Of Gods and MenMovies like Of Gods and Men
- Key Features:
- Religious faith, Moral dilemma, Community, Faith, Martyrdom, Monastery, Morocco, Christianity, Guerrilla warfare, Violence-moderate, Based on a true story, French cinema
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Spiritual seekers, Fans of historical dramas, Thoughtful viewers, Arthouse cinema enthusiasts
- Emotional Arc:
- Serenity → Tension → Resolution
Of Gods and Men

A group of Trappist monks reside in the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria, where they live in harmony with the largely muslim population. When a bloody conflict between Algeria's army and Muslim Jihadi insurgents disrupts the peace, they are forced to consider fleeing the monastery and deserting the villagers they have ministered to. In the face of deadly violence the monks wrestle with their faith and their convictions, eventually deciding to stay and help their neighbours keep the army and the insurgents at bay.
Of Gods and Men
The film follows two brothers over the course of a decade. While they begin as kids in search of thrills in the sprawling slums of Morocco’s Sidi Moumen, we witness their gradual, and ultimately shocking, radicalisation.

A French teacher in a small Algerian village during the Algerian War forms an unexpected bond with a dissident who is ordered to be turned in to the authorities.

Satan tempts Father Dossignan, who is trying to save the soul of a young girl who killed one of her lovers.

A photojournalist's obsessive quest for the truth about the first expedition to Mt. Everest leads him to search for an esteemed climber who went missing.

An American priest working in Mexico is considered a saint by many local parishioners. However, due to a botched exorcism, he carries a secret that’s eating him alive until he gets an opportunity to face his demon one final time.

For Anna Maria, paradise lies with Jesus, and she devotes her time to door-to-door missionary work. One day after years of absence, her husband, an Egyptian Muslim confined to a wheelchair, comes home—and soon prayers are replaced by fighting.

Just outside of the Malian city of Timbuktu, now occupied by militant Islamic rebels who impose the Sharia on civilians and inconvenience their daily life, a cattleman kills a fisherman.

Sentenced to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena is alone in the world and can neither read nor write. On his arrival at the prison, he seems younger and more brittle than the others detained there. At once he falls under the sway of a group of Corsicans who enforce their rule in the prison. As the 'missions' go by, he toughens himself and wins the confidence of the Corsican group.

A young priest coaches a team of uncoordinated monks in order to win a soccer tournament and save their monastery from being turned into a hotel.

A young couple is compelled to leave their Christian missionary station in the Kalahari Desert after being threatened with death by an extremist militant gang. After crashing their aircraft they must battle man and beast for their lives.

Five American soldiers fighting in Europe during World War II struggle to return to Allied territory after being separated from U.S. forces during the historic Malmedy Massacre.

Two westerners, a priest and a teacher find themselves in the middle of the Rwandan genocide and face a moral dilemna. Do they place themselves in danger and protect the refugees, or escape the country with their lives? Based on a true story.

Poland, 1945. Mathilde, a young French Red Cross doctor, is on a mission to help the war survivors. When a nun seeks for her help, she is brought to a convent where several pregnant sisters are hiding, unable to reconcile their faith with their pregnancy. Mathilde becomes their only hope.

In the Jewish tradition of arguing with God, Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz decide to put God on Trial.

Kamal resolves to change his life for the better, and so leaves Belgium to help victims of the war in Syria. But when he arrives, he is forced to join a militia and is left stranded in Raqqa. Back home, his younger brother Nassim quickly becomes easy prey for radical recruiters, who promise to reunite him with his brother. Their mother, Leila, fights to protect the only thing she has left: her youngest son.

Western Pyrenees, year 778. When his land is threatened by the ruthless armies of the Frankish emperor, a Basque warlord asks for help from his ancestral gods.

A troubled young woman is thrown out of a convent and forms a relationship with a radical Muslim.

Navy SEAL Lieutenant A.K. Waters and his elite squadron of tactical specialists are forced to choose between their duty and their humanity, between following orders by ignoring the conflict that surrounds them, or finding the courage to follow their conscience and protect a group of innocent refugees. When the democratic government of Nigeria collapses and the country is taken over by a ruthless military dictator, Waters, a fiercely loyal and hardened veteran is dispatched on a routine mission to retrieve a Doctors Without Borders physician.

