By Milo Haskour —
Watch out, Disney.
The animated film David, released in theaters on Dec. 19, 2025, is a child’s classic with screen-popping scenes, swelling music and an archetypal underdog vs. impossible storyline that threatens to steal audiences away from the studio that abandoned its mainstay of family themes with woke-after-woke productions promoting unfamily content.
In time for Christmas, David engages with quality 3-D cartooning music from Phil Wickham, who voices for the adult psalmist. Brought to life by animation from Sunrise Studios in Cape Town, South Africa, and distributed by Angel Studios, David now joins the canon of Christian classics with The Prince of Egypt (1998).
David was a project of 30 years in the making, says creator Phil Cunningham. It’s release now is not without a certain irony since House of David on Amazon Prime is the current gold standard for the retelling 1 and 2 Samuel.
While House of David has four seasons to tell episode after episode of David’s life, David does it in only two hours, which presents certain challenges, the chief being the most dramatic moment of the movie — the slaying of the giant Goliath — happens in the middle of the movie, not at the end.
By contrast, House of David has the luxury to make the slaying a resounding finale of Season 1, a catharsis released after building tension all season. On the other hand, David, which aims to summarize the whole life of David tries to find an emotionally-charged denouement that beats Goliath (which they don’t succeed at). Perhaps it is impossible to write a script that covers all of David’s life and has an exhilarating conclusion superior to the Goliath face off.
But on the other hand, David one-ups House of David in the giant-slaying. They portray Goliath initially despising having to engage in singular combat with the youth, David (which is Biblical). But when David defies him that he is fighting against God, then Goliath feels that the battle is worthy of him because he’ll be taking on a god.
As Goliath boasts hubristically about how he’ll humiliate the God of the Jews, the focus zooms out into the heavens, from which Goliath now appears puny. It is the most memorable scene.
While House of David indulges in the real violence of David’s life, David for kids sanitizes much. In fact, the finale seems anticlimactic with David defeating the Amalekites, now with his sword but by leading Israelites in singing. The movie seems even more musically-oriented than a typical Disney film.
Still, the movie is recommended as a fun and visually-pleasing because by dramatizing Biblical content, you are creating interest and giving Biblical knowledge. Cunningham has the vision of presenting the movie free of charge to millions of kids and has a pay-it-forward option at the end of the film.
Anytime you can make the Bible entertaining and engage people who don’t go to church, you have a winner.
