''The Nativity Story'' is a 2006 American
biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of ...
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
film based on the
nativity of Jesus
The nativity of Jesus, nativity of Christ, birth of Jesus or birth of Christ is described in the biblical gospels of Luke and Matthew. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judaea, his mother Mary was engaged to a man ...
and directed by
Catherine Hardwicke
Helen Catherine HardwickeAccording to the State of Texas. ''Texas Birth Index, 1903–1997''. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California. (born October 21, 1955) is an American film director, p ...
. The film stars
Keisha Castle-Hughes
Keisha Castle-Hughes (born 24 March 1990) is an Australian-born New Zealand actress who rose to prominence for playing Paikea "Pai" Apirana in the film '' Whale Rider''. She was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Award for Bes ...
,
Oscar Isaac
Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada (born March 9, 1979) is a Guatemalan-born American actor. Known for his versatility, he has been credited with breaking stereotypes about Latino characters in Hollywood. He was named the best actor of his gene ...
,
Hiam Abbass,
Shaun Toub
Shaun Toub ( fa, شان توب ; ; born February 15, 1958) is an Iranian-born American actor. He has played the character Yinsen in ''Iron Man'' (2008) and ''Iron Man 3'' (2013); Farhad in '' Crash'' (2004); Rahim Khan in '' The Kite Runner'' ( ...
,
Alexander Siddig
Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi (born 21 November 1965) is a Sudanese-born English actor and director known professionally as Siddig El Fadil and subsequently as Alexander Siddig.
Siddig i ...
,
Ciarán Hinds
Ciarán Hinds (; born 9 February 1953) is an Irish actor. Born in Belfast, Hinds is known for a range of screen and stage roles. He has starred in feature films including '' The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover'' (1989), '' Persuasion'' (1 ...
, and
Shohreh Aghdashloo
Shohreh Aghdashloo ( fa, شهره آغداشلو, ; née Vaziri-Tabar (); 11 May 1952) is an Iranian and American actress. Following numerous starring roles on the stage, she made her film debut in '' Chess of the Wind'' (1976). Her next two fil ...
.
''The Nativity Story'' premiered in
Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
on November 26, 2006, making it the first film to hold a world premiere in the city, and was released in the United States on December 1, 2006, by
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after ...
. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed over $46 million worldwide.
Plot
The story begins in the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
province of
Judea
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous so ...
with the portrayal of the
Massacre of the Innocents in the Nativity. The remainder of the film portrays the
annunciation
The Annunciation (from Latin '), also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the biblical tale of the announcement by the ang ...
and birth of
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
Christ to explain why King
Herod the Great
Herod I (; ; grc-gre, ; c. 72 – 4 or 1 BCE), also known as Herod the Great, was a Roman Jewish client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renova ...
(
Ciarán Hinds
Ciarán Hinds (; born 9 February 1953) is an Irish actor. Born in Belfast, Hinds is known for a range of screen and stage roles. He has starred in feature films including '' The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover'' (1989), '' Persuasion'' (1 ...
) ordered the murder.
One year before the massacre,
Zechariah
Zechariah most often refers to:
* Zechariah (Hebrew prophet), author of the Book of Zechariah
* Zechariah (New Testament figure), father of John the Baptist
Zechariah or its many variant forms and spellings may also refer to:
People
*Zechariah ...
(
Stanley Townsend
Stanley Townsend (born August 1961) is an Irish actor.
Personal life
Townsend was born and brought up in Dublin. After attending Wesley College, Dublin, he studied mathematics and civil engineering at Trinity College. While there he joined the ...
), a
rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as '' semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form o ...
in Jerusalem, is making an offering, when he is told in a vision by the Archangel
Gabriel
In Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), Gabriel (); Greek: grc, Γαβριήλ, translit=Gabriḗl, label=none; Latin: ''Gabriel''; Coptic: cop, Ⲅⲁⲃⲣⲓⲏⲗ, translit=Gabriêl, label=none; Amharic: am, ገብ� ...
