The acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert, whose reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times influenced generations of moviegoers, once described his appreciation for movies in this way:
We are all born with a certain package. We are who we are. Where we were born, who we were born as, how we were raised. We are kind of stuck inside that person, and the purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people, find out what makes them tick, what they care about. For me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. If it’s a great movie, it lets you understand a little bit more about what it’s like to be a different gender, a different race, a different age, a different economic class, a different nationality, a different profession, different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us. And that, to me, is the most noble thing that good movies can do and it’s a reason to encourage them and to support them and to go to them.
When I left the Christian faith in November of 2022, I didn’t know anyone else who shared my experience. It was a profoundly lonely time. My community was composed almost exclusively of believers, and while friends and family members worked hard to understand and empathize, our conversations were painful, and it often felt like we were talking past each other. Apostasy tends to be an emotionally fraught topic, both for religious adherents and for those who leave the fold. I yearned to connect with people who had walked a similar path. My spiritual deconstruction was the most painful, confusing, and frightening experience of my life. I needed to know that I wasn’t alone – that others had seen the same things I had seen, had navigated the same intellectual and emotional wilderness, and had found hope and healing along the way.
As I began exploring ex-Christian literature, I was surprised to find that religious deconstruction stories were incredibly widespread. According to the Pew Research Center, while the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian has dropped from 78% to 63% since 2007, the percentage of Americans who identify as atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular” has risen steadily from 16% to 29%. Experts predict that, within a few decades, Christians may make up less than half of the U.S. population – a shocking decline from the 90% Christian population of the early 1990s. Those of us who have jettisoned the safety and security of organized religion in our pursuit of truth may feel isolated, but we aren’t alone – not by a long shot.
As a passionate movie buff, I resonate deeply with Roger Ebert’s description of cinema as “a machine that generates empathy.” Movies have the power to change us, if we let them. We need more stories that bridge social divides, that challenge our entrenched views of the world, and that invite us into the lived experiences of those different from us. Yet, while deconversion is an increasingly pervasive cultural phenomenon, movies that depict journeys out of religion are tough to find.
Here, I’ve compiled a list of ten films which were deeply meaningful to me in the aftermath of my deconversion. These films are listed in alphabetical order. While only half of them deal with topics of spiritual deconstruction and religious trauma directly, all of them capture elements of the deconversion experience. Each title on this list is critically acclaimed and worth checking out for its artistic merits alone. Finally, while most of these films grapple with weighty subject matter, almost all of them are profoundly hopeful. These movies suggest that there’s a bigger world out there – that beyond the walls of dogma, beyond the grief and fear and existential angst unleashed by abandoning faith, there is a road to recovery and consolation in the tales we share.
If you’re a member of a religious tradition, I hope you can heed Roger Ebert’s call and approach this list as an exercise in empathy. By seeking to understand the factors that lead people to abandon faith and the mental and emotional toll of that decision, you can love your neighbors better. This list is intended primarily for apostates in need of encouragement, but movies should generate conversation, and conversations are always better when diverse perspectives are brought to the table!
Apostasy
Harrowing and unforgettable, Daniel Kokotajlo’s 2017 film Apostasy follows a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Oldham, England. When her eldest daughter becomes pregnant out of wedlock and stops attending services at the Kingdom Hall, Ivanna Whitling (played by Siobhan Finneran of Downton Abbey) is faced with an impossible choice: reject her own faith or lose a beloved child forever. A former JW himself, Kokotajlo approaches his film’s subject matter with unflinching honesty and remarkable compassion. The movie depicts the social ostracism that often accompanies deconversion from fundamentalist faiths, and it also explores the potentially devastating consequences of narratives that deny science and elevate religious duty above familial obligation.
Asteroid City
Early in the film Asteroid City, a character asks: “What’s the meaning?” That question is the beating heart of Wes Anderson’s latest comedic masterpiece. After witnessing something inexplicable during a scientific convention, a motley crew of junior space cadets and their parents find themselves quarantined near an atomic test site in the middle of the desert. There, surrounded by uncertainty, they begin to ask weighty questions about themselves and about their place in the universe. While Anderson’s films have long mingled offbeat humor with notes of existential angst, Asteroid City may be the storyteller’s most honest and searching exploration of the human condition yet. If, like me, you have wrestled deeply with the challenge of finding meaning in a world that all too often seems devoid of it, this film is for you. Late in the film, in what became my single favorite scene of 2023, a frightened character stares at the camera and murmurs, “I don’t understand the play.” The response that he receives has stuck with me ever since, offering hard-won hope in a breathtaking, bewildering cosmos that refuses to explain itself.
