Playing the most famous guy ever in the greatest story ever told is no picnic—but thanks to Eliza Janssen’s handy list, you can learn how well cinema history’s bearded-up actors pulled it off.
It’s almost Easter, the time for Christians to give thanks to the 30-something carpenter who died for their sins about 2023 years ago. His story is pretty cinematic material—betrayal! Friendship! Political rebellion! Some “it’s not my dream, Dad, it’s yours” moments right there at the end!—and yet, actually casting some Hollywood schmuck as the immaculate Son of God can be harder than it looks.
Here I’ve tried to rank some of the screen’s most well-known depictions of Jesus, from holy mehs to the messianic performances that truly took us to church. Plenty of them have courted controversy for making JC too vulgarly human, and even more have whitewashed history by picking blue-eyed, fair-skinned all-American actors, but one thing binds them all: they’re all great to watch while chowing down on chocolate eggs this weekend.
Kenneth Colley in Life of Brian and Claude Heater in Ben-Hur
Jesus is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful, but that doesn’t mean he’s all that important in these two very different movies. Both the Monty Python biblical spoof and 1959’s mega-budgeted epic keep the son of God impactful, for comedic and dramatic purposes, by relegating him to the sidelines. Colley is the messiah rather than just a scapegoat and very naughty boy, appearing only to accent the Pythons’ revisionist goofery. And Heater, an opera singer with very few other screen roles, is only really seen in obscured side-profile. Not much to judge here.
Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings
The Searchers star and rejected Star Trek captain Jeffrey Hunter loses points for fitting the misrepresentative White Jesus mould sooo perfectly. Dude looks like he spends his days locked in a strip mall Abercrombie outlet, not experiencing any sun or sand or political persecution. Still, it’s a taxing role pulled off with matinee handsomeness. The movie’s old-timey trailer patriotically boasts, the “young American actor was chosen because of his rugged strength” and “personal integrity”—as if he’s trying out for captain of the JV volleyball team and not merely acting in a mediocre movie.
John Hurt in History of the World Part I and Jay Ellis in History of the World Part II
One of the comedy world’s most powerful Jews always has fun depicting the most powerful Jew of all time, in both his original 1981 spoof and the recent Disney+ series that modernises the mythos significantly. Jay Ellis plays the only Black Jesus I’ve ever come across on screen, in parodies of everything from The Notebook to The Beatles’ Get Back sessions. Both of these Jesuses are very amiable, the kinda guy you’d like to grab a cup of his transubstantiated blood with sometime.
Jeremy Sisto in Jesus and Christian Bale in Mary, Mother of Jesus
Full disclosure, I had to watch both of these made-for-TV projects way back in Sunday school, so they’re hard to separate in my mind. Both coming out in the same year, the main differences I remember are that Bale’s movie sweetly suggests that all of Christ’s parables were inspired by his mama’s bedtime stories…and the Sisto version has very millennium-era Roblox effects when Jesus is being tempted by Satan in the desert??
Brian Deacon in Jesus
Often called ‘The Jesus Film’, this 1980 drama was funded by the Campus Crusade For Christ and translated into over 7000 languages for missionaries to spread across the world. Shakespearean actor Deacon looks pretty great in the role, even with the prosthetic “Mediterranean” nose he was given to make the yarn as “biblically accurate as possible”. The film was even released without credits as its producers claimed they were so directly translating the Gospel of Luke. Good thing IMDB exists today, I guess.
Ted Neeley in Jesus Christ Superstar
How did Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber graduate from this genuinely awesome, catchy rock-opera to the likes of Cats and Starlight Express?? Dated though it may be, the screen adaptation still slaps as a stripped-back Coachella re-enactment of the gospels, with Carl Anderson unfortunately surpassing Neely’s Christ as a sympathetic, guilt-stricken Judas. When his face is a little too piously placid, his wailing soprano makes up for it.
Max Von Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told
This ass-numbing epic is defined—and sometimes let down—by its extravagant ensemble cast. Von Sydow brings a gloomy serenity to his first English-speaking lead role, but he’s bogged down with way too many drawn-out, paceless sermons. And then there’s that infamously crap John Wayne cameo, cancelling out all of Sydow’s emotional strength at the crucifixion almost instantaneously (“trewly this man wuzzthe son of gahd”).
Jim Caviezel in The Passion of the Christ
Mel Gibson’s Christ is now a QAnon nutcase in real life, and yet it’s still possible to feel some sympathy for what he had to go through during the troublesome production of this film. Beyond the trials of learning Hebrew and Latin dialogue, the deeply religious actor got real whipping scars, pneumonia, hypothermia, and a dislocated shoulder for his troubles, and was even struck by lightning on set. He’s this low on the list because at that point, one is barely even acting like the tortured religious leader.
Enrique Irazoqui in The Gospel According to St. Matthew
The brilliant and brutal director Pasolini made a great choice by casting non-actor Irazoqui in this clear-eyed adaptation of the gospels. His unmannered performance makes him stand out as a spiritual presence amongst the pontificating Romans, bringing the movie’s neorealist flavour out boldly. The crucifixion, in stark black-and-white, looks like a gorgeous, gritty Calvin Klein perfume ad.
Willem Dafoe in The Last Temptation of Christ
Dafoe is our lord and saviour in many ways, of course, and he anchors Scorsese’s text-challenging epic with a sense of warmth and humility not seen in too many of his other famous roles. His blonde Jesus doesn’t want to die, making him more painfully human than many of the blank-faced messiahs on this list. To my mind it makes “the greatest story ever told” even more powerful, if we’re forced to wonder whether our main bro had the right to live his own life, eternal consequences for all of us be damned.
Robert Powell in Jesus of Nazareth
With eerie, piercing blue eyes and hollowed-out cheekbones, Brit Robert Powell is still the ur-example of a screen Jesus: rarely blinking throughout the film, he resembles nothing more than a wooden carving of Christ found in a darkened chapel. Thank god Zeffirelli didn’t cast better-known options Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino, as we wouldn’t have this iconographic end result, which is still reprinted endlessly on various bits of devotional merch today.
Peter Weller in Robocop
I don’t want to hear any arguments. He rises from the dead, he challenges his city’s authorities, and he even walks on water at the film’s climax! You are officially allowed to watch Robocop in celebration of Easter, as let’s face it: none of the other gospel-spruiking nice guys on this list could ever shoot a bullet directly between an assault victim’s legs to blow off her attacker’s nuts. Amen.