(
Alexander Siddig
Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi (born 21 November 1965) is a Sudanese-born English actor and director known professionally as Siddig El Fadil and subsequently as Alexander Siddig.
Siddig i ...
) that his wife,
Elizabeth (
Shohreh Aghdashloo
Shohreh Aghdashloo ( fa, شهره آغداشلو, ; née Vaziri-Tabar (); 11 May 1952) is an Iranian and American actress. Following numerous starring roles on the stage, she made her film debut in '' Chess of the Wind'' (1976). Her next two fil ...
), will bear a son. Zechariah does not believe him, stating that he is too old, and Gabriel tells him that he will be unable to speak until the boy is born. In
Nazareth
Nazareth ( ; ar, النَّاصِرَة, ''an-Nāṣira''; he, נָצְרַת, ''Nāṣəraṯ''; arc, ܢܨܪܬ, ''Naṣrath'') is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In ...
, 16 to 17-year-old
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...
(
Keisha Castle-Hughes
Keisha Castle-Hughes (born 24 March 1990) is an Australian-born New Zealand actress who rose to prominence for playing Paikea "Pai" Apirana in the film '' Whale Rider''. She was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Award for Bes ...
) is farming when soldiers come to collect taxes. One man, unable to pay, has a third of his land seized and his daughter pressed into
debt slavery
Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation. Where the terms of the repayment are not clearly or reasonably stated, the per ...
. Mary,
betrothed
An engagement or betrothal is the period of time between the declaration of acceptance of a marriage proposal and the marriage itself (which is typically but not always commenced with a wedding). During this period, a couple is said to be ''fi ...
to marry 32-year-old
Joseph
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the m ...
of Judaea (
Oscar Isaac
Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada (born March 9, 1979) is a Guatemalan-born American actor. Known for his versatility, he has been credited with breaking stereotypes about Latino characters in Hollywood. He was named the best actor of his gene ...
), is visited by Archangel Gabriel and told that she will become pregnant with God's son, whom she is to name "Jesus". He tells her that God has blessed her cousin Elizabeth with a child despite her old age. Mary visits her before the harvest, where she witnesses the birth of
John the Baptist
John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...
to Elizabeth and Zechariah, who regains his speech. Mary returns from the visit pregnant, to the shock of Joseph and her parents, who fear that Joseph will accuse her of adultery, a
sin punishable by death by
stoning
Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient times.
The Torah and Ta ...
according to the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
. At first Joseph does not believe Mary's religious explanation, but decides not to accuse her. Still shocked and angry, he is later visited in a dream by the Archangel Gabriel, who tells him of God's plan for Mary's son. Finally believing, he is ashamed of his earlier doubts.
Meanwhile, Roman emperor Caesar
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
has demanded that every man across the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
return with his family to his place of birth for the
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...
. A direct descendant of King
David
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
, Joseph is forced to travel across Judea's rocky terrain from Nazareth to
Bethlehem
Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital ...
, the place of his birth. With Mary on a donkey laden with supplies, it takes the couple nearly four weeks to reach Bethlehem. Upon arriving in town, Mary goes into labour, and Joseph frantically seeks a place for her to deliver. There is, however, no room in any inn or home because of the crowds arriving for the census, but at the last minute an innkeeper offers his stable for shelter.
Meanwhile, three Magi—
Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar (
Stefan Kalipha
Stefan Kalipha (born Stephen Siegfried Behrendt, 1940) is a Trinidad-born British actor who has been active since about 1970. He played Ramon, the Cigar Factory Foreman in the film '' Cuba'' (1979), Daoud in '' The Curse of King Tut's Tomb'' and ...