On August 15, 1944 the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team (PRCT) jumped over the south of France. Their mission was to support and protect the Allied Troops marching to Berlin. Landing in enemy territory, they fell under immediate attack. In their effort to complete the mission and rendez-vous with their unit, three isolated paratroopers come across a group of French resistants in desperate need. They decide to help liberate some of the captive Partisans. Doing so they will risk their lives.

After being implicated in a terrorist attack, Santi, a taxi driver, is taken hostage by one of the perpetrators.

Under the German occupation, in a small French town, the arrival of a new priest arouses the interest of all women... Barny, a young communist and atheist woman, can not however be more indifferent. Driven by curiosity, the young skeptic went to the church in order to challenge this.

Thomas is a drug addict. In an effort to put an end to his habit, he joins a community of former addicts who live isolated in the mountains and use prayer as a way to cure themselves.

The fate of three Catholic priests were linked together through tragic events a few years back. Every year, on the anniversary of the catastrophe, they gather to celebrate their survival of the tragedy. Lisowski works at a curia in a big city, building his career while dreaming of the Vatican. Standing in his way, Mordowicz, the archbishop, a luxurious church dignitary who is making use of his political connections to build the largest sanctuary in Poland. Trybus, is a parish priest and often submits to human weaknesses. Kukuła also is not doing well. Despite his passion for faith, he is losing the trust of his flock. Soon, through new tragic events, the paths of the three priests will cross again.

After his wife dies, a blacksmith named Balian is thrust into royalty, political intrigue and bloody holy wars during the Crusades.

Pierre, a Parisian engineer, goes up in the Alps for his work. Irresistibly attracted by what surrounds him, he camps out alone high in the mountains and leaves behind his everyday life. Up there he meets Léa, a chef of an alpine restaurant, while mysterious glows glitter in the deep mountains…

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea, where her child's birth may help scientists save the future of humankind.

A group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, to find the right path to progress. Their task is a difficult one: they cannot interfere violently and in no case can they kill. The scientist Rumata tries to save the local intellectuals from their punishment and cannot avoid taking a position.

Aissa, a young officer of Algerian origin, tragically loses his life during a fresher initiation ritual at the prestigious French military academy of Saint-Cyr. As the death tears through his family, controversy arises over Aissa’s funeral plans when the Army refuses to take responsibility. Ismael, his older, rebellious brother, tries to keep the family united as they fight to win justice for Aissa.

A virtuous monk descends to the depths of sin and depravity after Satan sends an unholy temptress to lead him astray.

Two estranged brothers, Toph and Cooper, must journey to a remote family cabin in the mountains to evict a squatter. Buried resentment and bruised egos soon derail the plan and when the smoke clears they've destroyed their car and burned down the cabin, leaving them stranded in the cold Rocky Mountain winter. With their very survival at stake, they must learn to work together as brothers to get back to civilization.

Two men, fortyish, worn out by their wives, abandon everything to go and live in the back of beyond. There they meet a truculent priest, a boozer, Émile who recalls them to life's simple pleasures. Calm is what they want. But soon their example inspires thousands of disorientated males...

Madrid, summer 2011. Economic crisis. 15-M movement and 1.5 million pilgrims waiting for the Pope’s arrival live side by side in a Madrid that’s hotter and more chaotic than ever. In this context, detectives Velarde and Alfaro must find what seems to be a serial killer. Their against-the-clock hunt will make them realise something they’d never imagined: neither of them are so very different from the killer.

Barny, although a Marxist, is intrigued by the mysteries of religion. In confession, she teases a priest, Léon Morin, but he is a young and intelligent man and ready to discuss anything.

Two young brothers are abandoned by their mother during summer of 1948, they run into the forest and survive there for seven years.

A thriller in which a battle of philosophies between a fundamentalist Christian and an atheist escalates into a lethal battle of wills.

Three war-torn strangers posing as a family flee Sri Lanka’s civil war to start over in a troubled Paris suburb, but their past traumas resurface as they struggle to survive in their new environment.

An American travels to Bhutan searching for a valuable antique rifle and crosses paths with a young monk who wanders through the serene mountains, instructed by his teacher to make things right again.

Alexandre, a man in his 40s living in Lyon with his wife and children, discovers that the priest who abused him decades ago continues to work with children. He joins forces with others victims of the priest, to bring justice and “lift the burden of silence” about what they endured.

