Last Updated on 30 October 2025

I searched the Internet for lists of the best atheist or atheist-friendly movies of all time. Criteria included the movies being ranked, not just listed, and generally created by groups, whether teams or committees or based on general public voting (like Ranker.com).

While there are many religious or specifically Christian films, there are also films that harbor themes of unbelief or narratives that foster religious doubt. They are a much smaller movie genre than those religiously-inspired, but only on account of how recently they have started being made.

I was able to find 13 lists. I took the 13 lists and added all their content into a spreadsheet, noting the rank of every film. I ended up averaging the rankings each movie got (there were 42 that were on at least 2 lists) and dividing that average by a factor of the number of lists that movie was on. The lowest score meant a high ranking average on many lists. The complete spreadsheet is attached at the bottom.

The movies that were on the most lists (out of 13) were:

  • Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) – 8 lists
  • The Invention of Lying (2009) – 8 lists
  • The Sunset Limited (2011) – 7 lists
  • Agora (2009) – 7 lists
  • Creation (2009) – 6 lists
  • The Ledge (2011) – 6 lists
  • Contact (1997) – 6 lists

Here are links to the lists I used along with dates the lists were created:

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