Two unrelated movies were recently released about my patron, King David. To my surprise, I thought both were phenomenal.

I guess I am known as a pretty harsh movie critic, but I really don’t think it’s that hard to make a Catholic movie.  The problem is that nearly every “saint” movie since A Man for All Seasons (1966) and The Passion of the Christ (2004) has turned out to be a shill for the heresy of religious indifferentism (the notion that all religions can get you to heaven.)   The acting is usually poor in most “Catholic” movies of the last decade.  The theology is even worse.

I happily suffered for Christ in getting publicly shamed for standing against the blasphemies in that horrible streaming series called The Chosen.  As I stated before, many people once-baptized Catholic enjoyed this series because they had never been taught how to pray mental prayer by priests.

Learning the Gospels from the Fathers is one reason I put out my long series on YouTube called VLX—a hundred hours of theology on the Gospel of St. Matthew teaching you mental prayer and how to meditate. If my site or Substack is too negative for you, go listen to my podcasts.  They’re more positive.  (Also, notice I don’t just complain about priests not teaching mental prayer.  I try to teach it myself on that series.)

In light of all this, you might be surprised that I am about to promote two movies made by Protestants about my patron, King David.  Barring the Chosen, I keep finding that Protestants are making better movies than Catholics.  How is this possible?  Probably because Protestantism is a less-offensive heresy than modernism.  Yes, you read that correctly.  As modernism is “the synthesis of all heresies,” you should not be surprised if even corny Protestants can make better movies than Catholics who don’t know their own faith.  As the old phrase goes, corruptio optimi pessima, the corruption of the best is the worst.

Angel Studios released a cartoon version last year (2025) of King David simply titled David (above) grossing over $70M at this time of this article’s production.  You will notice below that my pros greatly outweigh my cons to that new animated movie on the Old Testament hero.

Here’s the pros to Angel‘s David:

  • The movie is very true to the Sacred Scriptures, both historically and theologically.
  • When artistic liberties are taken in regards to filling-in extra scenes, the decisions by the writer, director and producer seem to gel with a true sense of the inerrancy of Scripture.
  • Masculine strength is finally seen on the big-screen in David as both shepherd and king.
  • King David continually relies on God’s help, not his own strength or wits. All glory given to David by the Israelites is bounced back to God. Trust in God is a major theme of the movie.
  • The script is clear in a way that is pleasing to both children and adults, while still remaining child-friendly.
  • The characters are very bold.  Good and evil are clearly delineated (unlike most children’s adventure films over the last two decades.)
  • Religious musicals are usually sweet enough to give you a tooth-ache.  But the music in David is very moving without being sappy.  I’m ashamed to write that the final song about not being afraid brought me to tears in the movie theatre!

Here’s the cons to Angel‘s David:

  • In the Bible, the shepherd David actually kills the lion in 1 Kings 17 in the DRB (or 1 Sam 17 in Protestant numberings) but in the movie, he only wounds the lion and then strangely sets it free.
  • For much of the movie, David has hair tinted slightly purple.  It’s oddly the same color that elderly women from Spain currently dye their hair!

In 2025, Wonder Project released House of David Season One (above) and Season Two gaining a combined 40 million viewers.  Again, you will notice below that my pros greatly outweigh my cons to the streaming series to this version of King David.

Here’s the pros to House of David:

  • The series is very true to the Sacred Scriptures, both historically and theologically.
  • When artistic liberties are taken in regards to filling-in extra scenes, the decisions by the writer, director and producer seem to gel with a true sense of the inerrancy of Scripture.
  • One example of this is that Saul’s unstable character is explained by way of him being possessed (or at least under a high-level diabolical obsession) precisely because of his decision to worship neighboring tribes’ gods/demons. (You would never see Catholic movie-makers make such a courageous or accurate move these days of false-ecumenism.)
  • There are character developments and plot twists not found in Scripture, but again—not against Scripture.  For example, Goliath is portrayed as a member of the Nephilim (cf Num 13) who are a race of giants from several centuries prior to David.
  • The script is very passionate without making the actors feel the need to overact.
  • The actor playing King David is bold but digestible in his presentation of our Biblical hero.
  • The Biblical aspects of romance surrounding the Kingdom of Israel are obviously important to the politics of that time, but the makers of the movie did not include R-rated scenes (at least in Seasons One and Two.)

Here’s the cons to House of David:

  • Some of the violence may not be appropriate for children.  But even that violence is not too gory.
  • The actor playing David occasionally shows whiny self-awareness that we never find in the true Biblical account of King David.

Thanks for reading.  I will put future Movie Reviews in my Life Update section, recently renamed Updates.