Film
Marjoe
A documentary that lets its subject convict himself. Marjoe Gortner, once a preaching prodigy paraded through revival tents as a child, returns to the circuit as an adult grifter who agrees to be filmed exposing every trick — the tears, the tongues, the collection-plate choreography — while still performing them. Funny, damning, and oddly tender, it's essential viewing for anyone curious about charisma as a craft rather than a gift.
If you liked this
Elmer Gantry1960
Burt Lancaster's Oscar-winning turn as a boozy, charming con man preaching his way to fame and fortune practically predicts Marjoe's whole act — same showbiz gospel, same hunger, three decades earlier.
But It's a big, theatrical studio picture from 1960, melodramatic and moralising in ways Marjoe's cool detachment never is.
Leap of Faith1992no page yet
Steve Martin plays a fake faith healer running a slick travelling revival with hidden earpieces and rigged miracles — basically Marjoe's playbook turned into glossy studio comedy-drama, and just as entertaining.
But It softens into sentiment by the end in a way the real story never allows itself to.
Jesus Camp2006
This vérité doc embeds with evangelical kids training for spiritual combat, showing the machinery Marjoe grew up inside still running, decades on, on younger and more fervent believers.
But It's unsettling rather than fun — no wink to camera, no insider confession, just belief taken completely straight.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
A Face in the Crowd1957
Both are studies of manufactured charisma — a nobody built into a folk hero by handlers who understand, as Marjoe does, that sincerity is just another performance choice.
Andy Griffith, decades before Mayberry, plays a drifter turned demagogue whose 'authentic' charm is entirely manufactured by the people selling him — a chilling forecast of exactly what Marjoe's revival tent scaled down.
But It's a stagy, dated studio picture whose warnings now feel almost quaint next to the real thing.
More like this (8)
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief2015
Alex Gibney's exposé does for Scientology what Marjoe did for revivalism — pulling back the curtain on charisma, control and the business model hiding underneath spiritual language.
But It's heavier and angrier, built from testimony of real harm rather than one man's wry self-exposure.
Wild Wild Country2018
Six hours of jaw-dropping access to a real guru and the followers who built him an empire — the same fascination with charisma's mechanics, stretched into a binge.
But It's a serious commitment at six episodes, and its sympathies keep shifting in ways that can feel manipulative.
The Apostle1997
Robert Duvall wrote, directed and stars as a flawed Pentecostal preacher fleeing his past to start over — revivalist showmanship played completely sincerely, not as satire.
But It takes faith seriously rather than skeptically, which makes for a slower, gentler film than Marjoe.
Holy Hell2016
A former member spent decades filming inside his own cult before shaping that footage into this documentary — an insider's confession with the same queasy complicity Marjoe brings to his own past.
But The story turns genuinely disturbing in its back half, well past showmanship into real abuse.
The Eyes of Tammy Faye2000no page yet
This traces the rise and humiliating fall of the Bakker televangelism empire, the exact industry Marjoe warned was coming — bigger sets, bigger money, bigger scandal.
But It's more tabloid than analytical, content to gawk at the makeup and the mansion rather than ask hard questions.
Waco2018
A dramatized miniseries about the Branch Davidian standoff, showing what happens when a charismatic leader's followers refuse to see through the act — the stakes Marjoe's story only implies.
But It's a tense, tragic true-crime thriller with none of Marjoe's dark humour or self-aware wink.
The Act of Killing2012
Both hand the camera to a self-mythologizing performer and let him direct his own confession — except here the crimes being restaged are real, mass, and unpunished.
Indonesian death-squad leaders re-enact their killings as glossy movie scenes, proud and untroubled — a documentary that takes Marjoe's central trick, letting a showman incriminate himself on camera, to a horrifying extreme.
But This is genuinely harrowing, morally vertiginous filmmaking, not for a casual evening, and it will stay with you.
The Righteous Gemstones2019
Same target — the money, ego and stagecraft of American televangelism — turned into broad comedy instead of documentary confession, proof the con Marjoe exposed never stopped, it just got a laugh track.
A scripted comedy about a wealthy, dysfunctional televangelist dynasty that plays almost like satire of Marjoe's world grown fat and cable-ready, with John Goodman leading a gloriously venal cast.
But It's broad, crude and frequently gross-out funny, a completely different register from Marjoe's dry, watchful tone.
People
Cast
Marjoe GortnerSelf- Vernon GortnerSelf
- Agnes BenjaminSelf
Sarah KernochanSelf
Directing
- Howard SmithDirector
- Sarah KernochanDirector
Production
- Max PalevskyExecutive Producer
- Howard SmithProducer
- Sarah KernochanProducer
- Jeanne FieldProduction Assistant
Recommended by
Trekkies, Wild Wild Country, The Vow, Holy Hell, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Mob Psycho 100, Ordet, Whistle Down the Wind, Elmer Gantry, Winter Light, Jesus Camp, The Apostle, Enlightened, The Righteous Gemstones, Hail Satan?