Jesus Christ, Movie Star: The 5 Top Faith-Based Hits of 2023

His Only Son ($13.8 million)

Made by first-time filmmaker David Helling for $250,000, this movie about Isaac, the son God told Abraham to murder to test his faith, earned an ecstatic 96 percent rating from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes, despite low production values and no stars more famous than Young Wallender cast member Sara Seyed as Issac’s mom, Sarah. A serious film about one of the deepest, most mysterious stories in the Bible, its $13.8 million gross is an amazing return on a $250,000 investment. “It’s the first film released by Angel Studios’ new distribution unit,” says Chattaway. “It came out a few months before Sound of Freedom, which was an infinitely bigger hit.” True, but His Only Son did outgross the Oscar-nominated critical-hit docs Super Size Me ($11.5 million) and Winged Migration ($10.7 million) and Bill Maher’s anti-Christian documentary Religulous ($13 million).

After Death ($11.5 million)

Featuring people like pastor Don Piper (90 Minutes in Heaven) and surgeon Mary Neal (To Heaven and Back: A Doctor’s Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again: A True Story) recounting their alleged near-death experiences, plus cardiologist Michael Sabom, who wrote Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation, this film left critics unimpressed, and many called it a religious tract pretending to be a proper documentary. Its 50 percent Rotten Tomatoes score was mediocre — but viewers gave it a high 87 percent score. If you deem it a documentary, Chattaway notes, “It’s the biggest-grossing documentary since Peter Jackson’s Critics Choice Award-winning 2018 World War I documentary They Shall Not Grow Old.”

The Shift ($10.6 million)

This multiverse thriller inspired by the Book of Job stars the brilliant Neal McDonough, 59 (Yellowstone, Justified), as the diabolical Benefactor, who transports the Job-like hero Kevin (Hallmark movie star Kristoffer Polaha) from our world, where he’s got a dream job and dream wife, to a nightmare parallel universe ruled by a godless police state, where he loses all. Like a much meaner version of Dean Stockwell in Quantum Leap, the Benefactor offers Kevin the chance to “shift” back home — if he will deny his creator. Sean Astin, 52 (Sam in the Christian-friendly Lord of the Rings films), plays Kevin’s friend in the nightmare world, where believers are persecuted. Christianity Today critic Rebecca Cusey describes The Shift as “The Matrix meets It’s a Wonderful Life.” “It hasn’t gotten the same buzz as the other Angel Studio movies,” says Chattaway, “but the clip posted on my YouTube channel has been getting quite a few comments from fans of the film.”