but embattled army
meet the French forces on the field of
Agincourt. This film presents Henry in all his
complexity, taking time to explore the moral
dimensions and serious aspects of his
kingship.

36. Der Himmel über Berlin ("Wings of

Desire"), 1987, Wim Wenders

Angels in the streets of post-war Berlin are

questioners, guardians, messengers,
soldiers. They are agents on important
missions, invisible to people but busy
working right there in the world. One angel
tires of overseeing human activity and
wishes to become human when he falls in
love with a mortal - a circus acrobat.

37. Ikiru ("To Live"), 1952, Akira Kurosawa

A rather dull, longtime bureaucrat Kanji

Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) in a city office,
upon learning of his imminent death of
stomach cancer, begins a sad search for
meaning in the few months remaining to him.
In doing so, he searches for his own
pleasure by boozing, partying, ice-skating,
not showing up for work and seeking the
company of a younger woman. In doing so,
he arrives at a decision allowing him to live
more in the last few months of his life than
he did in most of his previous years.

38. It's A Wonderful Life, 1946, Frank

Capra

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is the

quintessential Christmas classic, often
remembered as sentimental holiday-themed
"Capra-corn" work, although the film has
darker themes and a rigorous moral about
self-sacrifice.

39. Jean de Florette, Manon des sources,

1986, (two films), Claude Berri

Jean de Florette was filmed back to back

with its less downbeat sequel, Manon des
sources (Manon of the Spring), a two-part
screen adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s 1963
novel. The first is a tale about greed,
deception, murder, jealousy, and undeserved
anguish - the sequel tells of the
consequences that take place ten years
later.

40. Jésus De Montréal ("Jesus of Montreal"),

1989, Denys Arcand

A group of actors put on an unorthodox and

controversial but acclaimed Passion Play
that incites the opposition of the Catholic
Church while the actors' lives themselves,
especially the character of Daniel (Lothaire
Bluteau), begin to mirror the Passion itself.

41. Jesus Of Nazareth, 1977, Franco

Zeffirelli

Franco Zeffirelli’s epic, ambitious made-for-

television film, in some ways the standard by
which other Jesus films are often judged,
with a scripturally and historically literate
script, a reverently non-revisionist distillation
of key gospel stories, a distinguished and
generally apt ensemble cast (Robert Powell
as Jesus, Olivia Hussey as Mary, and Anne
Bancroft as Mary Magdalene), and matter-of-
fact realism in depicting the miraculous.

42. Le Journal D'un Curé De Campagne

("The Diary of a Country Priest"), 1951,
Robert Bresson

A sensitive, frail, and sick young priest

(Claude Laylu) arrives in a rural parish in the
North of France that is in spiritual decline.
Vulnerable in his inexperience, he meets
with indifference, polite toleration, even open
mockery. An older, experienced priest from a
neighboring parish, a worldly but not
unspiritual man, gives him advice that is
striking both for its practicality and its
cynicism: “Keep order all day long, knowing
full well disorder will win out tomorrow.”

43. Ladri di biciclette ("The Bicycle Thief"),

1948, Vittorio De Sica

A poignant look at the desperation of life in a

working-poor family in post-WW2 Italy. After
a desperate search, a man gets a menial but
satisfactory job that requires one thing: a
bicycle. On the first day on the job, the bike
is stolen and the man spends the rest of the
film in pursuit of the bicycle thieves. Along
the way he encounters injustice and apathy.
From beginning to end, his small but fierce
son is his companion, with whom he learns
what real desperation can be.
44. The Last Days of Disco, 1998, Whit
Stillman

A group of upper-middle class graduates and

professionals working in advertising,
publishing and the law, including two
publishing house assistants: shy Alice (Chloe
Sevigny) and overbearing, deceitful Charlotte
(Kate Beckinsale). They examine their lives
and relationships while spending time in an
early 80's disco.

45. The Last Temptation Of Christ, 1988,

Martin Scorsese

A provocative, controversial and brilliant film

- an adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' novel
about the eternal struggle between the spirit
and the flesh. At his execution, Jesus
(Willem Dafoe) is tempted by an alluring
image of a peaceful, domestic and pleasant
life with Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey),
who tries to get him to refuse the sacrifice he
must make.

