Ben-Hur (1959)

Ben-Hur could actually be considered a remake of a 1929 movie.  It is the story of a Jewish guy who rejects his Roman childhood friend in some scenes full of homoerotic subtext.  It's a pretty decent movie and the chariot race scene is awesome.  Also, it's in technicolor, so that's fun.  It makes me wonder if chariot races were as fatal as depicted.  Somehow I doubt it.  If, like me, you have a modern attention span you will probably have to break it up into a couple of viewings.  I wasn't sure to file this under life of Jesus or early Christian, but I'm going to go with early Christian, since it's a sort of idealized "beginning of Christianity" story.