Abel, Marianne and their 13-year-old son Joseph live together in Paris. Their everyday existence is thrown into turmoil when Abel and Marianne discover that Joseph has secretly sold valuables from the family home to finance a mysterious ecological project he and his friends have in Africa. They’re about to save the planet.

The deeply held religious convictions of an idealistic young priest are challenged when he must face extraordinary events within his own congregation.

The son of an atheist, authoritarian father, believed to be liberal, wants to become a priest.

Lara is a woman tormented, torn between science and faith. Pushed by her husband to seek treatment from a congregation of zealots, a ruthless exorcist will try to save her soul by putting an innocent woman through hell.

A Chinese emissary is sent to the Gobi desert to execute a renegade soldier. When a caravan transporting a Buddhist monk and a valuable treasure is threatened by thieves, however, the two warriors might unite to protect the travelers.

The world has been ravaged by nuclear war. The planet is frozen and radiation kills anyone or anything that ventures outside of 'The Dome'. Soft is a shepherd for the last remnants of humanity who have gathered together as they await rescue from a mysterious craft known only as 'The Ark.' He wanders among the masses, performing his regular daily tasks; keeping morale from plummeting, wooing prostitutes, squashing rebellions, and sometimes feeding the hungry. But as the true and sinister nature of 'The Dome' comes to light, Soft must ask himself if humanity is worth saving...

In 1919, in a small town under the crushing heat of summer, a war hero is held prisoner in an abandoned barracks. Outside, his mangy dog barks night and day. Not far off in the countryside, an extraordinarily intelligent young woman works the land, waiting and hoping. A judge whose principles have been sorely shaken by the war is coming to sort out this case of which it is better not to speak.

A country romance about the human streak in the horse and the horse in the human. Love and death become interlaced and with terrible consequences. The fortunes of the people in the country through the horses' perception.

40-year-old Bertrand has been suffering from depression for the last two years and is barely able to keep his head above water. Despite the medication he gulps down all day, every day, and his wife's encouragement, he is unable to find any meaning in his life. Curiously, he will end up finding this sense of purpose at the swimming pool, by joining an all-male synchronised swimming team.

In this ensemble drama set in rural France, the women of the Paridier farm are left to run it by themselves while their men are off fighting in World War I. But things become complicated with the arrival of American troops.

Samuel, a widower, is taking care of his 7-year-old daughter alone. Overwhelmed and stressed out, he decides to isolate in a chalet he was renovating with his wife in the Italian Alps. Indifferent to the anger of locals who help police to hunt down migrants, he comes across a woman who fled Afghanistan. Samuel decides to help her reach the border, thinking it will take them a few hours. But an agressive group of men comes after them…

Someone is killing Parisians of Arab ethnicity. When an Algerian diplomat is murdered by the same assailant, two Algerian detectives are sent to help the French with the investigation and they have their own ways of doing things.

A former bank robber is released after 10 years in prison. He gets help from a social-worker, but gets harassed by an old cop from his past.

In a desolate war zone where screams of the innocent echo, on the very line between disaster and valor, 7 Maroon Berets will dance with death.

Joseph and his two sons, Joachim and Ivan, form a close-knit family but fail to see that each one is losing control of his life. Joachim is supposed to be studying psychiatry but spends most of his time daydreaming about his ex-girlfriend, Ivan cannot fit in at school despite being very smart, and Joseph has secretly quit his job as a doctor and is trying to become a writer. While there is plenty of affection at home, all three are also, clumsily, searching for love...

After he refuses to disavow his faith, a devout Christian student must prove the existence of God or else his college philosophy professor will fail him.

After an evening of drinking, six men find themselves in front of The God of the Joke. Distressed to find that people aren't laughing anymore, He gives the six friends a mission: to save the world with the Eleven Commandments of the Joke. The men enthusiastically take on their task. They undertake various tests aimed at pushing the limits of stupidity.

During the 16th century, pirates rule the Chinese coastline, pillaging the small villages and terrorizing the citizens. When maverick leader Commander Yu enlists the help of a sharp young general, they devise a plan to defeat the pirates. A violent clash of wit and weapons will decide who will rule the land.

An innocent man sentenced to ten years in prison for a crime he did not commit, is released from jail, promising to seek revenge on the guilty.

