What if watching movies could be a spiritual discipline? For one film critic, great films became guiding lights—an escape from fear-based religion into richer experiences of imagination, beauty, community, and faith.
In this Radix Live conversation, we are delighted to welcome Jeffrey Overstreet to discuss his beautifully reflective new book, published in May 2026. Part memoir, part film criticism, and part spiritual testimony, the book traces Overstreet’s journey from a fear-based religious upbringing into a richer and more expansive vision of faith—one shaped, surprisingly enough, by movies. As always, there will also be time for questions from our live audience.
Setting the Scene
Growing up in a bubble of churches and Christian schools, Jeffrey Overstreet was taught by example to condemn “worldly” art and culture as predatory and poisonous. Yet the flicker of light from cinema screens proved a temptation too powerful to resist. And what he found there was quite the opposite of what he’d been told: he found God at play in ten thousand theatres.
Through deeply personal and eye-opening stories, Overstreet invites us to retrace a revelatory journey: from Pinocchio to My Neighbor Totoro, from Disney’s Hundred Acre Wood to The Tree of Life, from The Black Stallion to Blade Runner, from Dead Poets Society and Do the Right Thing to Moonrise Kingdom and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.
Rather than destroying Overstreet’s faith, movies deepen it. They free him to answer Scripture’s instruction—not only to love the world, but to learn from it. Great cinema invites us to hear a holy voice in the beauty of the natural world and to break free from distortions of Jesus’ teaching. Guided by the lights of screens and Scripture, the author of Through a Screen Darkly and the fantasy novel Auralia’s Colors testifies to a God who moves in mysterious ways, calling us into a life of courageous creativity.
Jeffrey Overstreet is an American novelist, film critic, and creative writing professor whose work sits at the intersection of art, faith, and storytelling. He writes the long-running site Jeffrey Overstreet, formerly Looking Closer, where he covers film, music, literature, and spiritual reflection. He is the author of several books, including the memoir Through a Screen Darkly and the fantasy novels Auralia’s Colors, Cyndere’s Midnight, Raven’s Ladder, and The Ale Boy’s Feast. Overstreet teaches English and writing at Seattle Pacific University, where he earned both his BA and MFA, and he has been recognized for his criticism by outlets such as The New Yorker, TIME, The Seattle Times, IMAGE, and Christianity Today.
To learn more about Jeffrey, visit
Website: JeffreyOverstreet.com
Email: overstreetreviews@gmail.com
Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/joverstreet
Instagram: instagram.com/overstreetreviews/
Facebook: facebook.com/overstreetonline/
BlueSky: bsky.app/profile/overstreet.bsky.social
And for his books, check out
Lost & Found in the Cathedral of Cinema
Special copies signed by Overstreet and by Matt Zoller Seitz (who wrote the foreword) available
Through a Screen Darkly
NOVELS: The Auralia Thread (four-volume series)
Auralia’s Colors
Cyndere’s Midnight
Raven’s Ladder
The Ale Boy’s Feast
Names mentioned:
Anne Doe Overstreet, Luci Shaw, Wes Anderson, Jason Overstreet, Broadleaf Books (publisher), Seattle Pacific University, Christianity Today, Emily Dickinson, Martin Scorsese, Alyssa Wilkinson, Steven Greydanus, Terrence Malick, C. S. Lewis, Jim Henson, Spike Lee, Abderrahmane Sissako, Frederick Buechner, Hayao Miyazaki, Lauren Wilford, Yoda, Aslan, Tash, Simone Weil, Frank Burch Brown, Madeleine L’Engle, Eugene Peterson, Graham Greene, Craig Detweiler, Josh Larsen.
Books mentioned:
Through a Screen Darkly (by Jeffrey Overstreet)
Heart of Darkness (by Joseph Conrad)
Watership Down (by Richard Adams)
Walking on Water (by Madeleine L’Engle)
The Message (by Eugene Peterson)
The Power and the Glory (by Graham Greene)
Fear Not!: A Christian Appreciation of Horror Movies (by Josh Larsen)
Films / television / other works mentioned:
Pinocchio
The Muppet Show
Watership Down
Moonrise Kingdom
My Neighbor Totoro
Do the Right Thing
The Tree of Life
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Sesame Street
Timbuktu
Star Wars
The Empire Strikes Back
One Battle After Another
Babette’s Feast
The Exorcist