46. Life of Brian, 1979, Terry Jones

Monty Python's pseudo-biblical satire, often

considered blasphemous and sacrilegious,
about Biblical epics and most of all,
hypocritical faith and religious conformity. It
tells the story of Brian (Graham Chapman), a
Jerusalem nobody whose life uncannily
parallels that of J.C.

47. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy: The

Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers,
The Return of the King, 2001-2003, Peter
Jackson

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, three films

faithfully adapted from the writings of J.R.R.
Tolkien - the first great cinematic
achievement of its kind — a genre that might
be described as epic Western myth, but is
often popularly called “fantasy” or “sword and
sorcery.”

48. Ma nuit chez Maud ("My Night At

Maud's"), 1969, Eric Rohmer

A fascinating, clever, and insightful film on

principles, faith, and love, the third film (first
full length feature) in Rohmer's remarkable
examination of morality and sexual politics in
contemporary society, Six Moral Tales. A
devout, unmarried young Catholic engineer
(Jean-Louis Trintignan) and his philosophy
professor friend (Antoine Vitez) visit one of
the latter's friends, Maud (Francoise Fabian),
a cultivated, beautiful, sophisticated and
playful divorcee. The engineer's world view
(profoundly influenced by Pascal and
mathematics) is shaken by Maud and he
ends up falling for a young student (Marie-
Christine Barrault) whom he keeps seeing in
the church during Mass.

49. Magnolia, 1999, Paul Thomas Anderson

Magnolia tells the stories of many characters

struggling to cope with their variously
fractured families in San Fernando Valley. A
TV producer (Jason Robards) lies dying of
brain and lung cancer, attended by his trophy
wife (Julianne Moore). His estranged son, a
cable-tv celebrity (Tom Cruise) who gives
seminars on seducing women, is challenged
by an insightful television journalist, and
grows restless.

50. A Man For All Seasons, 1966, Fred

Zinnemann

Thomas More (Paul Scofield) rises to the

rank of Lord Chancellor of England before
falling out with King Henry VIII (Robert
Shaw) over the King’s plan to end his
marriage to Catherine and marry Anne
Boleyn.

Top 100 Spiritually-Significant Films

(part 3, ordered alphabetically by original title, with year of release and
director)

51. The Matrix, 1999, Andy & Larry Wachowski

A thought-provoking, science-fiction view of the future,

where advanced, artificial intelligence machines have
conquered the world and are using living human
beings as batteries to keep the machines running. The
humans are in suspended animation, being
entertained by a false reality transmitted into their brain
by the "Matrix" so they will relax and keep providing
power. A few, led by technology guru and philosopher
Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and computer hacker
Neo (Keanu Reeves) - interpreted to be the "One" (or
Messiah), have escaped this illusion-world and are
leading a rebellion against the Matrix.
52. Mies vailla menneisyyttä ("The Man Without A
Past"), 2002, Aki Kaurismaki

The second part of auteur Aki Kaurismäki's "Finland"

trilogy - it opens with a man (Markku Peltola) getting
off a train in Helsinki, where he is attacked by thugs.
Written off as dead by his doctors, this unfortunate
traveler returns to consciousness, but has amnesia.
He flees the hospital and lands in the care of a kind-
hearted family who share their meager meals and the
shambles of their home with him. With their help and
the ministry of a Salvation Army nurse named Irma
(Kati Outinen), one of the ladies who works in the soup
kitchen, the enigmatic "M" finds enough strength and
confidence to strike up a cautious romance with her.

53. The Miracle Maker, 2000, Derek W. Hayes &

Stanislav Sokolov

A TV movie, originally a BBC production - a simple,

modest, literal retelling of the gospel story of the
ministry and passion of Christ (with both animated and
claymation scenes), voiced by Ralph Fiennes. It does
little more than respectfully present the bare events of
the gospel narratives, 'without adornment or invention,
without ideosyncratic “explanations” or editorial spin,
without elaborations for the sake of amusement or
excitement'.