In a port city, the lives of a few isolated people, used to violence, are strongly influenced by the love they feel for each other. Choices, envy, love and tenderness are the driving forces that help these characters to be themselves and give meaning to their lives. A tribute to poetry, theatre and art.

While holidaying in the French Alps, a Swedish family deals with acts of cowardliness as an avalanche breaks out.

Because he wanted to protect his little brother, Teddy, a young man without a history, is accused of the murder of his father and sent to a closed educational center, waiting for his trial for parricide. He then plunges into a brutal universe of which he does not know the rules.

In sixth-century Mecca, Prophet Muhammad receives his first revelation from God as a messenger. Three years later, he's not alone in his quest and publicly declares his prophecy. Muhammad is fought by Abu Sufian and his wife Hind, rulers of Mecca. Muhammad's followers are hunted and tortured but he continues his calling.

A local activist and a budding young mayor clash over the best path forward for their impoverished suburb.

Seven men, all city-dwellers aged between 17 and 70, with nothing in common apart from the fact that they are all on the verge of a nervous breakdown, meet up at a lonely sta- tion for an unusual course in the wild that is supposed to get them back on their feet. Each step in this boot camp, designed by an eccentric and feisty female coach, aims to reveal them to themselves. The task seems to be a tough one, especially as nothing goes as planned between these men.

After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who have lost everything in the earthquake still have hope and try to live life to the fullest.

The contemporary story of a priest who launches a centre for troubled youth in a small parish. He is a good priest and is well-liked by his congregation, which remains unaware of his complicated past.

After losing their family home in Algeria in the 1920s, three brothers and their mother are scattered across the globe. Messaoud joins the French army fighting in Indochina; Abdelkader becomes a leader of the Algerian independence movement in France and Saïd moves to Paris to make his fortune in the shady clubs and boxing halls of Pigalle.

In a small, poor village leaning over high rocky mountains, the villagers are simple and diligent people who struggle to cope with a harsh nature. They earn their living off the earth and a few animals they feed. Fathers always prefer one of their sons. Mothers command their daughters ruthlessly. Ömer, the son of the imam, wishes hopelessly for the death of his father. When he understands that wishful thinking does not have any concrete results, he begins to search for childish ways to kill his father. Yakup is in love with his teacher, and one day after seeing his father spying on the teacher he dreams too, like Ömer, of killing his father. Yıldız studies and tries to manage the household chores imposed by her mother. She learns with irritation about the secrets of the relationship between men and women.

In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.

In a desperate attempt to reach Europe and crouched before an airstrip in Cameroon, a six-year-old boy and his older sister wait to sneak into the holds of an airplane. Not too far away, an environmental activist contemplates the terrible image of an elephant, dead and fangless. Not only do you have to fight against poaching, but you will also have to meet the problems of your newly arrived daughter from Spain. Thousands of kilometers to the north, in Melilla, a group of civil guards prepare to face the furious crowd of sub-Saharan people who have begun the assault on the fence. Three stories linked by a central theme, in which none of its protagonists know that their destinies are doomed to cross and that their lives will no longer be the same.

French border cop José Fernandez has just one last extradition to do before his long-awaited promotion to the crime bureau. But his detainee Akim, victim of a judiciary glitch, is outraged to find himself saddled with the identity of a potential terrorist and put on a flight back to Kabul, where he has never even set foot before! What starts as a routine trip for Fernandez and his skirt-chasing partner Guy goes haywire when their plane is grounded in Malta, forcing them to bunk up with Akim, who will stop at nothing to avoid extradition!

Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos.

Under the pressure of his boss, a music producer decides to set up a group consisting of a rabbi, a priest and an imam to make them sing the living together. But the religious he recruits are far from being saints ...

The film centers mostly around the personal and professional life of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, a brilliant if eccentric Confederate general, from the outbreak of the American Civil War until its halfway point.

Dorota Geller, a married woman, faces a dilemma involving her sick husband's prognosis. Her husband's doctor, who believes in God, sweared about it in vain.

A French tradesman travels in time and liberates an oppressed tribe in another world.

The life of Henri Grouès, known as Abbé Pierre, from his time in the Resistance in WWII to his fights against poverty and for the homeless.

A man meets up with two "good guys" to recover what is unlawfully his, taking them on his whirlwind ride, doing things they never would have imagined, just to survive.

