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For those of us who are suckers for a road movie, the charm of a classic hero-on-a-righteous-path story is endlessly alluring.
The lead character walks off their past, confronts their true mistakes, transforms into a new self, discovers the meaning of life. The road propels us forward, perhaps forces us to confront what we’re running from, or leads us exactly where we’re meant to be. Whether it’s wanting to see the wide world and to contribute something to it, achieve transformation of the self, or make sense of their relationship to God and to others, the road leads them where they’re meant to be. The journey makes us. Here are five road movies to help us on our own faith journeys.
The Muppet Movie (1979)
Directed by James Frawley and written by Muppet Show alumni Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns, The Muppet Movie is the first film to feature Jim Henson’s Muppet characters.
While strumming his banjo in a swamp, Kermit the Frog is approached by a row-boating TV producer who tells him he should make his mark in the movie industry.
Kermit decides to embark on a cross-country road trip to Hollywood, where he meets a ragtag group of characters, including Fozzie Bear, the Great Gonzo and Miss Piggie. Seeing something unique in everyone he meets, Kermit invites them all to join in his journey to Hollywood. Along the way, the gang witnesses corruption, temptation and a villainous frog leg restaurateur who wants to use Kermit to expand his restaurant dynasty.
Like the movie producer, the restaurant owner sees something intrinsically special about Kermit—but wants to market it. Kermit doesn’t seek fame for self-gratifying reasons. Over and over, he says that he wants to achieve fame so that he can make people happy. “I’ve got a dream too,” he says. “But it’s about singing and dancing and making people happy. The kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with.”
The movie exudes optimism and the kind of joy that only comes when you’ve found exactly where you’re meant to be. For Kermit, that means using his God-given talent for uplifting his friends and choosing them above all else.
Nomadland (2020)
Fern is a 60-something, down-on-her-luck woman stuck in a brief period of unemployment and homelessness. After the death of her husband and the loss of her job during the Great Recession, she takes to the road. She picks up odd seasonal jobs and travels western America in a campervan.
As Fern meets other nomads in desolate places along the way, she seeks kinship in their loneliness and affliction. Fern finds community and intrinsic good in everyone she encounters, promising them that there’s still a reason to hope.
The film, written and directed by Chloé Zhao (and adapted from Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century), asks viewers what home means when you lose the people you love and don’t have a place to put down roots.
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
When 7-year-old Olive Hoover makes it into the final round of the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, her offbeat and chaotic family pile into their yellow and sputtering Volkswagen van and heads to California. The Hoovers include are a motivational speaker father, an exhausted mother, an uncle who has recently attempted suicide, a grandfather battling addiction and a brother who’s taken a vow of silence.
In the film, directed by Jonathan Dayon and Valerie Faris and written by Michael Arndt, Olive dreams of greatness while her family members deal with their own versions of personal failure. The Hoover family, like all of us, is broken and in need of a generous heaping of grace. On the road, the family is forced to trade in their visions for the future, confront truths they’ve fled from and learn a different kind of truth.
Sometimes the answer at the end of a journey isn’t quite what we’re anticipating. But the tradeoff is understanding each other, and what makes us tick, a bit more.
Into the Wild (2007)
Writer-director Sean Penn’s adaptation of the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer tells the tragic, real-life story of Christopher McCandless.
Tired of what he sees as the moral corruption and wealth of the world he grew up in, McCandless decides to donate all his belongings, burn his cash and abandon his car. He calls himself Alexander Supertramp and embarks alone into the vast and desolate Alaskan wilderness. He seeks freedom and self-reliance while pushing away those who care for him.
McCandless sets up camp in an abandoned bus and spends his final days fighting for his identity and fighting for survival. He reads, journals and lives off the land, in awe of the wildness that he gets to participate in. As winter grows increasingly harsh, McCandless comes to stark realizations about the meaning of life and is faced with his own mortality.
When we’re at both the edge of ourselves and the edge of the world, the only way back is through the help of others. As believers, we recognize that we can’t make it in the world entirely on our own—we need the grace of God to sustain us. Here we find forgiveness. Here we find home.
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
In director Walter Salles’ Motorcycle Diaries—adapted by José Rivera from Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s memoir of the same name—Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado embark on a motorcycle road trip across early-1950s South America, on their way to serve at a leper colony.
Along the way, Guevara encounters droves of people and breathtaking sights, recognizing the intrinsic beauty waiting to be admired while also recognizing deep spiritual and physical hunger in the world. The poverty and division the friends witness is at times overwhelming for them.
The Motorcycle Diaries provides a glimpse into Guevara’s life before becoming the famed guerrilla revolutionary and highlights the dispossession he witnessed in the continent that propelled him into becoming “Che.” This slice-of-life biopic focuses on the journey necessary for determining who we become.
The road makes us a little more worldly and a little more compassionate. It helps us recognize that everyone is a child of God. To be part of the family of Christians means reaching those whom society has cast aside. To be a believer on a sacred path means that we must not remain passive in admit injustice, when the earth cries out.
All films listed are available to stream or rent on demand.
