SilenceMovies like Silence
- Key Features:
- Religious persecution, Faith, Historical drama, Nuns, 17th century, Japan, Spiritual crisis, Moral dilemma, Betrayal, Suffering, Martyrdom, Cultural conflict
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, History buffs, Religious audiences, Thoughtful viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- Zeal → Doubt → Acceptance
Silence

In the 17th century, two Portuguese Jesuit priests travel to Japan in an attempt to locate their mentor, who is rumored to have committed apostasy, and to propagate Catholicism.
Silence
When a Spanish Jesuit goes into the South American wilderness to build a mission in the hope of converting the Indians of the region, a slave hunter is converted and joins his mission. When Spain sells the colony to Portugal, they are forced to defend all they have built against the Portuguese aggressors.

A man who accused a catholic bishop of abusing him when he was a child dies in the Austrian city Salzburg. Everyone except his widow and the eccentrical detective Simon Brenner keeps silent and believes that the man killed himself.

Missionary Father LaForgue travels to the New World in hopes of converting Algonquin Indians to Catholicism. Accepted, though warily, by the Indians, LaForgue travels with the Indians using his strict Catholic rules and ideals to try and impose his religion.

Seminary student Michael Kovak reluctantly attends exorcism school at the Vatican. While he’s in Rome, Michael meets an unorthodox priest who introduces him to the darker side of his faith, uncovering the devil’s reach even to one of the holiest places on Earth.

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

13-year-old Sinikka vanishes on a hot summer night. Her bicycle is found in the exact place where a girl was killed 23 years ago. The dramatic present forces those involved in the original case to face their past.

Arising out of the horror of the Spanish Civil War, a candidate for canonization is investigated by a journalist who discovers his own estranged father had a deep, dark and devastating connection to the saint's life.While researching the life of Josemaria Escriva, the controversial founder of Opus Dei, the young journalist Robert uncovers hidden stories of his estranged father Manolo, and is taken on a journey through the dark, terrible secrets of his family’s past.

When a priest hears a murderer’s confession, he becomes bound by his vow of silence—even as circumstantial evidence turns suspicion toward him. Torn between faith and self-preservation, he faces public scandal and trial for a crime he cannot reveal the truth about.

Academy Award®–winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.

With the world under attack by deadly creatures who hunt by sound, a teen and her family seek refuge outside the city and encounter a mysterious cult.

Shouya Ishida starts bullying the new girl in class, Shouko Nishimiya, because she is deaf. But as the teasing continues, the rest of the class starts to turn on Shouya for his lack of compassion. When they leave elementary school, Shouko and Shouya do not speak to each other again... until an older, wiser Shouya, tormented by his past behaviour, decides he must see Shouko once more. He wants to atone for his sins, but is it already too late...?

After being discredited as a coward, a 19th century seaman lives for only one purpose: to redeem himself. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2000.

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.

A mute man with a violent past is forced to take on the teeming underworld of a near-future Berlin as he searches for his missing girlfriend.

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

Northern Spain, October 1944. Several groups of guerrilla fighters, former Republican soldiers exiled in France after the end of the Spanish Civil War, infiltrate the country in order to provoke a popular uprising against General Franco's dictatorship.

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.

After her widowed father dies, deaf teenager Dot moves in with her godparents, Olivia and Paul Deer. The Deers' daughter, Nina, is openly hostile to Dot, but that does not prevent her from telling her secrets to her silent stepsister, including the fact that she wants to kill her lecherous father.

Based on actual events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where young deaf students were the victims of repeated sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five years in the early 2000s.

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.

The young priest Father Giulio returns to Rome, his hometown, after a long pilgrimage. Don Giulio hopes to live peacefully with his family and his friends, but discovers that many of them are depressed or frustrated, and some suicidal.

During the early 16th century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.

In an alternate world, humanity and vampires have warred for centuries. After the last Vampire War, the veteran Warrior Priest lives in obscurity with other humans inside one of the Church's walled cities. When the Priest's niece is kidnapped by vampires, the Priest breaks his vows to hunt them down. He is accompanied by the niece's boyfriend, who is a wasteland sheriff, and a former Warrior Priestess.

Clavius, a powerful Roman military tribune, and his aide, Lucius, are tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Jesus in the weeks following the crucifixion, in order to disprove the rumors of a risen Messiah and prevent an uprising in Jerusalem.

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.

In 1964 Bronx, two Catholic school nuns question the new priest's ambiguous relationship with a troubled African-American student.

The fictional Father Ángel de la Cruz is based on Legion of Christ founder Marcial Maciel, whose long history of child abuse was not addressed until 2006 and only publicly acknowledged in 2009. But director Luis Urquiza chooses to structure his film through the largely uncomprehending, wondering eyes of 13-year-old Julián, who travels from the arms of his loving pastoral family into the austere, hallowed halls of the seminary. Singling out the boy as his intimate disciple, installing him in his palatial private quarters and redubbing him “Sacramento Santos,” Father Ángel begins Julian’s instruction into the mysteries of “perfect obedience,” whose cardinal rule is: Never question a superior’s actions.

