The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
Avoid. A Catholic review of this movie for parents.
Our review
A deconstruction built to unmake a canonized saint. The saints Joan actually testified to never appear; in their place, Christ shows up only as a bleeding, screaming, accusatory apparition, and the loving Christ is wholly absent. Her sanctity is rewritten as trauma, vengeance, and possible madness, with invented sacrilege along the way. Lumen rates its doctrinal fidelity 0 out of 5.
For parents
Skip it entirely. If someone's already seen it: the real Joan's trial transcript survives, and her recorded answers are more astonishing than anything Besson invented. For a worthy Joan film, Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) is built from that transcript.