For most of the last few decades, “Christian entertainment” was a genre you watched out of obligation, not excitement. It was the cinematic equivalent of a church potluck: earnest, familiar and—let’s be honest—usually a little bland.
The phrase conjured up images of low-budget movies with wooden acting, music that sounded like a youth group retreat and TV shows that felt more like sermons than stories. If you weren’t already in the club, you weren’t tuning in.
But in 2025, the punchline has become a headline. Christian movies, TV shows and even music are not just getting better—they’re breaking out of the church bubble and landing on the main stage. For the first time in a long time, people who don’t care about church are actually watching and sticking around. The numbers don’t lie and neither does the cultural buzz.
“This is the most exciting time to be in Christian music,” said Holly Zabka, president of Provident, a Sony subsidiary dedicated to Christian music. “I don’t think we’ve ever been in this season of opportunity.”
Worship songs are showing up on mainstream Spotify playlists and artists like Forrest Frank and Brandon Lake are charting alongside secular acts. Indie Christian rapper nobigdyl. won a top honor at NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest two years in a row. The lines are blurring and the old “Christian music is just a knockoff” argument is losing steam.
“I think people already have a bias that Christian music is going to be a little bit subpar on the melody, packaging, rhythm, presentation,” nobigdyl. said. “So as soon as they see something that’s excellent, they’re assuming okay, ‘This isn’t Christian music, because it’s good.’ But we’re showing them that Christian music has been excellent, they just weren’t listening to it.”
UNITED worship leader Joel Houston sees the same shift.
“There’s this whole movement happening,” he said. “You’ve got people like Josiah Queen, Forrest Frank—guys who are just making great music, without worrying about whether it fits the ‘Christian’ box.”
Houston added, “There’s a whole generation of artists who grew up in church but listen to everything—country, hip-hop, EDM, indie rock. They want to make music that reflects all of that. But a lot of them think the only way to do that is to leave Christian music entirely. What if you didn’t have to pick a lane? What if the Kingdom is big enough for all of it?”
It’s not just music, either. Christian TV shows and movies are having a moment, too.
Let’s talk receipts. The Chosen, a crowd-funded series about the life of Jesus, just cleared$100 million at the box office with its fifth season. That’s not a typo. This is a show that started as a niche project and is now outpacing some major Hollywood releases, earning a 9.1/10 on IMDb and a spot in the cultural conversation.
The animated film The King of Kings, with Oscar Isaac voicing Jesus, pulled in$45 million and broke records for the highest-grossing debut of a biblical animated film.
Meanwhile, Prime Video’s House of David racked up 22 million views in its first 17 days and held the number two spot on the platform, beating out big-budget competitors like Invincible, according to Deseret News and The Minaret.
These aren’t “good for Christian” numbers. These are “Hollywood, pay attention” numbers.
So what changed? The answer is simple: quality. The era of wooden acting and sermon-in-disguise scripts is fading. Christian entertainment has finally realized that if you want people to watch, you have to give them something worth watching.
As Dallas Jenkins, creator of The Chosen, told RELEVANT, “Everything about this thing surprises me. It never stops being humbling.”
Jenkins knows exactly why The Chosen is connecting with people who would never have watched a “Christian show” before.
“The Bible gives us the facts; we want to bring the humanity,” he said.
That’s been The Chosen’s secret from the beginning: the ability to take familiar stories and infuse them with real emotional weight.
“This is a side of Jesus you’ve never seen before. We’ve seen hints of this before, but never like this consistently. He literally just upended a marketplace. He cursed a fig tree to death. The disciples are asking, ‘Why are you so angry? Why are you so sad?’” Jenkins said.
Jenkins is unapologetic about the show’s creative choices.
“Our big word is plausibility,” he said. “If it isn’t factual, is it plausible? If it’s not small-f fact, is it capital-T Truth? That’s what we’re always going for.”
That guiding principle has shaped everything from character backstories to minor creative flourishes that aren’t in the biblical text but feel true to its spirit. The portrayal of Matthew as neurodivergent, for example, wasn’t a scriptural mandate but resonated deeply with fans—particularly families with autistic children.
“A family with an autistic son came up to me and said, ‘The portrayal of Matthew helped us realize our son can follow Jesus the same way we can,’” Jenkins recalled. “That kind of stuff is what surprises me.”
Surprise has become a recurring theme. Even Jenkins didn’t anticipate the sheer size and reach of The Chosen’s audience. More than 200 million people have watched the series worldwide, a staggering number for any show, let alone one made outside of the Hollywood system.
And it’s not just about viewership. Jenkins sees firsthand the emotional impact the show has had. He recalled traveling to Brazil and being met with long meet-and-greet lines, despite the language barrier. Fans who couldn’t speak English would type out messages on their phones, use Google Translate and show him their words—only for Jenkins to realize they were saying the exact same things as fans back home.
“That’s what blows me away,” he said. “The same scenes are impacting people around the world, the same emotional reactions are happening everywhere.”
Hollywood has long underestimated the power of faith-based stories. Studios tend to think in binary: movies about religion are either niche, sanitized and safe or they’re secular and detached from real spiritual weight. The Chosen broke that mold. It’s neither a cheap cash grab nor a theological lecture. It’s something else entirely—a show that prioritizes storytelling over sermonizing and, as a result, has reached people who might otherwise never engage with the biblical narrative.
That connection has transformed The Chosen from just a streaming series into a full-scale cultural movement. In theaters, screenings have taken on an almost church-like quality as audiences laugh, cry and react together.
That communal experience has only strengthened as the show grows, leading Jenkins and his team to expand beyond the original series. His production company, Five & Two, is already developing new projects—including a Chosen-style miniseries on Joseph and an animated show, The Chosen Adventures.
“We’re taking everything we’ve learned and applying it to future projects,” he said. “Every Bible story we tell will have the same approach—finding the humanity in it so that people can see themselves in the story.”
Of course, not everyone is thrilled. There are still critics who roll their eyes at anything labeled “faith-based.” But the numbers are hard to ignore and the cultural impact is real. Hollywood is taking notice and the industry is finally realizing that faith-based content isn’t just a niche—it’s a movement. The question isn’t whether Christian entertainment belongs in the mainstream. It’s already there. The real question is who’s going to keep up.
Aside from Jenkins, there’s already a group of creatives hard at work to keep it up. Film companies like The Kingdom Story Company, who created American Underdog and Unsung Hero, and The Wonder Project, the studio behind Amazon’s House of David, are stepping up to the challenge.
“The reason I’m able to tell House of David at this scope and scale—what you need to tell David’s story—is because audiences have made their voices heard,” said The Wonder Project co-founder Jon Erwin. “These films have worked. They’ve made money. They’ve been successful in the industry. And when that happens, we get to level up each time, get more resources, and refine our craft.”
If you’re someone who’s always rolled your eyes at “Christian movie night,” it’s time to reconsider. Christian entertainment isn’t a punchline anymore. It’s a movement and it’s not slowing down.