A reformed hunter becomes involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse when he and the local sheriff set out to track a vicious killer who may have kidnapped his daughter years ago.

Frustrated with the direction of the church, Cardinal Bergoglio requests permission to retire in 2012 from Pope Benedict. Instead, facing scandal and self-doubt, the introspective Pope Benedict summons his harshest critic and future successor to Rome to reveal a secret that would shake the foundations of the Catholic Church.

Three American tourists follow a mysterious map deep into the jungles of Japan searching for an ancient temple. When spirits entrap them, their adventure quickly becomes a horrific nightmare.

Kurt Gerstein—a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS—is appalled to discover that a poison gas he helped discover is being used to kill Jews. Driven by his conscience to alert the rest of the world, Gerstein teams up with a young Jesuit priest, Riccardo Fontana, but their protestations fall on deaf ears in the Vatican.

Painter Francisco Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition after his muse, Inés, is arrested by the church for heresy. Her family turns to him, hoping that his connection with fanatical Inquisitor Lorenzo, whom he is painting, can secure her release.

In medieval Japan, a woman and her children journey to find the family's patriarch, who was exiled years earlier.

A mute gunslinger fights in the defense of a group of outlaws and a vengeful young widow, against a group of ruthless bounty hunters.

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.

A group of students arrives in a small town during a hiking expedition. Once there, the local priest accuses them of being communist agitators on the run from an army crack-down against student demonstrations in nearby Mexico City and rallies the townsfolk to lynch them. Based on a true story.

A faithful Jehovah's Witness is forced to shun her own sister because of a religious transgression. As the separation draws out, she starts to question the meaning of God's love.

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.

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

Jesus, a humble Judean carpenter beginning to see that he is the son of God, is drawn into revolutionary action against the Roman occupiers by Judas -- despite his protestations that love, not violence, is the path to salvation. The burden of being the savior of mankind torments Jesus throughout his life, leading him to doubt.

Against the backdrop of a military dictatorship, Eugenia is reunited with her estranged family following her father’s stroke and is forced to confront dark secret.

After hiding a murderer, a Catholic priest is forced into self-exile and decides to embark on a pilgrimage through the Mexican countryside.

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.

Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain, 2019. Two corpses appear in the crypt of the Old Cathedral. Police officer Unai López de Ayala, an expert in criminal profiling, must hunt down the ritual murderer who has been terrorizing the city for two decades.

Northern China, 2004. When miner Zhang Baomin returns to his home, a small and isolated mining village, his wife tells him that their son has mysteriously disappeared while shepherding his small flock.

A successful, cold-blooded crime novelist gets involved in a kidnapping case while uncovering the corrupt ties between politicians and the local mafia in Valencia, Spain.

A 12-year-old Jewish boy hides with a family of Catholic peasant farmers to escape the Nazis.

After being a victim of rape within their own home, Diana chooses to keep the trauma secret. Mario, her husband, also has something to hide. The silence takes the couple's account over the day turns gradually into a peculiar form of violence.

The Catholic Church secretly investigates Caravaggio as the Pope weighs whether to grant him clemency for killing a rival.

Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

In a world where no one speaks, a devout female hunts down a young woman who has escaped her imprisonment. Recaptured by its ruthless leaders, Azrael is due to be sacrificed to pacify an ancient evil deep within the surrounding wilderness.

Two couples meet for a painful and raw conversation in the aftermath of a violent tragedy.

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.

Blind swordsman/masseuse Zatoichi befriends a young woman returning home with her baby. When gangsters mistake her for Zatoichi and kill her, Zatoichi determines to escort the baby to its father. He gains the reluctant help of a young pick pocket and together they travel to find the baby's father. But they do not reckon on the father's reaction to their arrival, nor on their own growing feelings for the child.

Johan and his family are Mennonites from the north of Mexico. Against the law of God and Man, Johan falls in love with another woman.

Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering around a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped away from her husband by the lord. The husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to get her back.

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.

Sent to Mexico to help take care of aging Father Benito, young Father Amaro faces a moral challenge when he meets a 16-year-old girl who he starts an affair with. Likewise, the girl's mother had been having an affair with Father Benito. Father Amaro must choose between a holy or sinful life.

A 17th-century nun becomes entangled in a forbidden lesbian affair with a novice. But it is Benedetta's shocking religious visions that threaten to shake the Church to its core.

The story of a man who murdered thirty-two people, gained power, and then got afraid because too many people wanted to kill him. One August morning, he disappeared. For fifteen years, everyone believed him dead.

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.

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

Isaac's son Jacob deprives his brother Esau of his birthright and has to flee for his life. He finds shelter with his uncle Laban, but is himself deceived. Finally, Jacob has to face both his uncle and brother.

Set in 19th Century Japan a young samurai who finds himself in love with a farm girl leaves his home to begin a new life. He has to take stock of his new life when he is put to the test and ordered to kill a traitor who just happens to be his dearest friend.