By God's order, Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac on the mountain of Moriah. While traveling to the place of the sacrifice, alongside Isaac and two servants, Abraham is flooded with vivid memories from the years he and Sarah spent longing for the son they were promised—the son he must now lay upon the altar.

Two priests, one in crisis with his faith and the other confronting a turbulent past, must overcome their differences to perform a risky exorcism.

A priest, after spending years in humanitary missions in Africa, reunites with his family, which is in worse conditions than when he left, and above all meets a young lady who will make him doubt both himself and his faith.

Nour, a 14-year-old boy, is enjoying the summer holidays in the South of France. He is the youngest of four brothers. They live together in a council estate, caring for their mother who is in a coma. Nour dreams of escaping to a faraway place. When he crosses paths with Sarah, an Opera singer teaching summer classes, he finds the opportunity to come out of his shell and explore new horizons.

Thirty-four year old Ramsès has established himself as a clairvoyant in La Goutte d’Or, Paris. A shrewd manipulator and something of a poet, he built a sound business consoling people. Elusive and dangerous youths, freshly arrived from the streets of Tangier, disrupt his business and the whole neighbourhood. Until the day Ramses has an actual vision.

A captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from prison.

In the dark middle ages, young unruly Goldmund is sent to a monastery by his father to atone for the sins of his mother, who abandoned them. There, he meets Narcissus, a brilliant, scholarly novice who is introverted and aloof. A unique and deep life-long friendship is born. Narcissus chooses to remain detached from the world in prayer and meditation. Goldmund, passionate, sensual and impulsive, runs away from the monastery to live a picaresque wanderer’s life, his amorous and artistic adventures leading him to discover the extremes of both ecstasy and pain. Several thrilling years pass until one day these friends cross paths again...

Twenty-something Freddy is becalmed in a podunk French village where the only sign of life is the local amateur brass band and youth aimlessly roaming around the countryside on scooters. He has an intense sexual connection with his girlfriend but has no joy or passion to give her. When she falls for a handsome Arab youth a tragedy unfolds.

Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.

A love story situated in the Himalayas. A Buddhist monk can't choose between life and the way of the Buddha.

When Carlos invites his father and his brother to spend a pleasant New Year in a strange house isolated in the forest with him and his wife Ana. But what promised to be a quiet family dinner, suddenly is interrupted by the presence of a peculiar vagabond, dwarf and very bad man, who claims to be God.

French Basque Country, year 1609. The men of a small fishing village have gone to sea. Judge Rostegui, who has been charged by the king with ridding the country of the devil's wiles, arrests Ana and her friends and accuses them of witchcraft.

In 13th century Ireland a group of monks must escort a sacred relic across a landscape fraught with peril.

April 1988, Ouvéa Island, New Caledonia. 30 gendarmes are taken hostage by a group of Kanak freedom fighters. 300 soldiers are sent from France to re-establish order. 2 men confront each other: Philippe Legorjus, chief of the terrorist squad, and Alphonse Dianou, head of the kidnappers. Through their shared values, they will attempt to make discussion triumph. But, in the middle of a presidential election, when the stakes are political, order isn't always dictated by morality. A violent and troubling epic that marks the return of Mathieu Kassovitz in front and behind the camera.

Fatima, an Algerian-born woman who now lives in France with her two teenage daughters, with whom she is barely able to communicate.

A police brigade works in the dangerous northern neighborhoods of Marseille, where the level of crime is higher than anywhere else in France.

In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.

The defiant leader Moses rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, setting 400,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues.

In a secluded house in a small seaside town live four unrelated men and the woman who tends to the house and their needs. All former priests, they have been sent to this quiet exile to purge the sins of their pasts, the separation from their communities the worst form of punishment by the Church. They keep to a strict daily schedule devoid of all temptation and spontaneity, each moment a deliberate effort to atone for their wrongdoings.

Georges Lajoie is a Parisian café owner. As every summer, Georges, his wife Ginette and grown-up son Léon go on holiday to Loulou's campsite, where they meet up with the Schumacher family (whose father is a bailiff) and the Colin family (who sells bras in the markets). This year, their peace is slightly disturbed by the proximity of a construction site where foreign workers are employed. Xenophobic comments are made. One evening at the ball, a fight breaks out between Lajoie, Albert Schumacher and two algerian immigrant workers...


