The end times continue to be one of the most popular and confusing subjects in Christian circles. A new end times thriller seems to hit the stands every year. Speculations about what the end times will look like range from whether there will be a rapture to what the seven seals mentioned in Revelation are. Of course, there have also been various movies about the end times, from action adventures (Revelation Road) to challenging dramas (The Rapture).
The following end times movies approach the subject from a variety of angles. Some interpret Revelation in an easy-to-follow way. Others challenge viewers to consider what Revelation really says. Some are famous, and others you may have never heard of. Let’s take a deeper look.
Editor’s Note: These movies’ inclusion in this article does not mean Crosswalk.com endorses the companies who produce the movies, or any dramatic license taken with the material. Readers are encouraged to research the movies for their own conclusions.
Photo Credit: Getty Images/santoelia
1. Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist
Rating: PG-13
This film functions halfway between being a sequel and being a reboot. It picks up after the events of the 2014 reboot Left Behind starring Nicolas Cage, but has a new cast. Kevin Sorbo directs the movie and takes over Cage’s role as pilot Rayford Steele, reeling from the rapture that caused his wife and son to disappear. The narration from one character, pastor Bruce Barnes, covers all the events from the previous film. Consequently, the movie is technically a sequel to the 2014 film, but no one who missed it will wonder what’s going on.
The plot, loosely based on Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ novel Tribulation Force, involves Steele adjusting to his new faith. At the same time, journalist Buck Williams tries to unravel a conspiracy that may involve United Nations secretary Nicolae Carpathia. As Christian films go, this one is fairly standard. However, it has a better cast than the average Christian film and a few moments of humor from quirky side characters.
2. The Bible Collection: The Apocalypse
Rating: TV-14
Rather than contemplating what the end times may look like, this film considers where we get our description of it: the book of Revelation.
The Bible Collection dramatized various Bible stories, most focusing on one character (David, Jesus, Moses, etc.). The Apocalypse is the one entry not named for a person and alternates between two stories. The first concerns the apostle John (living on Patmos, having unexpected visions). The second involves Christians from the churches that John started (waiting for his letters, unsure how much persecution they can stand). The early church subplot involves Roman emperor Domitian cracking down on Christianity, with his officers (some Christians but hiding it, others treating Christianity with contempt) having a range of responses. As some of John’s followers look for him, his visions provide surprising answers to their questions.
The special effects of John’s visions haven’t always aged well, but they cleverly fit between several extremes. Sometimes the visions shift from Biblical imagery to future scenes (from seals being broken to skyscrapers being destroyed), implying John’s visions are about the final judgment. Other times, his visions parallel things that the early Christians are experiencing (a soldier on a charging horse slaughtering people), suggesting that the visions refer to what’s happening in the present. Or, the visions could be about both the present and the future. The Apocalypse sums up all the classic interpretations of Revelation, while showing how the book does fit into a larger story. It completes the story of the early church, while pointing the way forward.
A clever film about Revelation and end times teaching for people across the eschatology spectrum.
Photo Credit: Lux Vide-Lube /Rai Fiction/Kirchmedia/Quinta
3. A Thief in the Night
Rating: TV-PG
The first of four end times movies made by Mark IV Productions Incorporated in the 1970s-1980s, A Thief in the Night has a pretty simple premise. Several teenage girls hear about the rapture at a church event. One listens to the message. The others go on with their lives. Sometime later, one of the girls who ignored it is married… but one morning, she wakes up to discover her husband has disappeared. The radio carries reports of other disappearances and world leaders arguing over whether this phenomenon is something prophesied in Revelation.
A Thief in the Night isn’t the most memorable movie in the Mark IV series (most people remember the third film, Image of the Beast). However, it has the most suspenseful opening and is just over an hour long. For viewers who find end times thrillers silly, this is at least interesting as a cultural artifact. For better or worse, this movie sums up the end times craze started by Hal Lindsey’s 1970 book The Late Great Earth. That trend reached its summit with the Left Behind novels in the 1990s, but LaHaye and Jenkins have been quoted as saying they built on this movie’s model. Christianity Today contributor Dean A. Anderson argues in many ways, this movie is a Christian horror movie, which has become much more fashionable since then. Viewers may love it or hate it, but it’s impossible to ignore the impact of A Thief in the Night.
