The Faith-Based Oscar Isaac Cinematic Universe You Didn't Know About

There are certain universally known qualities about Oscar Isaac. For instance, his status as “the internet’s boyfriend” is common knowledge. Similarly, his immense talent as an actor has been evident for eons now in features like Inside Llewyn Davis. But did you know there’s a faith-based cinematic universe involving Oscar Isaac hiding right under everybody’s noses? It’s time to really understand and appreciate one particularly bizarre element in Isaac’s career. His filmography has seen him playing both the son of God and that son’s Earthly “father” in separate motion pictures.

Back in the mid-20th century, when Biblical epics were all the rage, it wouldn’t be unsurprising to spot certain character actors show up in multiple productions rooted in Bible story adaptations. However, in the modern world, with such films being more sparsely made with notable actors (read: not Kevin Sorbo), it’s a bit more puzzling when known people dip their toes multiple times into this cinematic domain. That’s just what Poe Dameron’s done, though. In fact, one of his earliest acting roles was playing Joseph in 2006’s The Nativity Story. As the title implies, it’s the saga of Joseph and Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes) as the birth of Jesus grows closer and closer.

This Catherine Hardwicke directorial effort didn’t exactly set the world on fire at either the box office or with critics. In the last two decades since its release, it hasn’t garnered much of a cult following from even devout Christians. Perhaps its incessant gloominess makes it less than ideal for annual “timely” rewatches for Christmas. Whatever the reason, this would not be Isaac’s big break as an actor. However, it did establish the performer’s presence in the realm of faith-based entertainment. Two decades later, he’d return (albeit in voice-over form) to this domain playing his Nativity Story character’s blessed offspring.

The King of Kings isn’t just a bizarre adaptation of the Charles Dickens text The Life of Our Lord involving a time-traveling Dickens (Kenneth Branagh). It’s also a film where Isaac voices Jesus Christ. How many actors can truly say they’ve played one character and that same person’s son in two separate productions? That’s the power of the internet’s boyfriend right there. Of course, casting Oscar Isaac in this feature in 2025 is a radically different proposition than snagging him as Joseph in 2006. Two decades ago, Isaac was one of many relatively unknown actors in The Nativity Story’s cast. In 2025, this Star Wars veteran alerts audiences that The King of Kings secured a DreamWorks-level celebrity cast.

If there are two features in this Oscar Isaac faith-based cinematic universe, are there more? Is there, perchance, a movie where Oscar Isaac plays Noah? Perhaps Isaac has even portrayed Jacob (the father and grandfather of Joseph and Jesus, respectively) in some TV movie? Alas, there aren’t a ton of other explicitly Christian Oscar Isaac features to round out this cinematic universe. However, various manifestations of spirituality do seem to compel Isaac and draw him to certain acting choices. For instance, Isaac played Peter Malkin, a Mossad agent who grew up in a Jewish-observing family, in the 2018 thriller Operation Finale. His 2021 Paul Schrader film The Card Counter, meanwhile, features plenty of imagery and narrative parallels to Christian-adjacent material, including a closing shot evoking the painting The Creation of Adam.

Isaac’s upcoming 2025 films also dabble in elements relevant to the Christian faith. In Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein, he’ll be playing Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein text has long been viewed through spiritual prisms, particularly as a warning against man playing in God’s domain. In Del Toro’s iteration of this yarn, Isaac will now play a character that once proclaimed the sentence “Now I know what it feels like to BE God!” that shocked moviegoers and American censor boards in the early 1930s. The Nativity Story and The King of Kings occupy one cozy Pure Flix-style corner of Isaac’s faith-based “cinematic universe”. Del Toro’s Frankenstein, by contrast, promises to inhabit a much darker sector of this realm.

There’s also In the Hands of Dante, a Julian Schnabel directorial effort that may premiere in some capacity this year after it started shooting in late 2023. In this adaptation of the Nick Tosches novel of the same name, Isaac takes on two roles: a version of Tosches and Dante Alighieri. The latter figure is, of course, the Italian writer known for penning The Divine Comedy, which featured very famous incarnations of Heaven and Hell. The original Tosches novel is reportedly more interested in modern social commentary, 20th-century rock music, and the creative process than lengthy pontifications on Christianity. In other words, don’t expect Isaac to also play Joseph or Jesus in this feature.

Still, there’s no way a film heavily focusing on Alighieri trying to finish writing The Divine Comedy eschews the topic of Christianity entirely. In their own ways, Frankenstein and In the Hands of Dante could (on paper at least, Lord knows both movies in execution may end up having all the substance of Life Itself) each provide fascinating darker explorations of spirituality to counterbalance the softer, safer aesthetics of The Nativity Story and The King of Kings.

Wherever these two upcoming live-action features go, they’re bound to continue the recurring motif of Christian themes and characters that keep popping up in Oscar Isaac’s filmography. The idea that these all bind together a “cinematic universe” is just some silly fooling around. However, the wide variety of tones and aesthetics in these productions (even between the grimly realistic Nativity Story and the fluffy safe King of Kings) does help encapsulate Isaac’s talents as an actor. The internet’s boyfriend is such a versatile performer that even his faith-based or faith-adjacent features aren’t just carbon copies of one another. Now there’s a holy feat!