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Christmas Films, S4C and BBC Wales

The Miracle Maker

The life of Jesus in stop-motion puppetry, drawn mainly from Luke, with the parables and visions switched to flat two-dimensional animation so you can always tell a story-inside-the-story from the story. Ralph Fiennes voices Jesus; the Welsh and Russian animation teams give it a texture nothing else in this section has.

VerifiedFilm & seriesInterdenominational
Where to watch

Why this is listed

The best Jesus film a family can watch together, and almost nobody has heard of it. It solves the problem every other adaptation fails at — how to show a parable without confusing it with an event — by simply changing the animation style, and it does not flinch at the cross while remaining watchable by a seven-year-old sitting next to a parent.

Before you press play

The one substantial invention is Tamar, the sick daughter of Jairus, who is given a running storyline and follows Jesus through the film; she is the viewer's stand-in and she is not in Luke. Everything Jesus says and does is drawn closely from the text. The crucifixion is shown — the cross is raised, Jesus dies, the sky darkens — but there is no dwelling on wounds and the camera does not linger. The temptation in the wilderness and the Gadarene demoniac are the other two moments to know about; both are brief and both are unsettling. Broadly acceptable across traditions, with no denominational thumb on the scale.

Suited to All ages. Age judgements are ours, not a rating board’s — you know your own family.

How to start

  1. Open visionvideo.com (opens an external site) and read what Christmas Films, S4C and BBC Wales says about itself before you read anything else.
  2. Read the note above first. It is there so an evening does not go wrong twenty minutes in.
  3. Watch it yourself before you watch it with children, if there are children.
  4. Read the passage it dramatises alongside it. The point is to send you back to the text, not to replace it.
  5. Afterwards, ask what the story added and what it left out. That conversation is worth more than the film.

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