54. The Mission, 1986, Roland Joffé

About 18th century Spanish Jesuit missionaries, as

they bring the Gospel to native people in the jungle of
South America. Two men, one a priest (Jeremy Irons)
for many years, and another a recent convert (Robert
De Niro), formerly a slave trader and mercenary
himself, make very different choices.

55. Nema-ye Nazdik ("Close-Up"), 1990, Abbas

Kiarostami

Close-Up is a true story (blending documentary and

fiction) that takes place over a forty day period in the
life of mild-mannered Hossain Sabzian, a shiftless,
misguided and unbalanced printer's assistant and art
film fanatic. Sabzian is a huge fan of popular Iranian
director Mohsen Makhmalbaf (director
of Gabbeh andThe Cyclist). He is eventually revealed
as a film-maker imposter, arrested and brought to trial.
56. The Night Of The Hunter, 1955, Charles
Laughton

A sparse, starkly-filmed and tense drama, Charles

Laughton's only directorial effort for this very unpopular
film at the time of its release. About two children
fleeing psychopathic preacher/stepfather Rev. Harry
Powell (Robert Mitchum) with "LOVE" and "HATE"
tattooed on his knuckles, featuring a remarkable
performance from Lillian Gish as a loving matron who
shelters the two children.

57. Offret—Sacrificatio ("The Sacrifice"), 1986,

Andrei Tarkovsky

Tarkovsky's final film, a depressing, thoughtful, slow-

paced allegorical drama about 24 hours in the lives of
eight friends and family members on a remote
Swedish island, who learn about an impending nuclear
blast during the birthday celebration for one of the
patriarchs - aging professor Alexander (Erland
Josephson).

58. On The Waterfront, 1954, Elia Kazan

On the surface, a tale of union corruption and mob

control, told through the story of ex-prize fighter Terry
Malloy (Marlon Brando) turned longshoreman, who
courageously struggles to stand up to his corrupt union
bosses for what he knows to be right.

59. Ordet ("The Word"), 1955, Carl Theodor Dreyer

A treatise on faith and compassion, testing and

perseverance through trials, based on a play by
Lutheran minister Kaj Munk, a pastor murdered by the
Nazis. The film is a wrenching study of the spiritual
desolation and intricate emotional relationships in the
rural household of a Danish farming family, led by
widowed patriarch Morten Borgen (Henrik Malberg).
He is the father to three sons, and has a continuing
feud over religious dogma with Peter Skaedder (Ejner
Federspiel), a fundamentalist preacher.

60. La Passion De Jeanne D'arc ("The Passion of

Joan of Arc"), 1928, Carl Dreyer

An artistic masterpiece of silent cinema about the

courageous sufferings of a French military leader and
martyred saint, Jeanne D'Arc (1412-1431), with Renee
Maria Falconetti (in her sole film) as the title character
in a transcendent performance. In this spiritual and
emotional drama filmed entirely with close-ups and
medium shots, she is confronted, cross-examined and
questioned by a jury of French ecclesiastics,
threatened with torture for heresy, and then executed
by being burned to death at the stake.

61. The Passion Of The Christ, 2004, Mel Gibson

A forcefully-presented, emotionally-powerful film that

provoked great controversy for its bloody and violent
depiction of the final hours and crucifixion of Jesus
(Jim Caviezel). Based on all four gospels and the
visions of two nuns (the 17th century Mary of Agreda
and the 18th century Anne Catherine Emmerich), it
journeys through the fourteen stations of the Cross as
it follows the last twelve hours of his life - from
Gethsemane to Golgotha.

62. Peter and Paul, 1981, Robert Day

A made-for-TV movie mini-series about two of Jesus'

beloved disciples, Peter the Fisherman (Robert
Foxworth) and Paul of Tarsus (Anthony Hopkins). The
film tells the epic story of early Christianity following
the crucifixion and resurrection, literally faithful to its
Biblical source. It depicts the precarious struggles of
the apostles (Peter and Paul in particular) to keep the
faith. This dramatic presentation follows the pair,
together and separately, through three epochal
decades.

