Films and TV shows that feel like Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen

A weary, tender meditation on love, faith, desire and defeat, where broken devotion becomes its own kind of praise.

1. Shrek (2001): The song's best-known film moment, with Cohen's hymn sung over Shrek's low point.
2. Leonard Cohen: Bird on a Wire (2010): Raw tour documentary showing the poet-singer in his own world.
3. Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song (2022): A documentary on the song's long road from obscurity to hymn.
4. The West Wing (1999): Its grief-heavy moments use the song for public sorrow and faith tested.
5. Watchmen (2009): Cohen's song scores a scene of bleak, sensual disillusionment.
6. Nashville (1975): Songs, faith and communal grief meet in a fractured American portrait.
7. Manchester by the Sea (2016): Unredeemed grief and quiet endurance, with the same tired dignity.
8. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971): Cohen's songs defined this melancholy, snow-bound western about doomed love.
9. Six Feet Under (2001): Death, love and spiritual doubt, treated with tenderness and dark wit.