The Infinite Rise of Angel Studios

Angel Studios, which produced the surprise box office hit Sound of Freedom in 2023, has started a streaming service to deliver new “values based” programming for Christians. This represents a milestone for religious broadcasting every bit as seismic as evangelist Rex Humbard’s leap from radio to television in 1952.

That Angel Studios can generate sufficient operating capital from its viewer base to fund the amount of programming it currently offers speaks volumes, its success feeding a growing cultural demand for so-called values based entertainment. The trend has only deepened since the studio’s founding in 2013. At the time of this writing, an animated feature film about the life of Jesus Christ entitled The King of Kings has just premiered and is on track to earn a projected $14 million on its opening weekend. It would appear the cultural pendulum has at least halted, if not swung counter to, its recent leftward trajectory. After a pause for station identification, God is once again cool, and values have rejoined the cultural chat.

America has a long history of values based programming. Following the success of evangelists like Billy Graham and Oral Roberts, networks such as the American Christian Television System (SCTS) and the Christian Broadcasting Network stepped forward to fill a perceived need for Christian content. But these outlets suffered from a dearth of original material, often interspersing “talking head”-style shows like The 700 Club with obscure and outdated features dating from previous eras. Angel Studios’ streaming service represents a quantum leap forward.

Combining streaming tech savvy with high production values, Angel is providing a robust alternative to mainstream platforms like Netflix or Amazon Prime. What sets these shows apart is a strong commitment to giving viewers family, historical and adventure programming consistent with Christian values. On offer are movies, original programming, animation, documentaries and other features.

The selection of movies is quite varied, with Sound of Freedom having pride of place. Last year saw the theatrical release of Bonhoeffer, a fictionalized retelling of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi resistance worker the SS martyred bare weeks before the end of the war. Another recent release, Cabrini, recounts the life of Frances Xavier Cabrini, a Roman Catholic nun and Italian immigrant to America who founded numerous charitable institutions for immigrants and the poor before her death in 1917 (the Catholic Church canonized as the patron saint of immigrants in 1946).

Both Bonhoeffer and Cabrini are superb historical period pieces featuring great performances and production. Angel Studios has also become home to some modern Christian classics, such as 2010’s The Way, starring Martin Sheen as a reluctant, modern-day American pilgrim hiking the Santiago de Campostela trail in Spain. But perhaps the most notable film is Homestead.

Released in 2024, Homestead offers a new take on the post-apocalyptic genre. A community of prepper families gather on a hilltop refuge following detonation of a nuclear bomb over Los Angeles. As often happens in such stories, desperate crowds gather outside the gates of the haven. But when an intruder is shot trying to enter, Homestead takes an unexpected turn. Rather than descending into a shooting fest, Homestead has the preppers turn inward and ask the ethical question: is survival worth abandoning one’s principles? The surprising solution to this conundrum makes Homestead a cut above the usual post-apocalyptic gore fest and serves as the opening act of an ongoing weekly television series.

Homestead, an action-thriller, is just one of numerous series available from Angel Studios. Vindication is a procedural police thriller set in a small Texas town. Freelancers is a comedy about a group of friends desperately trying to keep their indie film company afloat. There are also numerous programs for children, such as Tuttle Twins, about children who accompany their grandmother and her time-traveling wheelchair on adventures in history. Wingfeather is an animated fantasy adventure series based on the novels by Andrew Peterson about the mythical Igiby family who fight evil in a swords-and-sorcery setting.

Angel also offers a plethora of documentary and non-fiction shows, such as The Riot and the Dance, a nature show, and Somebody’s Gotta Do It, in which host Mike Rowe interviews people with unusual jobs ranging from goat cheese maker to sailors aboard a nuclear aircraft carrier. A number of new series will be dropping this spring.

Christian broadcasting has come a long way since the days of Life is Worth Living and the stop-motion animation of Davey & Goliath. Those programs, like many early efforts at Christian broadcasting, suffered from unoriginal writing and poor production quality yet audiences loved them for their Gospel message. The offerings of Angel Studios are, by contrast, compelling broadcasting of a highly professional quality. The scripts are excellent and the performances superb. Given the rate at which Angel Studios’ war-chest of content is expanding, the platform is well-funded and poised for future growth. Best of all, one need not necessarily be a Christian to enjoy its offerings.