5 Bible Movies about Ruth
Movies
Audio By Carbonatix
By G. Connor Salter, Movies
1. Duke and the Great Pie War (2005)
The VeggieTales series had a knack for retelling Bible stories in silly ways without losing sight of the original lesson. Their entry on the story of Ruth is one of their funniest
Here, the story of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz becomes a medieval comedy. Moab and Israel become two countries that have been at war in the past. Sweet Petunia and Nona (Ruth and Naomi) are refugees returning home after the conflict. A duke falls in love with Sweet Petunia but needs to challenge another lord connected to Nona’s estate before he can marry her.
The movie leans heavily into slapstick comedy (cream pies flying, jousting going horribly wrong) and romantic comedy (the duke embarrassing himself as he tries to impress Sweet Petunia). However, the romance underlines how the story of Ruth may be one of the most romantic stories we see in the Old Testament. The emphasis on the Boaz character challenging someone who isn’t taking care of Naomi’s estate highlights how much this is a story about inheritance and the obligation to care for family.
A cute, entertaining look at the story of Ruth for children.
Further Reading: 3 Lessons from Ruth’s Heart of Gratitude
Photo Credit:©Big Idea Entertainment
2. Ruth (1937)
Recommended for Kids: Yes
One of the shortest movies on this list, this 37-minute movie was unavailable for many years but is now available through Vision Video—online and on a two-movie DVD including an early Bible movie about Queen Esther.
Like many lesser-known Bible movies from the 1930s, it feels more like a Bible pageant set to film than a proper movie. The dialogue is filled with moments where characters give stagey dialogue that lets the audience in on what they need to know—Ruth and her sister remembering their dead husbands as they go to tell Noami the famine is over, things like that. The dialogue offers one or two diversions from the biblical text. Still, the additions all involve characters talking about something implied in the text: Boaz receiving property that Ruth’s late husband inherited if he marries into Naomi’s family.
While the presentation style makes everything a bit flat and stagey, it does have some advantages. The dialogue gives readers everything they need to know, making it a good option for showing people the story for the first time. The fact that the movie doesn’t go much beyond the original text makes it a short, compact look at the Bible story.
It may not be the most exciting movie about Ruth, but it’s one of the shortest and most accurate.
Further Reading: What Is the Story of Ruth and Naomi?
Photo Credit: Fan image created by G. Connor Salter
3. Sight and Sound: Ruth (2006)
Sight and Sound is well-known for its stage shows based on Bible stories. These shows are cute enough for the whole family and offer plenty of spectacle. Shows about Samson feature huge gates that Samson carries on his shoulders, and shows about Joseph may feature Joseph floating above the audience as he dreams about stars bowing down to him.
The filmed version of the Sight and Sound show about Ruth may not be as fun as seeing the live show, but it’s well-filmed and shows all the familiar traits (the humor, the careful explanation of the Bible story’s themes). As Noah Lynch discusses, there are a few plausible fictional details in the production, mostly to bring out something we don’t often consider about the story. From the short section about Ruth marrying into Naomi’s family, we know that Ruth came from a pagan country, Moab. This production imagines those early scenes, including the pagan idolatry that would have surrounded Ruth in Moab—idolatry she must have struggled to give up before she became the woman who said to Naomi, “Your god, my god.”
An entertaining, family-friendly, epic-scale look at the biblical story.
Further Reading: What Does the Bible Tell Us about Ruth’s First Husband?
Photo Credit:©Sight and Sound TV
4. The Story of Ruth (1960)
If the 1937 Ruth is a short, simple look at Ruth’s story, this 1960 technicolor movie is one of the longest, most elaborate adaptations.
Since the old-school biblical epics were as much about costumes and melodrama as getting the story right, there’s a long first act about Ruth being selected as a child sacrifice for Moabite deities. When a surprising twist (God’s grace?) rescues her from death, she grows up to become the woman who does what her culture finds highly strange: marrying a foreigner, then leaving her gods and home behind her.
The Story of Ruth may expand on the biblical text in some creative ways, but it never does it in ridiculous ways that contradict the real story. Like the Sight and Sound movie, the extended first act about Ruth’s life before coming to Israel has some advantages. In this case, it makes room for scenes of her meeting and falling in love with Naomi’s son. The emphasis on Ruth’s first love reminds us that Ruth was a widow when she met Boaz, and while we assume they loved each other, it was a sweet ending to a story with a bitter beginning.
Less excessive than many biblical epics, and still worth watching decades later.
Further Reading: What Ruth's Story Can Teach Us about Suffering and Sorrow
Photo Credit:©Twentieth Century Studios
5. Testament: Ruth (1996)
The 1996 show Testament: The Bible in Animation isn’t as easy to find as Bible shows like VeggieTales or The Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible. However, it’s well worth seeking out because its nine episodes adapted major Bible stories with more care, better animation, and usually more fidelity to the text than almost any other Bible cartoon series.
The episode on Ruth is especially good because it doesn’t simplify the story too much for viewers. Some scenes from this story often get left out—like the other kinsman-redeemer giving Boaz his sandal, a way for people in their culture to show a legal transaction had occurred, that he was giving up his legal right to the land to Boaz. This adaptation includes these funny cultural details, expecting children who watch the episode to ask the right questions or know about it already. It doesn’t talk down to anyone in the audience.
While the simple stop-motion animation may not offer detailed facial reactions like in Duke and the Great Pie War, the animation captures Ruth and Naomi's sadness from the start. The plot also strongly emphasizes the risk (Elimelech’s family carrying little as they move to Moab) and the sadness (Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah watching their husbands be buried). The production may not have the budget or spectacle of some other movies about Ruth, but the careful plotting captures Ruth’s grief and her leap of faith in a compelling way without too many frills.
A beautifully-told, underrated adaption of the story.
Further Reading: Ruth: Sex, Race, and God’s Sovereignty at Work
Photo Credit:©BBC Wales/S4C/Christmas Films
