Randy Astle’s history of Mormon cinema covers over a hundred years and divides LDS involvement in film into five distinct “waves.” This monumental article offers a unique perspective on LDS history—through the lens of the camera.

Early anti-Mormon films drew on the sinister, predatory image of the vampire in portraying Mormon missionaries. James V. D’Arc compares Trapped by the Mormons with Bram Stoker’s popular novel Dracula.

Mormon film has come into its own to a large degree because of its engagement with certain paradoxes in Mormon culture. Terryl L. Givens shows how artistic culture is the exploration of “tensions, rather than the glib assertion or imposition of a fragile harmony.”

Travis T. Anderson observes that the word “wholesome” is used in a strange sort of way by Latter-day Saints when referring to art, literature, or film. Although the word properly means something nutritious or edifying, to many Mormons it has come to refer to something without objectionable content. Anderson suggests that by focusing on the negative in works of art, literature, or film, we can miss the good they usually contain.

Behind the recent Mormon cinematic movement is the business side of making and marketing movies. Eric Samuelsen looks at various business models that have been used by LDS filmmakers and explores the economics of Mormon cinema.