Films fea­tur­ing supreme beings – the good, the bad and the ungodly

Typ­i­cal isn’t it, you wait all year for a film about God, and then two come along at once. Lat­er this month sees the arrival of God’s Not Dead 2, star­ring Melis­sa Joan Hart as a teacher try­ing to dri­ve home that point. Hart can rest easy because, accord­ing to new French com­e­dy The Brand New Tes­ta­ment, God is cur­rent­ly resid­ing in Brussels.

In Jaco Van Dormael’s film He is a can­tan­ker­ous and vin­dic­tive man who bul­lies his wife and daugh­ter and spends his days in a room filled to the rafters with fil­ing cards, com­pil­ing pet­ty rules guar­an­teed to dri­ve the human race to despair. God is played with glee­ful rel­ish by Benoît Poelvo­orde (the sar­don­ic hit­man in the cult Bel­gian mock­u­men­tary Man Bites Dog), in a grub­by dress­ing gown and with a per­ma­nent scowl. When God’s iden­ti­ty if revealed a mere mor­tal remarks, ​“He’s not how I expect­ed him to look.” Here are six oth­er on-screen incar­na­tions of God that don’t con­form to type.

In Ter­ry Gilliam’s fan­ta­sy favourite, a group of trea­sure-steal­ing, time-trav­el­ling dwarves comes face to face with the cre­ator of the uni­verse, the ​‘Supreme Being’ – a deity whose awe­some ​“tire­some man­i­fes­ta­tion” pre­cludes the appear­ance of a rather dap­per and dis­tin­guished look­ing Ralph Richard­son in a three piece suit, declar­ing, ​“One thing I can’t stand is mess.” You’ll hate plan­et Earth, Supreme Being.

Did Grou­cho Marx’s irrev­er­ent por­tray­al of God as a dope smok­ing mob­ster with a super­mod­el girl­friend, who lives on yacht and orders Mafia hits, cause out­rage among church groups when it was released? Unfor­tu­nate­ly not, and so this bizarre counter-cul­tur­al spoof from Otto Pre­minger sank with­out a trace.

Ryan Reynolds likes play­ing char­ac­ters who aren’t entire­ly what they seem. In the upcom­ing Crim­i­nal he’s the tit­u­lar lead with a dead CIA agent’s mem­o­ries and skills implant­ed in him. Sim­i­lar­ly in last year’s Self/​less, he’s a healthy young body a bil­lion­aire decides to put his con­scious­ness into. In body-swap com­e­dy The Change-Up he’s the mar­ried high-achiev­er turned care­free ladies man. In Crim­i­nal, released this week, he’s the tit­u­lar lead with a dead CIA agent’s mem­o­ries. In The Nines, Reynolds plays an actor who might just be the supreme being. A Hol­ly­wood actor who thinks he’s God? Now that’s not hard to believe.

In Lars von Trier’s typ­i­cal­ly intense dra­ma, devout Calvin­ist Bess (Emi­ly Wat­son) con­vers­es with God in her local church, actu­al­ly voic­ing His replies. When God answers one of her prayers with trag­ic, unfore­seen con­se­quences, Bess is plunged into a mael­strom of guilt and sex­u­al degra­da­tion, end­ing in an astound­ing act of bru­tal self fla­gel­la­tion. More tea, vicar?

Tox­ie faces down his evil self, the Nox­ious Avenger, in this trashy Tro­ma sequel. There are cameos from Corey Feld­man, Eli Roth, Lem­my, Stan Lee and most notably ​‘Hank the Angry Drunk­en Dwarf’ as God, who helps Tox­ie out of a par­al­lel uni­verse. Best known for appear­ing on Howard Stern’s radio show, Hank pre­sides over a no expense spent set of Heav­en, and por­trays God as angry and, erm, drunk. Hank died a year after mak­ing the film, but no word on whether he ever found out just how accu­rate his per­for­mance was.

In this enter­tain­ing music biopic Steve Coogan plays the late Tony Wil­son, the irre­press­ible boss of leg­endary Man­ches­ter music out­fit Fac­to­ry Records. After a few puffs of strong Bar­ba­di­an gan­ga, Wil­son has a rooftop encounter with God, also played by Coogan – with a full beard, robes and a strong Lan­cashire accent. God declares that one of the Fac­to­ry artists, Shaun Ryder, is the great­est poet since Yeats, and slags off Mick Huck­nall. It’s enough to make any­one a believer.

The Brand New Tes­ta­ment is released 15 April; God’s Not Dead 2 is out 29 April.