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Today’s Prayer Focus
MOVIE REVIEW

Mary

also known as “Maria,” “María,” “Mária,” “Marie,” “Maryja,” “Jungfru Maria,” “Kutsal Meryem,” “Storia di Maria,” “Virgem Maria,” “Дева Мария, мать Христа,” “Мати Христа,” “マリア”
Moral Rating: Offensive — Not Recommended
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience: Adults
Genre: Drama
Length: 1 hr. 52 min.
Year of Release: 2024
USA Release: December 6, 2024
Featuring Noa Cohen … Mary
Ido Tako … Joseph
Ori PfefferJoachim
Anthony HopkinsHerod
Hilla Vidor … Anne
Dudley O'Shaughnessy … Gabriel
Mili Avital … Mariamne
Stephanie NurSalome
See all »
Director D.J. Caruso
Producer Mary Aloe … producer
Joshua Harris … producer
Gillian Hormel … producer
Hannah Leader … producer
Executive Producers
Joel Osteen
See all »
Distributor

Here’s what the distributor says about their film: “A miraculous conception. A merciless king. A murderous pursuit. Mary’s journey to give birth to Jesus unfolds in this biblical coming-of-age epic.”

Sadly, this film is in the flavor of such films as “Noah” (2014) or “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” (2012).

Short review
Todd Friel outlines 8 issues with the “Mary” movie on Netflix from a biblical perspective.
Video by Wretched
Length: 4 minutes
More details, more in-depth review
Christian Melissa Dougherty narrates the film for you in a few minutes, so you don’t have to spend 2 hours watching it, and then explains her view of the good and the bad.
Length: 28 minutes
Brief history of Roman Catholic Mariology”
Dr. Nathan Busenitz and Todd Friel
Video by Wretched
Length: 3 minutes
Was Mary a perpetual virgin?
short answer from Todd Friel
Video by Wretched
Length: 3 minutes

Copyrighted, NetflixDid Jesus Christ have brothers or sisters?

Learn about DISCERNMENT—wisdom in making personal entertainment decisions

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.


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Secular Movie Critics
…This may be the single worst film I’ve seen all year; it’s certainly the most confused. …bafflingly awful… there's hardly a single moment in “Mary” which helps us figure out why it was made…
Tim Robey, The Telegraph [UK]
…A biblical letdown that tries to blend a coming-of-age drama and an epic historical action-adventure. …misses most of the marks… curiously hip and modern dialogue…
Casey Chong, Talking Films
…What we get here is no more real than a Hallmark card, except that it’s a different kind of Hallmark card, one in which Mary has to jump off a roof to escape a burning building and Joseph (Ido Tako) gets into sword fights. …
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
…a revisitation of a well-trod biblical epic, but now with more violence!… renders it more of an action movie than most cinematic interpretations of “the greatest story ever told. …the film is at best moderately engaging, and somewhat inadvertently courts indifference…
John Serba, Decider
…writer Timothy Michael Hayes and director D.J. Caruso didn’t have a lot to go on, Gospel-wise. Luke mentions Mary only about a dozen times; Mark names her once; the background details have always been scanty at best. So they turn to the apocrypha and the Jewish historian Josephus to fashion what is essentially a coming-of-age story about the Mother of God—and, to a lesser extent, an infancy narrative about Jesus. …just a hodge-podge, a sort of overly reverent sword-and-sandals epic rich in awe-struck characters, Luciferian mischief and historical opportunism. …
John Anderson, America magazine
…“Mary” is tonally uneven, and its script falls flat… With an underbaked script by Timothy Michael Hayes and several add-ons to the biblical narrative that harm more than elevate the plot, the cast doesn't get the opportunity to impress or show an inspiring new take on Mary’s trajectory. …
Isabella Soares, Collider