Top 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsMost Popular Video GamesMost Popular Music VideosMost Popular Podcasts
    Release CalendarBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV NewsIndia TV Spotlight
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsBest Picture WinnersBest Picture WinnersEmmysSTARmeter AwardsSan Diego Comic-ConNew York Comic-ConSundance Film FestivalToronto Int'l Film FestivalAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • All
  • Titles
  • TV Episodes
  • Celebs
  • Companies
  • Keywords
  • Advanced Search
Watchlist
Sign In
Sign In
New Customer? Create account
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
IMDbPro

Religulous

  • 20082008
  • RR
  • 1h 41m
IMDb RATING
7.6/10
59K
YOUR RATING
Religulous (2008)
This is the theatrical trailer for Religulous, directed by Larry Charles and starring Bill Maher.
Play trailer2:13
1 Video
33 Photos
DocumentaryComedyWar
Bill Maher's take on the current state of world religion.Bill Maher's take on the current state of world religion.Bill Maher's take on the current state of world religion.
IMDb RATING
7.6/10
59K
YOUR RATING
    • Larry Charles
    • Bill Maher(uncredited)
  • Stars
    • Bill Maher
    • Tal Bachman
    • Jonathan Boulden
    • Larry Charles
    • Bill Maher(uncredited)
  • Stars
    • Bill Maher
    • Tal Bachman
    • Jonathan Boulden
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 374User reviews
    • 198Critic reviews
    • 56Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards

    Videos1

    Religulous: Theatrical Trailer
    Trailer 2:13
    Watch Religulous: Theatrical Trailer

    Photos33

    Bill Maher and Larry Charles in Religulous (2008)
    Bill Maher in Religulous (2008)
    Bill Maher in Religulous (2008)
    Bill Maher in Religulous (2008)
    Bill Maher in Religulous (2008)
    Bill Maher in Religulous (2008)
    Bill Maher in Religulous (2008)
    Religulous (2008)
    Religulous (2008)
    Religulous (2008)
    Bill Maher in Religulous (2008)
    Bill Maher in Religulous (2008)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Bill Maher
    Bill Maher
    • Self
    Tal Bachman
    • Self
    Jonathan Boulden
    • Self
    Steven Burg
    • Self
    Francis Collins
    Francis Collins
    • Self - Director, National Institutes of Health
    • (as Dr. Francis Collins)
    George Coyne
    • Self
    • (as Father George Coyne PhD)
    Benjamin Creme
    • Self
    Jeremiah Cummings
    • Self
    Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda
    • Self
    Fatima Elatik
    • Self
    Yahuda Etzion
    • Self
    Reginald Foster
    • Self
    • (as Father Reginald Foster)
    Mohamed Junas Gaffar
    • Self
    Bill Gardiner
    • Self
    Ted Haggard
    Ted Haggard
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Rabbi Halperin
    • Self
    Ken Ham
    • Self
    Dean Hamer
    Dean Hamer
    • Self
    • (as Dr. Dean Hamer)
      • Larry Charles
      • Bill Maher(uncredited)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    More like this

    Jesus Camp
    7.4
    Jesus Camp
    Sicko
    8.0
    Sicko
    Bowling for Columbine
    8.0
    Bowling for Columbine
    Fahrenheit 9/11
    7.5
    Fahrenheit 9/11
    Capitalism: A Love Story
    7.4
    Capitalism: A Love Story
    The God Who Wasn't There
    6.9
    The God Who Wasn't There
    An Inconvenient Truth
    7.4
    An Inconvenient Truth
    Real Time with Bill Maher
    7.4
    Real Time with Bill Maher
    Super Size Me
    7.2
    Super Size Me
    The Unbelievers
    6.9
    The Unbelievers
    Food, Inc.
    7.8
    Food, Inc.
    Exit Through the Gift Shop
    8.0
    Exit Through the Gift Shop

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The film used the fake working title "A Spiritual Journey" in order to obtain interviews with religious leaders. They were unaware that Bill Maher was involved in the film until he arrived for the interviews.
    • Goofs
      Bill Maher conflates al-Hajaru al-Aswad, "the Black Stone" with the Kaaba, which is the building in which it is housed. There are several devotional objects in the Kaaba and Muslim pilgrims face the building rather than the stone.
    • Quotes

      [last lines]

      Bill Maher: The irony of religion is that because of its power to divert man to destructive courses, the world could actually come to an end. The plain fact is, religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having in key decisions made by religious people. By irrationalists, by those who would steer the ship of state not by a compass, but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken. George Bush prayed a lot about Iraq, but he didn't learn a lot about it. Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith, and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction. Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says, "I'm willing, Lord! I'll do whatever you want me to do!" Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas. And anyone who tells you they know, they just know what happens when you die, I promise you, you don't. How can I be so sure? Because I don't know, and you do not possess mental powers that I do not. The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble, and that's what man needs to be, considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong. This is why rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price. If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife, for the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers. If the world does come to an end here, or wherever, or if it limps into the future, decimated by the effects of religion-inspired nuclear terrorism, let's remember what the real problem was that we learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it. That's it. Grow up or die.