Photo Credit: Mark IV Pictures Incorporated
4. The Omen
Rating: R
While not typically labeled a Christian film, The Omen began with pious intentions. A Christian businessman’s idea for a film about the Antichrist’s rise caught the attention of film producer Harvey Bernhard. Screenwriter David Selznick read various theology works as research, including throwing in some popular speculations that the Antichrist would be a political figure. Later changes (including hiring a director who pitched Gregory Peck on it being a thriller with nothing supernatural) made it an ambiguous movie. It’s about a diplomat discovering he may have adopted the Antichrist, but nothing supernatural happens onscreen. The “biblical references” include a Revelation prophecy nowhere in the Bible. This is a very different movie than A Thief in the Night.
However, Revelation scholars can attest that every end times movie fictionalizes something. Even ones produced by Christians who claim the film is “based on the Bible with no interpretation” interpret Revelation’s images (the mark of the beast, the 144,000) in ways the trained scholars often find bizarre. The more important question is what the plot says about God and faith. The Omen uses its material to ask some intriguing questions about whether humans can second-guess biblical prophecy… and whether their attempts to stop the devil’s end times plans only further what has been prophesied. Despite not fitting the Christian film mold, The Omen is a clever film about what humans can do about the end times: predict it, try to stop it, or focus on what God actually commands people to do (witness, serve God well).
Photo Credit: Fan poster by G. Connor Salter
5. Ballads of the Revelation
Rating: Not Rated
Since Revelation contains so many surprising elements (visions, poems, letters), and doesn’t have a straightforward narrative like Acts or Exodus, it’s hard to make a movie that includes all its elements. The best option may be to take certain scenes and images to tell a story covering Revelation’s core themes.
Ballads of the Revelation takes the interpretative approach further than most. Like Ballads of the Exodus (a movie by the same filmmakers about Moses), it tells a story by images more than dialogue, more like a music video than a conventional film. It has a basic plot (a man telling his son about the events in Revelation, the son seeing images from Revelation), but little dialogue. Occasionally words will appear on the screen to show which scene from Revelation is being dramatized, and songs played in the background give more hints. For example, one scene starts with the words “fifth seal” appearing on the screen. Then the child sees the names of the martyred apostles on a wall, he sees people in white robes kneeling, and his father sings a song about waiting “just a little while longer.” The scene is about Revelation 6:9-11 but leaves the audience to put the clues together. The movie also cuts multiple times to characters who could be a Christian suffering for his faith, perhaps the apostle John.
Ballads of the Revelation can feel disorienting, but a recurring message keeps appearing: persecution is coming, so be ready. The experimental feel pushes viewers to focus on Revelation’s big ideas about the End Times, not its specifics. The big idea (persecution will happen, but hope in Christ) matters more than trying to figure out how soon the end times will arrive.
Photo Credit: FAI Studios
6. Honorary Selection: The Book of Eli
Rating: R
Not strictly an End Times movie since it doesn’t set the story in the last days, The Book of Eli is a post-apocalyptic movie with some very relevant themes for the end times discussion. It depicts a brutal world where people scavenge for everything and one man with a mission. He has what may be the last copy of the Bible anyone has ever seen. Some people want to steal it from him and twist its teachings for their agendas. Others want to see if its message truly will change their lives. The man plans to take it somewhere he believes it can be used to help everyone… but he’s going on a plan he says God gave him.
The movie may be about the earth being renewed rather than its last days, but it may have a message that is especially relevant to end times discussions. It imagines a post-apocalyptic setting where the Bible still exists and may renew humanity, reminding viewers that even if terrible things happen, God’s word will carry on. Furthermore, The Book of Eli pushes viewers to realize that God alone will decide when the end times come. What looks like the end (nuclear war, a global virus) may be the end of an old chapter. God may be working on something we don’t expect.
Photo Credit: ©Warner Bros.
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