{"id":50633,"date":"2025-07-20T03:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T09:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=50633"},"modified":"2025-07-15T21:49:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T03:49:35","slug":"whats-the-best-work-in-mormon-cinema-the-rotten-tomatoes-verdict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/07\/whats-the-best-work-in-mormon-cinema-the-rotten-tomatoes-verdict\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the Best Work in \u201cMormon Cinema\u201d? The Rotten Tomatoes Verdict"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

For the most part the Rotten Tomatoes score for a movie is a reasonably good heuristic for quality. In terms of my own tastes, if it scores really high on both critic and user rating it\u2019s typically a solid film. There are of some biases of course. IMHO movies in the older canon have inflated RT ratings, movies dealing with social issues have inflated critic, but not user, ratings\u2013and conversely movies that come down on the \u201cwrong side\u201d of a social issue (basically any Dave Chapelle piece) have artificially deflated critic ratings. Finally, starchy formulaic movies often have inflated user, but not critic, ratings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These carve-outs notwithstanding, however, I\u2019ve found that simply adding the critic and user scores together correlates pretty strongly with how good I think a movie is as long as there are enough ratings to give it a large enough sample size.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I went ahead and looked up the RT scores for the different \u201cMormon cinema\u201d works. I largely <\/span>drew on this page<\/span><\/a>. However, it omitted some of the really big heavy hitters that, while addressing Mormon themes, characters, and settings, are not traditionally considered to be part of \u201cMormon cinema,\u201d (e.g. <\/span>Angels in America <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>America Primeval) <\/span><\/i>probably because they weren\u2019t made by people with a Latter-day Saint background, or don\u2019t have a genetic relationship to the regional Utah movement that can be traced to Dutcher\u2019s earlier work. Nonetheless, they still address Mormon themes heavily enough that I\u2019m including them. I\u2019m not including movies that only have user ratings; they have to be well-known enough to have elicited at least some critic ratings. Not that some of these aren\u2019t good (e.g. I\u2019ve heard 17 Miracles<\/em> is decent), but it\u2019s just harder to compare.<\/span><\/p>\n

So with that, below are Mormon cinema films rank-ordered according to this methodology.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It places <\/span>New York Doll<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>God\u2019s Army: States of Grace<\/span><\/i> as the top Mormon-made films, which makes sense to me. <\/span>States of Grace<\/span><\/i> is a relatively unknown gem. I haven\u2019t seen <\/span>New York Doll<\/span><\/i>, but it sounds like a very moving film, and I am putting it on my to-watch list. Angels in America<\/em> is higher unsurprisingly, as it’s a darling of particular New York drama\/cinephile types (and no, not every invocation of “New York types” is a Jew reference), and it is<\/em> good, but I actually think States of Grace<\/em> is better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course my methodology completely breaks down with <\/span>Under the Banner of Heaven <\/span><\/i>(my earlier review <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>). I\u2019m fine with Hollywoodization as long their admit that they are Hollywoodizing it (e.g. the producer of <\/span>American Primeval<\/span><\/i>), but I just can\u2019t stomach it when they claim that they are being scrupulous with historical and cultural accuracy but have Brigham Young and Emma Smith conspiring to kill Joseph, a Stake President lauding Native American allyship in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and dozens of other lol moments. They somehow landed a couple A-listers, and that\u2019s just about it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The rest of the rank orderings generally make sense, although I\u2019d place Brigham City<\/em> higher, Big Love<\/em> above The Best Two Years<\/em>, and I have yet to see Wagon Master<\/em> or Heretic <\/em>(I hadn’t heard of Wagon Master<\/em> before doing this); I also haven\u2019t seen any of the lower-ranked ones, but I\u2019m not inclined to spend the time to.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Title<\/span><\/td>\nYear<\/span><\/td>\nCombined Score<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Angels in America<\/span><\/td>\n2003<\/span><\/td>\n182<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
New York Doll<\/span><\/td>\n2005<\/span><\/td>\n179<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
God’s Army II: States of Grace<\/span><\/td>\n2005<\/span><\/td>\n169<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Under the Banner of Heaven<\/span><\/td>\n2022<\/span><\/td>\n169<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wagon Master<\/span><\/td>\n1950<\/span><\/td>\n167<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Heretic<\/span><\/td>\n2024<\/span><\/td>\n167<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Other Side of Heaven 2<\/span><\/td>\n2019<\/span><\/td>\n166<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Best Two Years<\/span><\/td>\n2003<\/span><\/td>\n165<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Big Love<\/span><\/td>\n2006<\/span><\/td>\n162<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
America Primeval<\/span><\/td>\n2025<\/span><\/td>\n159<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Saratov Approach<\/span><\/td>\n2013<\/span><\/td>\n154<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Brigham City<\/span><\/td>\n2001<\/span><\/td>\n151<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Mobsters and Mormons<\/span><\/td>\n2005<\/span><\/td>\n151<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Once I was a Beehive<\/span><\/td>\n2015<\/span><\/td>\n149<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Believer<\/span><\/td>\n2018<\/span><\/td>\n147<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Saints and Soldiers<\/span><\/td>\n2003<\/span><\/td>\n141<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The R.M.<\/span><\/td>\n2003<\/span><\/td>\n137<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8: Mormon Proposition<\/span><\/td>\n2010<\/span><\/td>\n137<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Freetown<\/span><\/td>\n2015<\/span><\/td>\n126<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
God’s Army<\/span><\/td>\n2000<\/span><\/td>\n124<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Singles Ward<\/span><\/td>\n2002<\/span><\/td>\n123<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pride and Prejudice a Latter-day Comedy<\/span><\/td>\n2003<\/span><\/td>\n122<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Latter-days<\/span><\/td>\n2004<\/span><\/td>\n122<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Paint Your Wagon<\/span><\/td>\n1969<\/span><\/td>\n113<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Forever Strong<\/span><\/td>\n2008<\/span><\/td>\n105<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Other Side of Heaven<\/span><\/td>\n2002<\/span><\/td>\n104<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Work and the Glory<\/span><\/td>\n2005<\/span><\/td>\n102<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Legend of Johnny Lingo<\/span><\/td>\n2003<\/span><\/td>\n85<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Secret lives of Mormon Wives<\/span><\/td>\n2024<\/span><\/td>\n73<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Church Ball<\/span><\/td>\n2006<\/span><\/td>\n56<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Book of Mormon Movie, Vol. 1<\/span><\/td>\n2003<\/span><\/td>\n39<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the most part the Rotten Tomatoes score for a movie is a reasonably good heuristic for quality. In terms of my own tastes, if it scores really high on both critic and user rating it\u2019s typically a solid film. There are of some biases of course. IMHO movies in the older canon have inflated RT ratings, movies dealing with social issues have inflated critic, but not user, ratings\u2013and conversely movies that come down on the \u201cwrong side\u201d of a social issue (basically any Dave Chapelle piece) have artificially deflated critic ratings. Finally, starchy formulaic movies often have inflated user, but not critic, ratings.\u00a0 These carve-outs notwithstanding, however, I\u2019ve found that simply adding the critic and user scores together correlates pretty strongly with how good I think a movie is as long as there are enough ratings to give it a large enough sample size.\u00a0 So I went ahead and looked up the RT scores for the different \u201cMormon cinema\u201d works. I largely drew on this page. However, it omitted some of the really big heavy hitters that, while addressing Mormon themes, characters, and settings, are not traditionally considered to be part of \u201cMormon cinema,\u201d (e.g. Angels in America and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":50636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1254],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Nyd-poster.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50633"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50749,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50633\/revisions\/50749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}