63. Ponette, 1996, Jacques Doillon

The realistic and simple story of a 4 year-old, chubby-

cheeked French preschool girl named Ponette
(Victoire Thivisol, who won the Best Actress prize at
the Venice Film Festival), angry and devastated after
losing her mother in a car crash. Told from her point of
view, she must grapple with the tragedy and attempt to
accept the loss and death - first by withdrawing, then
by waiting for her mother to come back or asking
questions, or by using magic chants, offerings and
prayers to God. In the closing sequence (interpreted
as either a fantasy or a miracle), she is 'reunited' with
her mother.

64. The Prince Of Egypt, 1998, Brenda Chapman,

Steve Hickner, Simon Wells

A visually-spectacular animated (and musical) tale

from DreamWorks taken from the Book of Exodus
(with some help from Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten
Commandments), about "Two brothers united by
friendship divided by destiny" -- Egyptian prince Moses
(voice of Val Kilmer) - a Hebrew, and heir to the throne
of Rameses (voice of Ralph Fiennes). With 2 and 3-D
animated sequences of a chariot race, the ten plagues,
the 'burning bush', and the parting of the Red Sea.
65. La Promesse, 1996, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne

A bleak and grim 'coming-of-age' Belgian film - 15

year-old Igor (Jérémie Rénier) and his unscrupulous,
bullying father Roger (Olivier Gourmet) both are
engaged in an "immigration service" - they rent slum-
like apartments to illegal immigrants and forge working
papers for them (among other scams). But when the
building inspector pays a surprise visit, one of Roger's
immigrant workers Amidou (Rasmane Ouedraogo)
falls off a scaffold in his hurry to hide and is critically
injured. Their lives begins to unravel, particularly when
Igor makes a promise to the dying Amidou that he will
care for his wife, Assita (Assita Ouedraogo) and infant
boy.

66. Punch-Drunk Love, 2002, P.T. Anderson

In this unconventional, downbeat and anguished

romantic comedy, Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) is a
small business owner in San Fernando Valley which
produces decorative toilet plungers, with seven sisters
whose hen-pecking has lessened his interpersonal
skills and kept him an unlovable, maladjusted
bachelor. When a mysterious woman named Lena
(Emily Watson), a shy British friend of one of his
sister's, enters his life, he awkwardly begins to
establish romantic connections.

67. Roma, città aperta ("Open City"), 1945, Roberto

Rossellini

Set in Rome in 1944 and based partly on the real-life

story of priest Don Morosi, this is an excellent example
of Italian neo-realism film-making. This
ensemble, cinema verite film provides an account of
the Nazi occupation in war-torn Rome during World
War II and the brave, life-affirming local citizens of the
underground who persevered and stood in resistance
against the regime, even in the face of capture, torture,
and death. Anna Magnani stars as Pina, a pregnant
widow engaged to be married, Marcello Pagliero as
resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi, and Aldo Fabrizi
as Don Pietro, a sympathetic priest who helps the
resistors.

68. Sansho Dayu ("Sansho the Bailiff"), 1954, Kenji

Mizoguchi

A haunting masterpiece of engaging, contemplative

film-making about a noble family broken apart by exile
in 11th century medieval Japan. Two children of the
exiled governor, a brother and sister, are sold into
slavery to a corrupt tax collector Sansho (Eitaro
Shindo). Now adults, brother Zushio (Yoshiaki
Hanayagi) and sister Anju (Kyoko Kagawa) know of
their noble birth and their father's compassionate
teachings on mercy, but have to work as servants
under harsh and oppressive conditions. Zushio, in
particular, forgets the teachings of his father and has
become barbaric, but ultimately questions what he has
become.

69. Schindler's List, 1993, Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg's Best Picture-winning black and

white film about Holocaust-era Germany - based upon
the true story, with the tagline: "Whoever saves one
life, saves the world entire." Profit-minded German
businessman Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) uses his
factory to save over 1,000 Polish Jews from being
deported to Auschwitz.

70. Secrets & Lies, 1996, Mike Leigh

This melodramatic film, 1996's Palme D'Or winner at

Cannes, focuses on a lonely and isolated, middle-aged
white British woman named Cynthia Rose Purley
(Brenda Blethyn) -- unliked by even her own family.
She is contacted by her successful black daughter,
Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), now a 27-year old
black optometrist who she put up for adoption years
ago. Her wealthy brother Maurice (Timothy Spall), a
photographer who she hasn't seen in a few years,
exclaims the film's theme: ""Secrets and lies...We're all
in pain! Why can't we share our pain?"