,
Nadim Sawalha and
Eriq Ebouaney) —travel towards Judaea after having previously discovered that three planets will align to form a great star. This
Star of Bethlehem
The Star of Bethlehem, or Christmas Star, appears in the nativity story of the Gospel of Matthew chapter 2 where "wise men from the East" (Magi) are inspired by the star to travel to Jerusalem. There, they meet King Herod of Judea, and ask hi ...
appears before the Magi, after a visit by the Archangel Gabriel. The Magi visit Herod and reveal to him that the
Messiah
In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; ,
; ,
; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...
is still a child and he will be a Messiah "for the lowest of men to the highest of kings." Shocked by this, Herod asks that they visit the newborn Messiah and report the child's location back to him, under the pretence that he, too, would like to worship him, while in fact he plans to kill the baby for fear of a new king taking his throne. The Magi arrive at the stable where Mary is giving birth to Jesus, and they present the Infant with gifts of gold,
frankincense
Frankincense (also known as olibanum) is an aromatic resin used in incense and perfumes, obtained from trees of the genus '' Boswellia'' in the family Burseraceae. The word is from Old French ('high-quality incense').
There are several species ...
, and
myrrh
Myrrh (; from Semitic, but see '' § Etymology'') is a gum-resin extracted from a number of small, thorny tree species of the genus '' Commiphora''. Myrrh resin has been used throughout history as a perfume, incense and medicine. Myrrh m ...
.
Suspicious of his intentions, the Magi avoid Herod, returning home via a different route. Herod realises that the Magi have tricked him and orders the death of every boy in Bethlehem under the age of two. Joseph is warned in a dream of the danger and
flees to Egypt with Mary and Jesus as the film ends.
Cast
*
Oscar Isaac
Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada (born March 9, 1979) is a Guatemalan-born American actor. Known for his versatility, he has been credited with breaking stereotypes about Latino characters in Hollywood. He was named the best actor of his gene ...
as
Joseph
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the m ...
*
Keisha Castle-Hughes
Keisha Castle-Hughes (born 24 March 1990) is an Australian-born New Zealand actress who rose to prominence for playing Paikea "Pai" Apirana in the film '' Whale Rider''. She was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Award for Bes ...
as
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...
*
Hiam Abbass as
Anna
Anna may refer to:
People Surname and given name
* Anna (name)
Mononym
* Anna the Prophetess, in the Gospel of Luke
* Anna (wife of Artabasdos) (fl. 715–773)
* Anna (daughter of Boris I) (9th–10th century)
* Anna (Anisia) (fl. 1218 to 1221) ...
*
Shaun Toub
Shaun Toub ( fa, شان توب ; ; born February 15, 1958) is an Iranian-born American actor. He has played the character Yinsen in ''Iron Man'' (2008) and ''Iron Man 3'' (2013); Farhad in '' Crash'' (2004); Rahim Khan in '' The Kite Runner'' ( ...
as
Joachim
Joachim (; ''Yəhōyāqīm'', "he whom Yahweh has set up"; ; ) was, according to Christian tradition, the husband of Saint Anne and the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The story of Joachim and Anne first appears in the Biblical apocryph ...
*
Ciarán Hinds
Ciarán Hinds (; born 9 February 1953) is an Irish actor. Born in Belfast, Hinds is known for a range of screen and stage roles. He has starred in feature films including '' The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover'' (1989), '' Persuasion'' (1 ...
as
Herod the Great
Herod I (; ; grc-gre, ; c. 72 – 4 or 1 BCE), also known as Herod the Great, was a Roman Jewish client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renova ...
*
Shohreh Aghdashloo
Shohreh Aghdashloo ( fa, شهره آغداشلو, ; née Vaziri-Tabar (); 11 May 1952) is an Iranian and American actress. Following numerous starring roles on the stage, she made her film debut in '' Chess of the Wind'' (1976). Her next two fil ...
as
Elizabeth
*
Stanley Townsend
Stanley Townsend (born August 1961) is an Irish actor.
