Founders and Prophets on Screen

Cecil B. DeMille's last film dramatizes Exodus from Moses's rise in Pharaoh's household to the giving of the Law at Sinai, with Charlton Heston as Moses. It was shot in VistaVision and Technicolor on location in Egypt and the Sinai, and it set the template for the biblical epic.

DreamWorks retold the same Exodus story as an animated musical, with songs by Stephen Schwartz and a score by Hans Zimmer. It follows Moses from adopted prince to the burning bush and his confrontation with his brother Rameses, and it grossed $218 million worldwide.

Here Jesus appears only as an unnamed Nazarene carpenter whose path repeatedly crosses that of the Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur. His ministry and crucifixion are staged at the close of a story adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel.

Franco Zeffirelli's television serial gives Jesus a full on-screen life, from birth through ministry, crucifixion and resurrection, with Robert Powell in the title role. It is widely regarded as one of the more historically careful and frequently rebroadcast screen depictions of the Gospel narrative.

Mel Gibson's film covers the last twelve hours of Jesus's life, with dialogue in reconstructed Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew. Its screenplay combined the four Gospels with the visions of the mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, and it grossed $370 million in North America.

Moustapha Akkad's film chronicles the origins of Islam without ever showing or voicing the Prophet Muhammad, telling the story through his uncle Hamza and companions such as Bilal ibn Rabah. Akkad shot English and Arabic versions at the same time with different casts.

Majid Majidi's film dramatizes the Prophet's childhood and youth, including his meeting with the monk Bahira. Muhammad's face is never shown; cinematographer Vittorio Storaro used camera position, point of view shots and lighting to convey his presence.

Bernardo Bertolucci interweaves a present-day search for a reincarnated lama with the life of Prince Siddhartha, played by Keanu Reeves, from his sheltered upbringing through renunciation and enlightenment beneath the bodhi tree.

Martin Scorsese's film follows the 14th Dalai Lama from his identification as a child in 1937 as the reincarnation of his predecessor to his flight into exile in India in 1959. The title is an honorific meaning the presence.

Chow Yun-fat plays the philosopher from his years as a magistrate in Lu through exile as a wandering teacher. The film was state-backed and came in an era of official Chinese rehabilitation of Confucius after decades of Maoist criticism.

A Punjabi-language drama about Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism. It became the center of a Sikh community controversy over whether a Guru may be visually represented at all, a dispute that lasted from before its 2015 release into a second controversy in 2018.