    • Crazy credits
      After the credits, there is one last clip of Bill Maher with his mother and sister. He tells them "I'll see you in heaven", and they laugh. His mother says "who knows," and there is a title card "In loving memory of Julie Maher, 1919-2007".
    • Connections
      Features Brigham Young (1940)
    • Soundtracks
      Crazy
      Written by Danger Mouse (as Brian Burton), CeeLo Green (as Ceelo Green) and Gianfranco Reverberi

      Published by Chrysalis Music (ASCAP) / Warner -Tamerline Pub Corp. (BMI) o/b/o Wanrer/ Chappell Music Ltd PRS/ Killer Tracks (BMI)

      Performed by Gnarls Barkley

      Courtesy of Downtown Records and Atlantic Recording Corp. by arrangement with Warner Music GRoup Film & TV Licensing

    User reviews374

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    7/10
    Funny For The Most Part But Shows Signs Of Moral Cowerdice While Tackling The Serious Bits At The End
    If there's one thing I believe to be the worst thing ever invented it's religion . Having been brought up in the west of Scotland , having traveled in the Middle East and the Indian sub continent I've not seen any evidence that religion is all its forms as being a force of good . I also find it impossible that after Marx stated that human beings are a product of conditioning and Darwin stated we're merely vessels to carry on our DNA to propagate our species anyone can believe in a creator or afterlife so anyone making a documentary putting the boot in to religion is only a good thing in my opinion

    The film with comedian Bill Maher giving the audience his background as being brought up in a mixed Cathoilc /Jewish background and any fears that RELIGULOUS was going to be more about Maher's rather than religion are soon dispelled as he arrives in a " Truckers Chapel " for his first set of victims who inform Maher and the audience that the Turin shroud was tested and was found to have female blood on it hence it proves a miracle has taken place . Hmmmm I can see why they're driving trucks for a living and not lecturing at Harvard on subjects like Astro-physics and logic . To be fair though this Chapel has a slightly more multi-ethnic flavour than you'd expect to see in a lot of mainstream churches in America

    The first two thirds of the film play along in this irreverent style . Maher interviews someone and the interview is cut with clips from Hollywood movies . Everyone will their favourite LOL bits such asformer singer Dr Cummingsfailing to remember the passage from Matthew that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God , the Senator stating that you don't need to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate and my favourite moment Jose Miranda cheerfully telling the world that he is directly descended from Christ and is indeed the second coming . Cut to a clip from SCARFACE with Pacino saying " You know what I'm talking about you f--ckin' cockroach " . One thinks Dan Brown has the same opinion of Miranda and might find himself the subject of a court case . Miranda after all isn't short of money and his talent for spinning out unlikely stories is better than Brown's tall tales

    Some people have a problem with the way the interviews are edited . You have to take onboard that this is the curse of all documentary film making - you've no idea what has been left out and what's taken out of context . This is irrelevant since it doesn't matter what's been said - the subjects have said it and it's nonsense no matter what context it's been said in . Where the documentary does fail is when Maher takes on the Muslims and the whole tone changes . He interviews a couple of gay Muslims in Holland who enjoy Maher's jovial style but Maher doesn't seem keen to rip in to Muslim interviewees with his style . I guess the subject of Salman Rushdie being brought up might have had something to do with this . Likewise Maher suggests Muslims aren't keen to criticise their religion to outsiders . Why didn't you say this to the Muslims you were interviewing instead of saying it to your film crew Bill ? Somewhat unforgivably Maher interviews an Iman in The Dome On The Rock and and some Muslims in the background start speaking to one another . As the trivia section of this page says what the men are really saying isn't being translated on screen correctly . So much for the moral superiority of secularism

    Maher also lets himself down finishing with a montage of clips of war , carnage and all other types of apocalyptic imagery but both Maher and director Larry Charles should have picked these clips more carefully . We're shown clips that include both Yasser Arafat and Colonel Gadaffi both of whom were secular , leftist leaning leaders who unlike so many leaders in the Middle East at least didn't subjugate women simply because they were women . They murdered people and played the religion card when it suited them but even they don't deserve to be labelled as theocrats . Likewise is there a moral equivalence in showing clips featuring George W Bush and Mahmoud Ahmidinejad . Say what you like about America but at least it's a democracy unlike many countries in the Middle East

    Finally Maher ruins much of what has gone before by finishing with the statement that no one knows what happens when we die and anyone who does shouldn't be listened to . . The problem with this argument is that from a totally logical point of view the both the religious and secular point of view are of equal grounding ie " ! believe in an afterlife " has the same evidential argument as someone stating " I don't believe in an afterlife " . It's an agnostic argument . An atheist argument would be " People have claimed through the ages there is a creator and an afterlife but have failed to produce a single shred of evidence for this . It's more logical to assume eternal oblivion awaits us after death and that's why there's no evidence offered for an afterlife "
    helpful•24
    13
    • Theo Robertson
    • Dec 21, 2012

    FAQ1

    • What does "religulous" mean?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • October 3, 2008 (United States)
      • United States
      • English
      • Hebrew
      • Arabic
      • Persian
      • Spanish
    • Also known as
    • Filming locations
      • Winter Park, Florida, USA
    • Production company
      • Thousand Words
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • 1 hour 41 minutes
      • Color
      • Dolby Digital

    Related news

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    Religulous (2008)
    Top Gap
    By what name was Religulous (2008) officially released in Canada in English?
    Answer
    • See more gaps
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    • Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • IMDb Developer
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Your Ads Privacy Choices
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2023 by IMDb.com, Inc.