Film

The Book of Clarence

Name: The Book of Clarence
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Released: 2024
Cast: LaKeith Stanfield, Omar Sy, RJ Cyler, David Oyelowo, Alfre Woodard

Period drama

Clarence is a con artist in first-century Jerusalem who spots an opportunity in the Jesus movement—a scrappy, anachronistic comedy about grift, faith, and survival set among apostles and miracles. Irreverent and warm-hearted, it swings wildly between slapstick and genuine tenderness. For anyone who wants their Bible stories unafraid to be funny.

TMDb rating

2.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy irreverent, hustler-eye takes on familiar scripture, where a sharp-tongued grifter's wisecracks land against a backdrop of prophets and miracles.

Skip it if you want the Bible handled reverently or a tight, brisk comedy; it runs long for a hustle story, and its jokes and sincerity pull in different directions.

What it asks of you: A loose, episodic ride of just over two hours, it moves through wry banter and bustling set pieces, asking you to stay with its mood more than its plot.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Tale of The Princess Kaguya2013

A film of boundless visual imagination about a girl trying to escape the life chosen for her. Like Clarence, it's funny and heartbreaking at once, and completely unconcerned with what you expect from its source material.

But Wordless sequences and a meditative pace may feel slow if you want constant narrative momentum. It demands patience.

Dolemite Is My Name2019

Eddie Murphy as a con man and showman building something ridiculous into something real. That exact energy—broke but unbroken, turning nothing into folklore—is Clarence's heartbeat, and this film feels it acutely.

But It's a biopic that follows a pretty familiar rise-to-stardom structure once you get past the surface charm. The second half settles.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp1943

Powell and Pressburger made a sweeping film about faith, loyalty, and self-deception across a lifetime. Same tonal mix: gorgeous and silly, profound and playful, all at once. It's a spiritual ancestor to what Stanfield's doing.

But It's formal and painterly in a very 1940s way. If you need things to move fast, the meditative sequences will feel like a country drive.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Book of Clarence

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Come and See1985

Both films use anachronism, humor, and close-ups of young faces to make us complicit in systems of suffering we thought we understood.

Elem Klimov's anti-war masterpiece about a boy recruited into the Red Army is shot with the same willingness to mix comedy and atrocity, sacred and profane. It's about what happens when someone young and funny-looking watches the world betray him.

But It's relentlessly bleak and includes scenes of shocking violence. This is not entertainment—it's a testimony, and some sequences will stay with you in ways that hurt.

Harlem2021

A sharp ensemble comedy about young Black women in Harlem navigating money, love, and what it means to keep reaching. Same irreverent wit about survival and community. Each episode zips by with joy.

But The plotting is sometimes thinner than it needs to be, and season two loses focus. The best episodes far outpace the weakest.

Everything Everywhere All at Once2022

A film that refuses genre—it's sci-fi and martial arts and family drama and comedy, all sincere, all at the same time. That refusal to pick one lane is exactly what makes Clarence work and why it confuses people.

But The visual maximalism exhausts some viewers. If you hate cuteness mixed into your serious moments, this film will feel indulgent.

Everything Everywhere All at Once poster

The Last Black Man in San Francisco2019

Joe Talbot's debut is funny about money and belonging and family, shot like a poem, anchored by a friendship that contains multitudes. Like Clarence, it's unclassifiable and moving about what people will do to survive with dignity.

But The pacing is deliberate to the point of stasis. Some scenes breathe so long they stop breathing. It asks a lot of you.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco poster

Godless2017

A Western built on a wild premise—an outlaw town run by women—that never lets you settle. It plays with genre, is visually stunning, and genuine about cruelty and kindness existing in the same breath.

But The plot sometimes serves the spectacle rather than earning it. The finale doesn't quite know what it's doing.

Barry2018

Bill Hader as an assassin who wants to act, stuck between two worlds that won't let him choose. It's darkly funny about the fantasy of reinvention and what it costs. Clarence is on the same wheel.

But Later seasons lose the balance between comedy and dread. It becomes preachy about grief in ways that flatten the character work.

Sorry to Bother You2018

Boots Riley's debut is a wild tonal ride—comedy, sci-fi, social rage, magic—about a man learning the cost of selling himself. Anachronistic, loud, unafraid to be weird while saying something real about survival and code-switching.

But The third act abandons subtlety entirely and some viewers find it didactic. It preaches when it should whisper.

Wings of Desire1987

Both films are about outsiders—angels, hustlers—watching systems of meaning from outside and risking everything to enter them. The faith is the point.

Wim Wenders' meditation on angels watching Berlin is dreamy and philosophical about redemption, belonging, and what it means to believe in something. It's Clarence but for the metaphysical yearning underneath the con.

But It's glacially slow, deliberately fragmentary, and requires you to meet it more than halfway. If you want plot, you'll find it frustratingly vague.

Natsume's Book of Friends2008

Both feature a resourceful young protagonist moving between realities—literal in anime, spiritual in Clarence—learning that belief isn't naive if you're sincere about it.

A quietly gorgeous anime about a boy who sees spirits and negotiates between two worlds, learning that kindness and trickery are often the same tool. It's tender where Clarence is brash, but carries the same soul: a broke kid trying to believe in something real.

But Each episode is standalone, so the narrative momentum is gentle. The visual style is soft and watercolor. Some want their drama to stride, not drift.