Heads up, conservative film fans: Today sees the Blu-Ray debut of two of the all-time great Christian movies, Quo Vadis (1951) and The Robe (1953). These lush, high-budget precursors to The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben-Hur (1959) each boast spectacular Technicolor restorations along with an impressive array of special features, right in time for Easter.

It’s worth noting that stars like Richard Burton, Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Victor Mature, Jean Simmons, and Peter Ustinov all immersed themselves to various degrees in the miserable culture of drugs, alcohol, affairs, bisexuality, and leftist fellow-travelling that soiled Hollywood then as today. Nevertheless, they collectively rose to the occasion in this pair of wholesome, God-fearing pictures, helping to birth a decades-long Renaissance in rousing cinematic tales of battle, pageantry, lust, decadence, beauty, piety, and sacrifice. Modern stars would do well to emulate their example — The Robe still ranks higher on the all-time box office chart than any of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, the Spider Man films, or the Lord of the Rings films.

Many assume that such old-school success is now impossible in a too-cool-for-pews, post-Life of Brian popular culture. But The Passion of the Christ, itself released in a lavish Blu-Ray “Definitive Edition” last month, proved a scant few years back that blockbuster profits still await those who take pains to produce inspired, unabashedly sincere Christian fare. A massive, starving, international audience is out there, waiting. All that’s needed is for Hollywood to begin serving it once again. Restoring gems like Quo Vadis and The Robe is a healthy start, and Fox and Warner Brothers deserve praise for brightening this Lenten season with two classics of the genre presented in sumptuous, revelatory Blu-Ray.

— Leo Grin is a writer living in Los Angeles.