Movie · 2025 · History, Drama, Music · 2h 17m · R · English
Curator score: 5.5/10 (102.2K ratings)
The Earth will shake and tremble.
Overview
The extraordinary true legend of Ann Lee, founder of the devotional sect known as the Shakers, who preached gender and social equality and was revered by her followers as the female Christ.
Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie, Matthew Beard, Christopher Abbott, Viola Prettejohn, David Cale, Stacy Martin, Scott Handy, Jeremy Wheeler, Tim Blake Nelson, Daniel Blumberg, Willem van der Vegt, Maria Sand, Millie-Rose Crossley, Esmee Hewett, Harry Conway, Benjamin Bagota, Scott Alexander Young, George Taylor
Where to watch
Hulu
Curator Review
Verdict
A feverish, visually ambitious historical drama-musical that turns a little-known religious founder into a strange, ecstatic portrait of faith, repression, and self-invention. It sounds especially rewarding for viewers who like bold craft, period pieces with a modern pulse, and films that treat devotion as both transcendence and obsession.
Best for
viewers who like prestige historical dramas with a surreal edge
fans of religious, feminist, or cult-adjacent stories
people drawn to expressive music-and-movement sequences
audiences who appreciated The Brutalist's scale and spiritual intensity
viewers open to a character study that is more rapturous than conventional
Skip if
you want a strictly factual, cradle-to-grave biopic
you prefer subtle, naturalistic storytelling
you dislike religious imagery or ecstatic performance
you need a tightly focused narrative with clear emotional access
you are looking for a light or easily digestible period drama
Overview
The Testament of Ann Lee treats its subject less like a museum figure and more like a force of nature. Mona Fastvold leans into pageantry, ritual, and bodily movement to make Ann Lee's faith feel lived-in, dangerous, and strangely liberating. The result is a historical drama that is as interested in the texture of belief as it is in biography.
Worth noting
The film seems to thrive on contradiction: austerity and ecstasy, discipline and surrender, repression and release. That tension gives it a distinctive charge, especially in the dance and song passages, which appear to be staged with real physical clarity. Even when the film stays at a distance from Ann Lee psychologically, the craft and atmosphere do a lot of the heavy lifting.
Bottom line
This is the kind of period film that invites argument afterward. Some viewers will want more intimacy or historical specificity, but others will likely be swept up by its seriousness, oddity, and scale. If you respond to ambitious, spiritually haunted cinema, this looks like a strong watch.
Top Letterboxd reviews
PA27 (5★) · 4623 likes
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Insane
superseven.fr/article/mostra-venise-2-testament-ann-lee-fastvold
Sean Fennessey (4★) · 3747 likes
[thumping my chest with ecstatic devotion]
fran hoepfner (4.5★) · 2904 likes
because of what she’s been through and she’s still singing
marty (4.5★) · 2783 likes
amanda seyfried is mother
Amanda the Jedi · 2628 likes
I’d do this too if it meant not having to sleep with men in the 1700s
God said nah to sins of the flesh, sorry