Personal life
Townsend was born and brought up in Dublin. After attending Wesley College, Dublin, he studied mathematics and civil engineering at Trinity College. While there he joined the ...
as
Zechariah
Zechariah most often refers to:
* Zechariah (Hebrew prophet), author of the Book of Zechariah
* Zechariah (New Testament figure), father of John the Baptist
Zechariah or its many variant forms and spellings may also refer to:
People
*Zechariah ...
*
Alexander Siddig
Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi (born 21 November 1965) is a Sudanese-born English actor and director known professionally as Siddig El Fadil and subsequently as Alexander Siddig.
Siddig i ...
as the Angel
Gabriel
In Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), Gabriel (); Greek: grc, Γαβριήλ, translit=Gabriḗl, label=none; Latin: ''Gabriel''; Coptic: cop, Ⲅⲁⲃⲣⲓⲏⲗ, translit=Gabriêl, label=none; Amharic: am, ገብ� ...
*
Eriq Ebouaney as
Balthasar
*
Alessandro Giuggioli as
Herod Antipas
Herod Antipas ( el, Ἡρῴδης Ἀντίπας, ''Hērǭdēs Antipas''; born before 20 BC – died after 39 AD), was a 1st-century ruler of Galilee and Perea, who bore the title of tetrarch ("ruler of a quarter") and is referred to as both ...
*
Nadim Sawalha as
Melchior
Melchior is the name traditionally given to one of the biblical Magi appearing in the Gospel of Matthew. There are many notable people with this name, or close variations.
As a first name
* Melchior Anderegg (1828–1914), Swiss mountain guide
* ...
*
Stefan Kalipha
Stefan Kalipha (born Stephen Siegfried Behrendt, 1940) is a Trinidad-born British actor who has been active since about 1970. He played Ramon, the Cigar Factory Foreman in the film '' Cuba'' (1979), Daoud in '' The Curse of King Tut's Tomb'' and ...
as
Saint Caspar
Saint Caspar (otherwise known as Casper, Gaspar, Kaspar, and other variations) was one of the 'Three Kings', along with Melchior and Balthazar, representing the wise men or 'Biblical Magi' mentioned in the Bible in the Gospel of Matthew, verses ...
Production
The film was shot in
Matera
Matera (, ; Materano: ) is a city in the region of Basilicata, in Southern Italy.
As the capital of the province of Matera, its original settlement lies in two canyons carved by the Gravina River. This area, the Sassi di Matera, is a comp ...
and
Craco
Craco is a ghost town and '' comune'' in the province of Matera, in the southern Italian region of Basilicata. It was abandoned towards the end of the 20th century, due to faulty pipe work that was thought to have failed, causing the town to be ab ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, and
Ouarzazate
Ouarzazate (; ar, ورزازات, Warzāzāt, ; ary, وارزازات, Wārzāzāt; shi, label= Berber, ⵡⴰⵔⵣⴰⵣⴰⵜ, Warzazat), nicknamed ''the door of the desert'', is a city and capital of Ouarzazate Province in the region of D ...
,
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...
.
Reception
Box office
''The Nativity Story'' opened to a modest first weekend at the domestic
box office
A box office or ticket office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a wicket. By extension, the term is fre ...
by grossing $7.8 million, with a 39% increase over the extended Christmas weekend. After its initial run, the film closed out with about $37.6 million in domestic gross and $8.8 million in foreign gross, resulting in a worldwide total of almost $46.4 million on a reported $35 million budget.
Critical response
''The Nativity Story'' received mixed reviews. , the film holds a 37% approval rating on the review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
, based on 131 reviews with an average rating of 5.29/10. The site's consensus says, "''The Nativity Story'' is a dull retelling of a well-worn tale with the look and feel of a high-school production."
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 52 based on 28 reviews.
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott (born July 10, 1966) is an American journalist and cultural critic. He has been chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' since 2004, a title he shares with Manohla Dargis.
