Producer Jim Whitaker, a graduate of Georgetown University, says his Jesuit education “heavily influences my filmmaking.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right poet.”

While at least one the nominees for Best Picture has an obvious Catholic angle, the other nominees touch on themes that will resonate with Catholics and other believers: love, reconciliation, brokenness and our human longing to be known.

These movies are appearing at a time when our country’s leadership is treating many groups as outsiders who do not belong in the United States.