In 1917, outside the parish of Fátima, Portugal, a 10-year-old girl and her two younger cousins witness multiple visitations of the Virgin Mary, who tells them that only prayer and suffering will bring an end to World War I. As secularist government officials and Church leaders try to force the children to recant their story, word of the sighting spreads across the country, inspiring religious pilgrims to flock to the site in hopes of witnessing a miracle..

Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.

The story of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy living in Bologna, Italy, who in 1858, after being secretly baptized, was forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian. His parents’ struggle to free their son became part of a larger political battle that pitted the papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification.

Best friends since they were kids, Rabbi Jacob Schram and Father Brian Finn are dynamic and popular young men living and working on New York's Upper West Side. When Anna Reilly, once their childhood friend and now grown into a beautiful corporate executive, suddenly returns to the city, she reenters Jake and Brian's lives and hearts with a vengeance. Sparks fly and an unusual and complicated love triangle ensues.

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.

When the wife of a 17th century Kyoto scroll-maker is falsely accused of having an affair with his best employee, the pair flee the city and find themselves falling for one another.

Zatoichi is sworn to protect the life of a young girl and without any real allies finds himself in the middle of a bloody turf war.

A Chicago cop is caught in the middle of a gang war while his own comrades shun him because he wants to take an irresponsible cop down.

In the Holy Land, the Roman occupation has produced a cauldron of oppression, anxiety and excessive taxes levied upon the Jewish people. Fearing the wrath of Roman governor Pontius Pilate , Jewish high priest Caiaphas tries to keep control of his people. That control is threatened when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, performing miracles and spreading messages of love and hope. Those who fear that Jesus will inspire a revolution decide that he must die.

In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.

The story of Tim Ballard, a former US government agent, who quits his job in order to devote his life to rescuing children from global sex traffickers.

Fleeing from his enemies in the Catholic Church, the free thinking philosopher, poet and scientist Giordano Bruno has found some protection in Venice. But the Roman Inquisition, fearing his influence in Europe, wants to bring him on trial for 'heresy'.

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

2067: Isolation: Japan seals herself off from the eyes of the world in the face of unilateral international policy setting strict limits on the use of robotic technology. The island nation exists only behind a veil of seclusion. No soul shall enter. No soul shall leave. 2077: Revelation: The veil is breached. Japan is infiltrated by agents of the organization S.W.O.R.D., a fighting force operating outside of the protection of the United States and her allies. Their mission: Determine if the Japanese are developing banned robotic bio-technology, forbidden due to its threat to humankind. In the battle between machine and man, humanity stands to suffer most.

Stalinstadt, East Germany, 1956. While the Hungarian uprising against Soviets is taking place, teenage members of a classroom of the local school perform a seemingly harmless act that causes unexpected consequences.

Joe Enders is a gung-ho Marine assigned to protect a "windtalker" - one of several Navajo Indians who were used to relay messages during World War II because their spoken language was indecipherable to Japanese code breakers.

In 14th Century England, this tale of murder and mystery follows a fugitive priest who falls in with a troupe of actors. As they arrive in a small town, the actors encounter a woman being sentenced to death for practicing witchcraft and murder. Discarding the expected bible stories, the actors now stage a performance based on the crime. Through the performance of the play, they discover a mystery.

In Edo period Japan, a lone ronin lives in a village helping the farmers tend to their land. One day, a group of outlaw swordsmen enter the village.

After the Japanese defeat to the Russians, Kaji leads the last remaining men through Manchuria. Intent on returning to his dear wife and his old life, Kaji faces great odds in a variety of different harrowing circumstances as he and his fellow men sneak behind enemy lines.

A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.

After the unexpected death of the Pope, Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with managing the covert and ancient ritual of electing a new one. Sequestered in the Vatican with the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders until the process is complete, Lawrence finds himself at the center of a conspiracy that could lead to its downfall.

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

Ichi travels to the village of Itakura to pay his respects at the grave of Kichizo, a man he killed two years ago. When some tax money is stolen while in transit to the governor he is accused and sets out to find the money and clear his name.

After a series of assassinations in Nanking, a Japanese spy master gathers a group of suspects in a mansion, then a tense cat-and-mouse game erupts as the Chinese agent tries to keep his or her identity a secret.

In 17th century Spain Diego Alatriste, a brave and heroic soldier, is fighting in his King's army in the Flandes region. His best mate, Balboa, falls in a trap and, near to death, asks Diego to look after his son and teach him to be a soldier.

From 1928 to 1946, the lives of 12 young people and their school teacher in a poor Japanese village are profoundly affected by historical events and personal circumstances.

Two young horse traders guide a Mormon wagon train to the San Juan Valley and encounter rugged terrain, the cutthroat Clegg gang, hospitable Navajo, and moral challenges on the journey.

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.

After arriving in the town of Shimonita, Ichi finds that a price has been put on his head by a local yakuza boss. He's drawn into a trap, but after hearing of the slaying of a former love, Ichi furiously fights his way through the entire clan to face the killer, a hired ronin.

In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women in an eerie, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight.

A graphic portrayal of the last twelve hours of Jesus of Nazareth's life.