Early life
Scott was born on July 10, 1966 in ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' gave the film a positive review saying, "At its best, ''The Nativity Story'' shares with ''
Hail Mary
The Hail Mary ( la, Ave Maria) is a traditional Christian prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical passages featured in the Gospel of Luke: the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary (the Annunciation) and Mary' ...
'' an interest in finding a kernel of realism in the old story of a pregnant teenager in hard times. Buried in the pageantry, in other words, is an interesting movie." Ann Hornaday of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'' concluded a positive review of the film stating, "The most intriguing thing about ''The Nativity Story'' transpires during the couple's extraordinary personal journey, advancing a radical idea in an otherwise long slog of a cinematic Sunday school lesson: that Jesus became Who He was not only because He was the Son of God, but because He was the son of a good man."
Conversely, many critics felt that the film did not take the story to new cinematic heights.
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman (born February 24, 1959) is an American film critic who has been chief film critic for '' Variety'' magazine since May 2016, a title he shares with . Previously, Gleiberman wrote for ''Entertainment Weekly'' from 1990 until 2014. ...
of ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular ...
'' noted, "''The Nativity Story'' is a film of tame picture-book sincerity, but that's not the same thing as devotion. The movie is too tepid to feel, or see, the light."
Kenneth Turan of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
'' said, "This is not a chance to 'experience the most timeless of stories as you've never seen it before' but just the opposite: an opportunity, for those who want it, to encounter this story exactly the way it's almost always been told."
Incidents
Keisha Castle-Hughes became pregnant during filming, at the age of 16, and received a lot of media attention.
Music
Mychael Danna
Mychael Danna (born September 20, 1958) is a Canadian composer of film and television scores. He won both the Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Original Score for '' Life of Pi''. He has also won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition ...
's score of the film was released as an album on December 5, 2006. The album was nominated for a
Dove Award
A Dove Award is an accolade by the Gospel Music Association (GMA) of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the Christian music industry. The awards are presented annually. Formerly held in Nashville, Tennessee, the Dove Awar ...
for Instrumental Album of the Year at the
39th GMA Dove Awards
The 39th Annual GMA Dove Awards presentation was held on April 23, 2008 recognizing accomplishments of musicians for the year 2007. The show was held at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee.
Nominations were announced on February 14, ...
.
An album of songs inspired by the film was also released under the title ''The Nativity Story: Sacred Songs''. It featured music by artists like
Point of Grace
Point of Grace is an all-female contemporary Christian music vocal group. The current trio consists of Shelley Breen, Denise Jones, and Leigh Cappillino. The group started out as a quartet in 1991, with original members Breen and Jones, as wel ...
,
Amy Grant
Amy Lee Grant (born November 25, 1960) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She began in contemporary Christian music (CCM) before crossing over to pop music in the 1980s and 1990s. She has been referred to as "The Queen of Christia ...
,
Jaci Velasquez
Jacquelyn "Jaci" Davette Velasquez (Spanish ''Jaci Velásquez'', born October 15, 1979) is an American actress and contemporary Christian music, contemporary Christian and Latin pop singer and songwriter, performing in both English and Spanis ...
, and others.
See also
*
List of Christmas films
Many Christmas stories have been adapted to feature films and TV specials, and have been broadcast and repeated many times on television; since the popularization of home video in the 1980s, their many editions are sold and re-sold every year d ...
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nativity Story, The
2006 films
2000s Christmas drama films
2000s Christmas films
American Christmas films
Depictions of Herod the Great on film
Films about the Nativity of Jesus
Films directed by Catherine Hardwicke
Films scored by Mychael Danna
Films shot in Matera
2006 romantic drama films
American romantic drama films
Portrayals of Jesus in film
Portrayals of the Virgin Mary in film
Religious epic films
New Line Cinema films
Temple Hill Entertainment films
Cultural depictions of John the Baptist
American pregnancy films
Films about Christianity
Films produced by Wyck Godfrey
2000s American films