After years of failing to get pregnant, Frank's baby-crazed wife, Estelle, forces the issue by secretly putting them back on the adoption wait list. When Estelle receives a phone call about the possibility of an available child, Frank must suddenly decide whether he's committed to becoming a "Pop" or not.
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.
A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.
The bond between a disabled Muslim father and his son is tested when love is pitted against religion.
Maria is somewhat of a rebel and problem child. Her mother died and her father remarried some awful lady, and Maria isn't happy at all. She takes a drug overdose and winds up in a home for other girls with problems, but the two women who run the place turn out to be not quite the ladies they seemed. Maria knows she can't stay there very long, and starts planning her escape.
14,000-year-old "Man from Earth" John Oldman, now teaching in northern California, realizes that not only is he finally starting to age, but four students have discovered his deepest secret, putting his life in grave danger and potentially destroying the world's most popular religion.
For centuries, a secret Order of priests has existed within the Church. A renegade priest, Father Alex Bernier, is sent to Rome to investigate the mysterious death of one of the Order's most revered members. Following a series of strangely similar killings, Bernier launches an investigation that forces him to confront unimaginable evil.
Homicide detective John Hobbes witnesses the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese. Soon after the execution the killings start again, and they are very similar to Reese's style.
A band of displaced untouchables in Western Ghats of India embrace Buddhism in order to escape from caste oppression.
Isolated bell-ringer Quasimodo wishes to leave Notre Dame tower against the wishes of Judge Claude Frollo, his stern guardian and Paris' strait-laced Minister of Justice. His first venture to the outside world finds him Esmeralda, a kind-hearted and fearless Romani woman who openly stands up to Frollo's tyranny.
Decades before the rise of liberalism in Spanish-era colonial Philippines, a young charismatic preacher leads a movement for equality and religious freedom for his fellow native Filipinos. He is hailed as the Christ of the Tagalogs, but is sentenced to death for heresy by both Church and State.
Marvin, a heavy-drinking widower meets Tige, an 11-year-old orphan. With nowhere else to go, Tige moves in with Marvin and they develop a close friendship. Marvin wants to adopt Tige but knows that he is too poor to give him a good home. Then he discovers who Tige's father is a rich suburbanite who doesn't even know Tige exists. Should Marvin, and can he, give up the boy he loves, and who loves him, in favor of a stranger with the right genes and bank balance?
Maria finds herself caught between two worlds. At school this 14-year-old girl has all the typical teenage interests, but when she’s at home with her family she follows the teachings of the Society of St. Paul and their traditionalist interpretation of Catholicism. Everything that Maria thinks and does must be examined before God. And since the Lord is a strict shepherd, she lives in constant fear of committing some misconduct...
From the pen of Pulitzer Prize winning author John Updike ("Witches of Eastwick," "Rabbit Run"), comes the story of a young man's search through the questions of life and death, and the wondrous discovery of living in the soaring beauty of one of nature's simplest creations. A family returns to life on a farm and finds some answers to the paradox of living.
Fresh out of university, a Turkish young man with literary aspirations returns to his home village, and to his father, a debt-ridden man with a gambling problem.
In what could easily pass as a Twilight Zone episode, this film shows what happens when a troubled carnival owner returns back to his childhood home to escape God. Films like this would be shown to adult church groups to stimulate discussion - such as “was this man being stalked by Jesus in wooden shoes?”.
This classic from Rolf Forsberg, in the style of Fellini and Bergman, tells the story of a gardener who decides to introduce ants to his garden, because they will benefit what grows there. He is disturbed when the ants spend all their time fighting. He sends his son to teach them how to live peacefully.
Fatiya agrees to replace her cousin at a babysitting gig. When she meets the mother of the young boy she is supposed to look after, prejudice and racism cause the afternoon to take a turn.
Desperate for a child, a couple welcome a surrogate mother into their lives, only to discover she's a con artist who's out to steal their money.
Set halfway through the 17th century, a church play is performed for the benefit of the young aristocrat Cosimo. In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son, the Church exacts a terrible revenge.