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Is Joan of Arc with Leelee Sobviesky (sp?) a good one?

I only saw bits and pieces of it a while back on TV, but from what I can remember, it seems to fall within the same category of the recent 'Therese': nothing wrong with it, as such, but not really doing its subject justice.

I haven't watched any of the earlier movies, but 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928) and 'Joan of Arc' (1948) are supposed to be pretty good from what I've read.

Speaking as someone that has seen in excess of 3,000 films in his life, the pickings are slim in the realm of films that are both inoffensive to Christian sensibilities and containing sound doctrine.  With a few notable exceptions, you're really limited to the first 50 years of film or so.

Personally, my favorite film (both among good Catholic films and film as a whole) is the The Passion of the Christ, which is unfairly maligned as glorifying violence, when in truth it merely is an unvarnished examination of the immeasurable sufferings of Our Savior for our sakes, couched in a representation of the Roman execution that is mostly accurate.  It's also one of the most gorgeous films I've ever seen, shot by Caleb Deschanel (who also shot such favorites of mine as The Natural and The Right Stuff).

Bells of St. Mary and Song of Bernadette were perennial classics in my home growing up (my mother loved Bing Crosby and had most of his films), and The Passion of the Joan of Arc is a wonderful silent film that's available on DVD from Criterion, one of the few wholesome films from a purveyor of generally humanist or risqué cinema.

I agree that "Therese" was lacking in depth and strong depiction of Catholicism.  Not showing the family attending Mass was a serious error.  Also, I don't know about such things, but the interior of the Carmelite monastery didn't seem appropriate to the time and place to me.  Am I incorrect in this perception?  

The other thing that bothered me was that the same actress, a young woman in her early 20's, was used to depict St. Therese as a child of about 11, as well as through her teens, until her death.  It was really hard to believe that the woman was a child during those scenes.

"Bernadette" was fairly good.  The musical score, like many of that era, was exceedingly bombastic at points and annoying.  The scene crossing the river, as another poster mentioned, has the girls, and St. Bernadette, hiking their skirts up much farther than necessary, the water barely above the ankles, if I remember correctly.  

I also like "Going My Way" and "The Bells of St. Mary's" .. However, Bing Crosby's priest being the younger "with it" type, who's there to move the ol' fuddy duddy priest along, as times have changed, and all, was somewhat unfortunate, although obviously accurate with what came later.

"The Fighting Sullivans" is very good .. I don't think anything objectionable, unless you have an objection to WWII...  Pat O'Brien played a great priest  in several films.  "The Fighting 69th" also pretty good for that reason.  Overblown patriotic fervor notwithstanding.