71. Shadowlands, 1993, Richard Attenborough

A film adaptation of the play by William Nicholson

about C.S. Lewis (Anthony Hopkins), known as “Jack”
to his friends -- a celebrated and accomplished
Christian apologist, scholar and author of
the Narniabooks. In this film, Lewis unexpectedly finds
love with an American divorceé named Joy Gresham
(Debra Winger), whom he married, but then their lives
are soon shattered by her tragic death from cancer in
1959.

72. The Shawshank Redemption, 1994, Frank

Darabont

"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free."
Adapted from a Stephen King novella titled Rita
Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by
screenwriter/director Frank Darabont (his debut film),
this thought-provoking, transcendent film tells about
the life-term imprisonment of alleged murderer and
banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) in the
Shawshank State Prison in Maine. His entrepreneurial
lifer friend Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman)
expresses the film's existential theme: "Get busy livin'
or get busy dyin'."
73. Signs, 2002, M. Night Shyamalan

A science-fiction film about a paranormal experience -

the mysterious, unexplained appearance of a 500-foot
crop circle on a Bucks County, PA farm owned by ex-
Reverend Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) and his family
(Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, and Abigail Breslin).
Hess has retreated to the farm after having
experienced the "senseless" death of his beloved wife
six months earlier in an accident and the
denouncement of his faith -- and now the crop circles
further test his beliefs.

74. The Sixth Sense, 1999, M. Night Shyamalan

A very successful film, with a twist ending, by

writer/director Shyamalan that examines the intriguing
question of the existence of life after death. A
psychological thriller about child psychologist Dr.
Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) who counsels haunted 6
year-old patient Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), who
sees the spirits of 'dead people' all around him.

75. Det Sjunde Inseglet ("The Seventh Seal"), 1957,

Ingmar Bergman

One of Bergman's influential classics and a crucial art

film of the 50s -- characterized as a stark, slow, grim,
black and white film set in the Middle Ages. About a
weary, crusading Knight (Max von Sydow) who seeks
answers about life, death, and the existence of God as
he plays an allegorical chess game against the black-
robed Grim Reaper/Death (Bengt Ekerot) during the
Black Plague.

Top 100 Spiritually-Significant Films

(part 4, ordered alphabetically by original title, with year of release and
director)

76. Smultronstället ("Wild Strawberries"), 1957,

Ingmar Bergman

An allegorical film about Isak Borg (legendary silent

film actor and Scandinavian director Victor Sjostrom),
a 78 year-old widowed medical professor, who
reassesses his heartless, constrained and cold life
while on a car trip from Stockholm to his former
university in Lund to receive an honorary degree. He
travels with his estranged, pregnant daughter-in-law
Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), and revisits (both in his
imagination and literally) many of the landmarks of his
past (his summer home, the home of his mother) that
bring up long-lost memories and a reminder of his
onetime, long-departed sweetheart Sara (Bibi
Andersson).
77. Solyaris ("Solaris"), 1972, Andrei Tarkovsky

A science-fiction film that won the Grand Jury Prize at

the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. This visually-striking
film serves as a fable about love, humanity, man's
fears, fantasies and the objectification of memories
from the past. A widowed psychologist and cosmonaut
Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) embarks on a space
mission to a space station orbiting a water-dominated
planet called Solaris to investigate the mysterious
death of a doctor, Gibarian (Sos Sarkissian). When he
becomes re-acquainted with his suicidal ex-wife (dead
for seven years), Khari (Natalya Bondarchuk) during
his mission to this strange planet, he is forced to
reexamine the nature of the alternate reality of alien
intelligence.

