Movies Similar to Sermons and Sacred Pictures

Heartbreakers Beach Party(2024)

Documentary that captures Tom Petty and the band in 1982-1983 as they finish, promote, and tour around the “Long After Dark” album (their final with legendary producer Jimmy Iovine). It aired only once on MTV in 1983. After the long lost 16mm reels were finally found, a restored version with 19 minutes of extra footage was released in 2024.

The Five Obstructions(2003)

Lars von Trier challenges his mentor, filmmaker Jørgen Leth, to remake Leth’s 1967 short film The Perfect Human five times, each with a different set of bizarre and challenging rules.

Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box(1991)

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.

6-18-67(1967)

6-18-67 is a short quasi-documentary film by George Lucas regarding the making of the Columbia film “Mackenna's Gold”. This non-story, non-character visual tone poem is made up of nature imagery, time-lapse photography, and the subtle sounds of the Arizona desert.

The Bomb(2017)

Filmmakers use archival footage and animation to explore the culture surrounding nuclear weapons, the fascination they inspire and the perverse appeal they still exert.

The Salt of the Earth(2014)

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

Variations on Iserois Landscapes(2024)

Thirty-three shots based on the landscapes of the Isère region near Vienne. A work of observation on light, the dilation of Time, wind, calm and storm.

Let Us Persevere in What We Have Resolved Before We Forget(2013)

On the island of Tanna, a part of Vanuatu, an archipelago in Melanesia, strange rites are enacted and time passes slowly while the inhabitants await the return of the mysterious John.

Man with a Movie Camera(1929)

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

Somniloquies(2017)

Works with sound recordings of Dion McGregor, who became famous for talking in his sleep.

Diffusion(2021)

An experimental short film about the depressive scenery of Eastern European winter

Cine de Emboscada(2017)

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero(2011)

An anthology of one-minute films created by 51 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia, on 22 December 2011. A special projector was constructed for the event which allowed the actual filmstrip to be burnt at the same time as the film was shown.

Men Boxing(1891)

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

Sold(2019)

A film about friendship and the occasional loneliness.

Blow Job(1964)

Andy Warhol directs a single 35-minute shot of a man's face to capture his facial expressions as he receives the sexual act depicted in the title.

Babylon Series #1(1989)

After a six -or seven- year study of Hammurabi's Code, original Babylonian Text and translation, I've tried to feel my way into the moving visual thought process of this ancient culture (whose numerical system is composed primarily of building materials, nails, joints and the like): this, then, is a visual music which balances the two thought processes of Structure and Nature.

Babylon Series #3(1990)

This is an architectural garden of the variably brash rock-solid liquid-encompassing, but always imitative, human mind as it processes the given light thoughtfully. This film is about that.

Pavements(2025)

Documentary about the American indie band Pavement, which combines scripts with documentary images of the band and a musical mise-en-scene composed of songs from their discography.

Blanket Song(2022)

A grandmother faintly narrates her quilts, as seen through the warped glass lens of a broken camera, a laptop webcam, and a clunky Xerox scanner.