Five Movie Characters That Just Might Make You Think About Christ

We’re in the middle of Lent right now, which is a great opportunity for us to dive into movies or television shows that focus on Jesus—His life, His death and His game-changing resurrection. You’ve got plenty of options out there.

The Thorn, a theatrical production that received a limited release this month via Fathom Events, is launching what its makers are calling a virtual cinema event from March 27 through the Easter season. The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, where a former child star is forced to participate in a church Passion play, is on Netflix. Several movies about Jesus, including Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and 1977’s Jesus of Nazareth, are on Amazon’s Prime Video service. And we’re just getting warmed up.

But movies don’t need to be explicitly about Jesus to remind us of Jesus. Sometimes—intentionally or no—characters who show Christ-like attributes land in wholly secular works. And while many of these Christ figures can be flawed (sometimes very much so), they remind us that God isn’t just at work in explicitly faith-based works: He’s sovereign over all creation, and He sometimes makes His presence known in some unexpected places.

Let me offer five characters who could remind you of Jesus and the work He did for us.

Aslan (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, 2005)

We’ll start off our role call with a no-brainer. Author and apologist C.S. Lewis designed Aslan, the lion king from his beloved Chronicles of Narnia series, as an avatar of Christ. Aslan himself admits as much in Lewis’ book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. When someone asks Aslan if he’s in our world, too, Aslan says he is, “But there I have another name. … This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is Aslan at his most explicitly Christlike: sacrificing himself for a traitor before rising again.

Gandalf (The Lord of The Rings trilogy, 2001-03)

Unlike his friend C.S. Lewis, Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien was not keen on pure allegory. In his classic fantasy story, you could yank out three major characters that have Christlike attributes (those being Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf). But for this list, let’s single out the wizard Gandalf. In Tolkien’s backstory (and we see some of this in Amazon Prime Video’s The Rings of Power), Gandalf is sort of an angelic being sent from above, but clothed in the skin of a wizened old man—giving off a definite divine-but-human vibe. In Tolkien’s first book and director Peter Jackson’s first movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf takes on an inherently spiritual threat in the fearsome Balrog, which came from the realm of Udûn, sort of the Middle-earth equivalent of Gehenna. The clash could be seen, thus, as a battle between not just good and evil, but between heaven and hell—one in which evil is vanquished, but Gandalf apparently dies. Does he stay dead? Spoiler warning: No! Gandalf returns as a brighter version of himself.

Klaatu (The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951)

I’m going to bypass the 2008 version starring Keanu Reeves (mainly because I haven’t seen it) and point people to the original sci-fi classic. In the movie, Klaatu, an alien from outer space, visits earth and tries to offer a gift to us humans—and is immediately shot. Klaatu heals himself and decides to wander about the planet disguised as a human named “Mr. Carpenter.” (Get it?) He tries to warn some folks that other planets are getting a little antsy about Earth’s newfangled weaponry (atomic power was a big deal, obviously, in 1951) and aggressive ways. If humankind isn’t careful, he says, the planet could be destroyed (for its sins, as it were). But just when it seems as if Klaatu’s got some human friends, the alien is betrayed and killed—only to be resurrected aboard his spacecraft. While Klaatu tells friend Helen that his resurrection is only temporary, the makers indeed wanted to remind faithful viewers of a more permanent resurrection.

Superman (Man of Steel, 2013; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2016)

From the moment Superman first landed in the comics in 1938, he was apparently designed as a Messiah-like figure. His Jewish creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, made him an alien savior from a distant planet—someone who looked like us but who was wildly better. More evidence: Superman’s Kryptonian name is Kal-El, which in Hebrew is often translated to mean the “voice of God.” While the Superman at the center of director Zack Snyder’s DC superhero movies is far from perfect (and the movies are far from perfect, either), Snyder does lean hard into Supes’ messianic attributes. And in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, he takes an explicitly Christ-like turn—sacrificing himself to save the world from the Kryptonian monster Doomsday. And as Batman, Wonder Woman and Lois Lane mourn poor ol’ Supes, we see a cross in the background.

Pinocchio (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, 2022)

This might be, paradoxically, the most “kid friendly” and the most problematic depiction of a Christlike character on this list. Why? Well, for one thing, director Guillermo del Toro is somewhere between and agnostic and atheist, and his relationship with faith is inherently complex. But he loves to trot out religious themes in his work. And from the very beginning of this film, del Toro wants to make it clear that he’s drawing comparisons between the little wooden boy and Christ. I get into a lot more detail elsewhere, but early on, Pinocchio looks at a crucifix and says he’d like to be a little like the figure hanging from the cross. “Everybody likes Him,” he tells his father, Geppetto. “He’s made of wood, too. Why do they like him and not me?” By the end of the movie, Pinocchio unknowingly follows in Christ’s footsteps, sacrificing himself for his father and is literally hanging on a cross at one point. And while certainly del Toro’s take on faith here is inconsistent and, at times, troubling, Pinocchio still has its share of beauty and profundity wrapped up in it, too.

I could go on. And who knows? Maybe next Lenten season, I will. God’s fingerprints can be found everywhere, even in the movies.