78. Stalker, 1979, Andrei Tarkovsky

Another allegorical science-fiction film from Tarkovsky

about the human soul and spiritual longing, adapted
from the novel Picnic by the Roadside by brothers
Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky. Three men,
the Writer (Nikolai Grinko) - a burned-out and cynical
author, the Scientist (Anatoliy Solonitsyn) - a quiet
individual, and the Stalker (Alexander Kaidanovsky) -
an experienced hired guide, journey treacherously
through the Zone (a mysterious, war-ravaged, post-
apocalyptic forbidden wilderness area), toward the
metaphorical Holy Center or inner chamber called the
Room, to have their deepest wishes fulfilled.

79. Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return

of the Jedi, 1977, 1980, 1983, George Lucas, Irvin
Kershner, Richard Marquand

The famed trilogy beginning with the opening words of

the first installment, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far,
far away…”.

80. Stevie, 2002, Steve James

A self-indulgent, downbeat documentary about director

Steve James' 1995 painful return to rural Southern
Illinois to reconnect with Stevie Fielding, a deeply-
troubled, abandoned, and sexually-abused 11 year-old
boy from a dysfunctional family in Pomona, Ill. James
had been his 'Advocate Big Brother' ten years earlier
when a student at SIU. Now years later, the grown and
self-destructive Stevie has gone further downhill, is
tattooed and bearded, with a lengthy criminal record.
81. The Straight Story, 1999, David Lynch

David Lynch's old-fashioned, heartwarming chronicling

of a long journey in 1994 - by riding tractor/mower -- of
73-year-old Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) from
Laurens, Iowa, to Mt. Zion, Wis., to mend his
relationship with his ill, estranged, 75-year-old brother
Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton).

82. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 1927, F.W.

Murnau

An expressionistic silent film classic with imaginative

cinematography, and the most expensive silent film
Fox ever produced. An elemental film about a Man
(George O'Brien) and his innocent Wife (Janet Gaynor,
Best Actress Award winner), a young farm couple
representative of the simple pastoral life, and a
vampish woman (Margaret Livingston) from the sinful
city, with bobbed hair and smoking a cigarette, who
tempts and seduces the man to drown his wife and run
away with her. The film won the Academy Award for
Artistic Quality of Production—a category dropped
immediately afterwards.

83. Sånger från andra våningen ("Songs From the

Second Floor"), 2000, Roy Andersson

An absurdly surreal film that won the Special Jury

Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It traces, through
plotless vignettes, the empty, unfulfilled lives of several
characters in the new millenium gridlocked with traffic
in the broken-down modern capitalistic society, among
them Kalle (Lars Nordh) - a furniture merchant who
has just torched his store, a bitter crucifix salesman,
and an elderly magician who successfully saws his
subject in half. A film poem inspired by early-20th-
century Peruvian Communist poet César Vallejo, with
the enigmatic refrain: "Blessed be the one who sits
down".

84. The Sweet Hereafter, 1997, Atom Egoyan

A compelling, emotionally-provocative story about

death and healing. It tells about a tragic school bus
accident (that kills fourteen children) on a cold, winter
day in isolated Sam Dent, British Columbia, and how
the incident affects the small Canadian community,
with the tagline: "There is no such thing as the simple
truth." Nicole Burnell (Sarah Polley), a teenaged
musician who survived the crash but without the use of
her legs, is persuaded by ambulance-chaser lawyer
Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm) to plead her case.
85. Tender Mercies, 1983, Bruce Beresford

Set in the East Texas countryside, alcoholic, broke

former country singer Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall, Best
Actor winner), who bonds with young widow Rosa Lee
(Tess Harper) and her son Sonny (Allan Hubbard), and
is inspired to resume his washed-up career. From a
script by Horton Foote.

86. Trois coulers: Bleu, Trzy kolory: Bialy, Trois

coulers: Rouge ("Three Colors: Blue, White, Red"),
1993, 1994, 1994, Krzysztof Kieslowski

A three-film collection of stories about contemporary

French society based upon the 3-colors of the French
flag. Three distinct stories with the themes of liberty,
equality, and fraternity. Blue tells about composer Julie
Vignon (Juliette Binoche) who loses her family (her
composer-husband and 5-year-old daughter) in a car
crash. White tells of Paris-based Polish expatriate
Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) who has lost
everything. Red tells the story of Valentine (Irene
Jacob), an unlikely fashion model in Geneva,
Switzerland.