Barbie
You might be surprised to see this movie on this list, but Greta Gerwig’s record-smashing summer blockbuster is also a deeply layered work of art, open to a variety of interpretations. Much has already been said about Barbie‘s critique of patriarchy, which is a perennial feature of many religious traditions. However, the film also works as an allegory of deconversion. Stereotypical Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) has no desire to leave her home in Barbieland. She knows her place, enjoys her relationships, and finds comfort in the simplistic narratives that have been handed down to her. Yet, all of that changes when she begins to have original thoughts. As the story progresses, Barbie realizes that her world was far more insular than she could have imagined. Ultimately, she faces profoundly difficult questions: How do we adjust to freedom after leaving an environment in which we had no control? How do we reconstruct our identities when the foundations of those identities have collapsed? Listen to Billie Eilish’s haunting song “What Was I Made For?” through the lens of spiritual deconstruction, and (to quote Taylor Swift) it “hits different.”
Boy Erased
Based on a true story, Joel Edgerton’s Boy Erased examines the unique trauma faced by LGBTQ+ individuals whose senses of self have been hijacked by religious dogma. It also examines the practice of conversion therapy – a dangerous and discredited attempt to “cure” people of homosexual impulses (which has been declared illegal for licensed mental health providers but is still championed and utilized by many religious communities). Featuring a standout performance by Lucas Hedges, Boy Erased moves beyond anger at injustice and asks how recovery and reconciliation might be possible, even in the most heartbreaking of circumstances.
Cast Away
Reflecting on Robert Zemeckis’ tale of a shipwrecked FedEx executive after my own departure from Christianity, I continue to find new depths to appreciate in what has become my all-time favorite film. Cast Away is so much more than a survival story. As we watch Chuck Noland (played by Tom Hanks) return to society after four years of isolation on a remote island, we find ourselves asking with him: How do you move forward from a tragedy that has rendered your entire life unfamiliar? Those of us whose faith collapsed unexpectedly know how agonizing and disorienting a farewell to our old life can be. Everything around us looks different, and a return to old ways of living and seeing is impossible. Yet, with unparalleled beauty, the closing scenes of the film point us toward new beginnings (If you’d like to read more about my interpretation of this film, you can check out my recent post on it here:).
Letting Go of God
Julia Sweeney, who rose to fame as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, has long been respected for her comedic chops. Yet, what she pulls off here is truly remarkable. In a one-woman stage show, Sweeney recounts her decades-long journey from Christianity to atheism, beginning with her Irish Catholic roots in Washington and transitioning to her life as a spiritual seeker in Los Angeles. At once hilarious and poignant, Sweeney’s story offers an intimate glimpse into the complex intellectual and emotional struggles faced by those leaving faith.
Room
Based on Emma Donoghue’s award-winning novel, Room introduces us to two people trapped in a living nightmare. Joy Newsome (played by Brie Larson), a victim of kidnapping, has spent five years building a life for her son, Jack, in the tiny shed that they call Room. For Jack, who has never been outside, Room represents the entire world – that is, until a daring escape frees him to experience what lies beyond for the very first time. While the suffering that Lenny Abrahamson’s film depicts is truly unimaginable, the movie takes on new meaning as an allegory of deconversion. Those who were raised within religious walls and taught to believe that those walls encapsulated reality will resonate with Jack’s fearful first steps into a broader world. Hopefully, they will also be encouraged by his discovery that, for all its wildness and unpredictability, that same world is worth embracing in all its fullness.
The Truman Show
If you were to ask me, “What movie best captures the experience of deconstruction?”, I would answer without hesitation: The Truman Show. Peter Weir’s 1998 psychological comedy-drama is a zany, mind-bending cinematic roller coaster ride. The story follows Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey), who is unaware that his idyllic life on Seahaven Island is actually a reality TV program. When bizarre events begin to puncture the fabric of Truman’s world, he embarks on a desperate quest to uncover the truth. Revisiting the film after my deconversion, I glimpsed my own angst and bewilderment in Truman’s frantic search for answers, recalling the knot in my stomach as, one by one, things that I had spent my lifetime believing turned out to be false. I know no better film about the human need to pursue and embrace truth, however painful or unsettling that truth may be.
Wild
Raw, bracing, and deeply poignant, Jean-Marc Vallée’s 1995 film is based on the true story of Cheryl Strayed, who overcame personal tragedies by hiking 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. As we watch Strayed (played with unflinching authenticity by Reese Witherspoon) navigating wildernesses both external and internal, we are invited to reflect on the journey of life – the necessity, difficulty, and value of spiritual wandering. When life dashes our hopes and dreams, the simple act of moving forward can feel impossible. Yet, Strayed’s story illumines hope in the wasteland. Sometimes, this film suggests, the only way to find lasting peace is to venture into the unknown.
Yes, God, Yes
For many deconstructing adults (myself included), sexual awakening during puberty and young adulthood was marked by intense feelings of fear, confusion, and shame. These feelings didn’t arise naturally; rather, they were the product of centuries-old religious dogma that frames normal, healthy impulses and behaviors as a slippery slope to hellfire. In its examination of these doctrines, Karen Maine’s quirky coming-of-age tale of a hormonal teenager (played by Natalia Dyer of Stranger Things) at a Catholic youth retreat refuses to pull any punches. Yet, it is also suffused with compassion, spotlighting the awkward, messy humanity of each of its characters. Heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure, this film will resonate with anyone whose sexuality survived the bizarre, bruising gauntlet of fundamentalism.
Words for Wayfarers 