“Noah,” a cinematic mix of “The Perfect Storm” and “We Bought a Zoo,” hit theaters nationwide Friday. It’s the latest in a tradition of films based on a religious text.
We’ve been playing around with a dataset of IMDb.com tags, the keywords referring to plot or thematic content applied to the millions of television episodes, hundreds of thousands of feature-length films and shorts, and video games that comprise the Internet Movie Database. So, in honor of “Noah,” I decided to look at IMDb’s “Reference to ___” tags for the most common shout-outs to biblical and religious ideas. (Keep in mind, IMDb tags are an imperfect metric. They’re added and maintained by volunteers, and there are inconsistencies in the tagging. For instance, both Satan and the Devil show up in the top 30 keywords below.)
By and large, the top 30 are almost entirely of the Judeo-Christian bent. Noah is the 13th most frequently referenced biblical or religious figure. “Noah’s Flood” is the 29th, and “Noah’s Ark” is 30th. So Russell Crowe is in good company this weekend when it comes to playing the Bible’s most famous animal conservationist.
| Reference | Keywords | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jesus Christ | 1,449 |
| 2 | God | 1,235 |
| 3 | Satan | 421 |
| 4 | Moses | 145 |
| 5 | Saint Paul | 132 |
| 6 | Adam and Eve | 131 |
| 7 | The Book of Genesis | 128 |
| 8 | The Book of Revelation | 112 |
| 9 | The Antichrist | 105 |
| 10 | The Devil | 104 |
| 11 | Lucifer | 91 |
| 12 | The Virgin Mary | 90 |
| 13 | Noah | 85 |
| 14 | Abraham | 79 |
| 14 | The Ten Commandments | 79 |
| 16 | Paul the Apostle | 74 |
| 17 | King David | 73 |
| 18 | Adam | 72 |
| 19 | The Garden of Eden | 69 |
| 19 | The Book of Isaiah | 69 |
| 21 | The Epistle to the Romans | 68 |
| 22 | The Pope | 67 |
| 23 | Allah | 66 |
| 23 | The Holy Spirit | 66 |
| 25 | The Holy Ghost | 65 |
| 26 | The Book of Matthew | 61 |
| 27 | The Acts of the Apostles | 60 |
| 28 | Peter the Apostle | 59 |
| 29 | Noah’s Flood | 58 |
| 30 | Noah’s Ark | 54 |