RISE
A family that prays together climbs together — all the way to the NBA.
Should You Watch It?
Yes — this is the rare true story that earns its inspiration honestly. RISE follows a Nigerian-Greek immigrant family who pray together, work together, and refuse to give up on each other, and the film never treats their Christian faith as decoration. The Lord's Prayer said on their knees, the cross around the mother's neck, the crosses on the wall — it's all there because it's who this family actually is.
It costs you very little to watch. There's a violent anti-immigrant mob scene and brief police violence against immigrants, plus two light profanities and a racial slur — real content, worth knowing about, but light by any modern standard. What you get in return is superb acting and a family you'll genuinely laugh and cry with.
The one real weakness is structural: the film tries to cover 25 years and occasionally loses the thread. That's a small price. Watch this one together, and be ready to talk about faith, sacrifice, and what family really means.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESVera and Charles flee Nigeria for a better life in Greece, leaving their infant son behind with family until they can send for him. In Greece they're barely tolerated, undocumented, and often on the edge of eviction — selling souvenirs to tourists to survive while their family grows to five sons. Then two of the boys wander into a free after-school basketball clinic, and a family with nothing starts discovering just how much natural talent it has.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means this one earns its praise. The acting is described as superb, turning the Antetokounmpo family into people you root for completely — the review says plainly, "we laugh with them, we cry with them, we win with them." That's high praise, and it holds.
The one real flaw is structural. Spanning roughly 25 years in under two hours forces some compression, and the source notes real confusion and gaps in the storytelling as a result. It's a film that occasionally outruns its own runtime — but the heart underneath never falters, and that heart is what stays with you.
The Worldview
This is a film built on a strongly Christian, biblical, moral, and redemptive foundation — and it doesn't hide it. The family prays the Lord's Prayer together on their knees every night. The mother wears a cross. Crosses hang on their walls. They pray in thanksgiving when things go well and in need when things don't. Faith here isn't a subplot; it's the family's operating system, and the film trusts it enough to show it plainly.
What the film exalts lines up closely with what Scripture exalts: honesty, integrity, loyalty, and a family that stays bound together through hardship rather than fracturing under it. The obstacles are real — poverty, statelessness, prejudice — but the family's response to them is prayer, hard work, and love, not despair or compromise. There's no worldview sleight-of-hand here to flag, no distortion smuggled in under the inspiration. It's a rare film this clean in what it believes.
The film's whole engine is a family refusing to let hardship or distance pull them apart — a truth Scripture states plainly: "Two are better than one... for if they fall, one will lift up the other" (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10). RISE simply shows what that looks like when a family lives it out for twenty-five hard years.
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
Very strong Christian, biblical, moral, redemptive worldview where the main characters, and their entire family, are strong Christians who pray the Lord’s Prayer on their knees together at night, plus the mother wears a Cross around her neck, there are Crosses on the walls of their home, and they pray both in thanksgiving and in need
Foul Language
Two light profanities, plus a racial epithet of “blackie” and a vulgar “you suck”
Violence
Anti-immigrant violent mob smashes a bus window, and brief scenes of violence against immigrants by Greek police officers who arrest them
Sex
No sexual immorality, but a married couple snuggles, fully clothed, in bed
Nudity
No nudity
Alcohol Use
No alcohol use
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
No smoking or drugs
Miscellaneous Immorality
Children sometimes disobey parents.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
This family prayed together every night, in good times and hard ones. What would it look like for your family to make prayer that regular a habit?
Matthew 6:9–13Vera and Charles kept working and hoping even when the legal system kept shutting doors on them. Where do you see them relying on faith instead of giving in to despair?
Romans 5:3–5The film shows a mob and even police turning violence on immigrants simply for being outsiders. What does the Bible say about how we're to treat the stranger among us?
Leviticus 19:33–34 · Hebrews 13:2The family stayed loyal to each other through poverty, fear, and years of setbacks. What does it cost to stay that loyal to family when things get hard — and why is it worth it?
Ecclesiastes 4:9–10The Final Word
RISE is what a family movie should be — honest about hardship, unashamed of faith, and full of people worth cheering for. It's not a perfect film; the timeline gets away from it here and there. But the heart is real, and so is the payoff. Our answer: worth the trip — with caution for younger children.