87. Tokyo Monogatari ("Tokyo Story"), 1953,

Yasujiro Ozu

A great classic film of world cinema about the

inevitability of change and its acceptance - the
poignant, simple story of an elderly couple, Shukishi
(Chishu Ryu) and his wife Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama),
who journey by train from their peaceful, country
province to their middle-class children's homes in
bustling Tokyo. Only one of their selfish, ungrateful
grown-up children are interested in them - widowed
daughter-in-law Noriko (Setsuko Hara).

88. The Truman Show, 1998, Peter Weir

A thought-provoking story about consumeristic

voyeurism, loss of privacy and media surveillance. A
good-natured insurance salesman/adjuster named
Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) discovers his entire life
(of 30 years) was actually a TV show, choreographed
and filled with actors (wife Meryl - Laura Linney), and
directed by charismatic 'televisionary' Christof (Ed
Harris). He lives in the biospheric planned community
of Seahaven built in an enormous soundstage, and
discovers that he is being filmed - and imprisoned.
89. Unforgiven, 1992, Clint Eastwood

A dark, revisionistic Western that was a Best Picture

and Best Director winner - about a retired, widowed
Old West gunslinger, now a Kansas hogfarmer named
William Munny (Clint Eastwood) who reluctantly takes
on one last bounty-hunting job, with the help of his old
partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and a braggart
named the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett). He
confronts brutal Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene
Hackman) in 1880's Big Whiskey, Wyoming.

90. Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo ("The Gospel

According to Matthew"), 1964, Pier Paolo Pasolini

A recounting of the life of Jesus Christ as told

according to the Gospel of Matthew (the film follows
Matthew’s dialogue almost verbatim), but told in neo-
realist style by devout Marxist, athiest, and
homosexual Pasolini, an Italian film-maker.
Condemned at the time of its release as an anti-
religious film, this work was shot in southern Italy in
poor slums with non-professional actors, and without
sentimentality, preaching, or glorification of the subject
matter.

91. Vanya on 42nd Street, 1994, Louis Malle

A retelling of Anton Chekhov's Russian classic Uncle

Vanya about loneliness and wasted lives. The film was
derived from a 1988 adaptation by playwright David
Mamet, often staged since 1989 by director Andre
Gregory. New York actors of the theatrical cast
rehearse Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" in a rundown
theater, appearing on the bare stage of the New
Amsterdam Theater on Times Square. It was filmed
with most of the original cast, including Wallace Shawn
as the defeated and failed academic Vanya, his father-
in-law Serybryakov (George Gaynes) and Julianne
Moore as his beautiful young wife Yelena.

92. Le Vent souffle où il veut ("A Man Escaped"),

1956, Robert Bresson

A tension-filled, suspenseful film based on a true story

about bondage and rebirth, from the memoirs of Andre
Devigny, a French Catholic Resistance activist. The
protagonist in the film is named Lieutenant "Fontaine"
(François Leterrier), who is imprisoned by the Nazis in
an internment camp, and sentenced to death by the
Gestapo during the occupation. He plans an elaborate
escape from his tiny prison camp cell, and then on the
day he is condemned to death, a new cellmate - a 15
year-old French boy - is introduced. Is he an
informant?
93. La Vita è bella ("Life is Beautiful"), 1997,
Roberto Benigni

A life-affirming WWII romantic comedy-tragedy fable

about love, family, and sacrifice, from actor/director
Benigni - and the Grand Prix winner at the 1998
Cannes Film Festival. Guido (Benigni), a bumbling
Jewish waiter (and bookseller) courts a schoolteacher
named Dora (Nicoletta Braschi, Benigni's real-life wife)
in the film's first half set in Tuscany in 1939. When
sent to a concentration death camp a few years later,
Guido shelters his young 5 year-old son Giosue
(Giorgio Cantarini) from the horrors to come, by
making it a game - the competition's top prize is a
tank.

