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In cinema, we’re able to see ourselves in stories and find spiritual truths that help guide us.
From clear biblical analogies in the lands of Narnia or Middle Earth to less obvious ones in animated tales of time travel and road trips, the big screen is alive and holy. When some films conclude and the credits roll, their ending songs are almost as heart-wrenching and true as the movies themselves. These songs pull together the films’ emotional arcs and tie together the messages of their stories. They can also be spiritually fulfilling and operate as a benediction of sorts.
Here are five end-credit songs that wish us well on our journeys long after the credits stop rolling.
“The Call” by Regina Spektor, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
In Prince Caspian, the second entry in the Chronicles of Narnia series, we meet up with the Pevensie children, called back to Narnia when it needs to be defended.
As the film comes to a close, the four siblings must return to England. They have tasted that familiar sense of eternity and peace and must now give it up for the pains of their reality.
The credits roll and Regina Spektor sings: “Just because everything’s changing / Doesn’t mean it’s never been this way before / All you can do is try to know who your friends are / As you head off to the war.”
There’s a deep grief in glimpsing eternity and then being called back without knowing when you can return. Yet there’s also a persistent hope that homesickness for our spiritual and physical home leads right to our creator.
“I’ll come back / When you call me / No need to say goodbye,” Spektor sings.
Through “The Call,” the audience is reminded that we will someday be called home. Our eternities are up ahead, patiently waiting for us. We must simply answer the call when it’s our time.
“Little Wonders” by Rob Thomas, Meet the Robinsons (2007)
A heartbreaking and cathartic end-credit song, Rob Thomas’ “Little Wonders” is at once nostalgic for the places we’ve been and hopeful for what might be.
Throughout Disney’s animated Meet the Robinsons, we watch Lewis, an orphan with a mind for inventing, struggle to find a family and a sense of belonging. After a trip to the dazzling and inventive future, Lewis returns with a sense of resolve and understands that his place in the world is waiting expectantly for him so long as he keeps moving forward.
As the song’s chorus begins, we feel this too: “Our lives are made / In these small hours / These little wonders / These twists and turns of fate / Time falls away / But these small hours / These small hours / Still remain.”
Our vocations, our God-given purposes, will eventually become clear. But it isn’t up to us to determine the timing.
For many viewers, the song operates as an encouragement to trust in God’s plans for our lives. We can’t begin to fathom what God has designed our futures to be—and that’s kind of the point. We must remain patient in the unknown and allow time to pass. Along the way, we discover the things that create a spark, guiding us to our path and our place in the family of God.
“May It Be” by Enya and Roma Ryan, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The path ahead seems perilous and long when the first entry in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy concludes. We have followed the titular fellowship on the beginning of their journey to defeat ultimate evil in their realm. The movie ends with an uncertain path forward and a lengthy journey still to go.
The Grammy-nominated “May It Be” offers a closing prayer and blessing for our journeys ahead. Enya sings, “May it be an evening star / Shines down upon you / May it be when darkness falls / Your heart will be true / You walk a lonely road / Oh, how far you are from home.”
The song speaks to our duty to one another and how we look to God for light amid the darkness of the world. For Christians, the Lord is our evening star that shines brightly through dark days and guides us on our ways.
“Carried Me With You” by Brandi Carlile and Phil and Tim Hanseroth, Onward (2020)
Part of being human means grappling with immeasurable loss. In Disney’s animated Onward, set in a fantasy world populated by mythical creatures, we meet Barley and Ian, two brothers who lost their father at a young age.
Both brothers require lots of grace as they navigate forgiveness and grief on a journey to momentarily resurrect their father for the chance to say a few parting words to him. Throughout the movie, the pair learn the value of sacrificial love and of laying down one’s own desires to uplift each other.
In its end-credit song, Brandi Carlisle sings, “You carried me with you / From the highest of the peaks / To the darkness of the blue / I was just too blind to see / Like a lighthouse in a storm / You were always guiding me.”
The song highlights loss and the power of family but also nods to God being a lighthouse through our most clouded times.
“This Is a Life” by Son Lux, Mitski and David Byrne, Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Everything Everywhere All at Once is a love letter to the mundane and the things that make up our days.
In its end-credit theme, the band Son Lux—joined by Mitski and David Byrne—tells us, “This is a life / Free from destiny / Not only what we sow / Not only what we show.”
God doesn’t ask us to arrive at a precipice and reach a grand conclusion about the world and our place in it. Perhaps all we need to do in our life of faith is to lean into our smallness amid the cosmic mysteries our creator has set in motion.
The universe is strange and spectacular, and it is simply left to us to marvel at the grandness swirling around us. Like the birds Jesus names in Matthew 6:26, we don’t need to spend our time worrying about what our future days will look like. We can relish taxes and piles of laundry and find holy mystery in them.
