The Cinematic Christ-figure: From Everyman to Antihero-antichrist

In this second century of the Age Hollywood and reign moving image culture, popular feature films are nowadays lingua franca our youth throughout Western society, natural home numerous sacred subtexts; most notably cinematic Christ-figure, but hitherto unexplicated in-depth to date. Consequently, a broad review critical religion-and-film literature plus close reading selected utilizing humanist film criticism as guiding analytical lens (i.e., examining textual world inside frame, not necessarily outside frame), revealed at least six (but mutually exclusive) categories namely: (1) Everyman Christ-figures: Earth-sourced Humans, (2) Alien Extraterrestrial Messiahs, (3) Female Gender Swapping Jesuses, (4) Animal Veterinary Versions, (5) Inanimate The Holy Non-living, (6) Antihero-antichrist-figures: Shadows Christos. To ensure category robustness, they were sourced from different directors, genres, countries, aesthetic styles, release decades. Each was briefly explicated illustrated herein. It concluded that subtexts subgenre within exciting emerging field is immense, under-explored, awaiting (re-)discovery, with promising future worthy further investigation pedagogic deployment classroom, or pulpit. All which strongly implies these extra-ecclesiastical sources insight function modern-day missionaries expands theological discussion far beyond Bible readings tracking Apostle’s journeys more often had be endured by students rather than enjoyed.