94. Vredens dag ("Day of Wrath"), 1943, Carl

Theodor Dreyer

Dreyer's haunting political allegory and melodramatic

examination of religious persecution, forced
confessions, and killings, adapted from Hans Wiers-
Jenssens' novel "Day of Wrath". In a 17th-century
Danish village, an elderly woman is accused of
witchcraft and burned at the stake, while presided over
by an elderly parson named Absalon Pedersson
(Thirkild Roose). The pastor's young second wife Anna
(Movin), in a loveless marriage, falls in love with his
newly returned son Martin (Lerdorff Rye). Her
confession of this illicit affair to her husband brings on
his death, and leads to her condemnation as a witch
by the intolerant society.

95. Waking Life, 2001, Richard Linklater

An off-beat, fresh, rambling, dream-like creatively-

imaginative animated film (originally a live-action film
that was later painted with a computer process) that
follows the disconnected thoughts and inner
discussions of the nameless main character (Wiley
Wiggins). Accused of being pseudo-intellectual, this
free-floating unique film presents a collage of images
as it philosophically contemplates the illusionary nature
of reality.

96. Werckmeister Harmonies, 2000, Béla Tarr

A challenging, powerfully-stark black and white film

adapted from Laszlo Krasznahorkai's novel "The
Melancholy of Resistance," about loneliness, despair
and spiritual longing. When a circus (actually a large
van with an exhibit of an enormous stuffed whale
inside with an unseen silhouetted Prince figure) arrives
in a bleak, unnamed Eastern European town
(presumably in the Hungarian plains), blank-faced
lonely postal worker Janos Valushka (Lars Rudolph),
the town's resident holy fool, imagines God's power
reflected in the whale. The presence of the circus in
town incites the populace to a strange, somnambulist
uprising of violence and looting.

97. Witness, 1985, Peter Weir

The first Hollywood film of the Australian director Weir.

Both a love story and a thriller, about a hardened
Philadelphia police officer named John Book (Harrison
Ford) who must hide out in a self-sufficient Amish
community in Pennsylvania in order to protect a young
Amish boy named Samuel (Luke Haas) who witnessed
a murder in the Philadelphia train station. The ways of
the fiercely independent people who distrust outsiders
provides a counterpoint to the love that develops
between the pretty Amish widow Rachel (Kelly
McGillis) and the modern-day cop.

98. The Year Of Living Dangerously, 1982, Peter

Weir

A story of political upheaval, divergent cultures, loyalty,

betrayal, ambition, and morality, embedded in a love
story. The first overseas assignment of shallow yet
ambitious Australian journalist Guy Hamilton (Mel
Gibson) is in Indonesia in 1965. Hamilton is 'adopted'
by dwarfish Eurasian photographer Billy Kwan (Oscar-
winning, cross-gendered Linda Hunt) and introduced to
British consular official Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver)
with whom he promptly falls in love. She gives him
secret information regarding an arms shipment to the
Communists so that they can escape the predicted war
together, but Hamilton unwisely uses the information
for an exclusive story and puts their lives in jeopardy.

99. Yi yi ("Yi Yi: A One and a Two"), 2000, Edward

Yang

An intimate, multi-layered three-hour middle-class

family drama set in contemporary Taipei, with themes
of love, sorrow, pain, choice, the desire for
connectedness, and regret. Each member of the Jian
family asks hard questions about life's meaning and
reexamines their lives. The head of the family is
taciturn, self-reflective "NJ" or Ni Jian (Wu Nienjen), a
middle-aged executive for a struggling computer firm.
At his brother-in-law's wedding (the same time as his
mother-in-law's stroke), he reunites with his high
school sweetheart Sherry (Ke Suyun), jilted 30 years
earlier, and starts to re-evaluate every aspect of his
life.
100. Zerkalo ("The Mirror"), 1975, Andrei Tarkovsky

An intensely-personal, profound, visual, and

transcendent meditation on life and lost innocence -
the spiritual autobiography of director Tarkovsky's
privileged life in a Russian literary family and his
career as a state-employed artist. The introspective,
haunted work, told without traditional logical order, is
directly based on his father Arseny’s poetry, read in
voiceover by a faceless narrator (Innokenty
Smoktunovsky) as he delivers his words mostly off-
screen. Much of the focus is on Tarkovsky's neglected
mother, played initially by Margarita Terekhova and,
later on, by his real mother.