It stars Ethan Hawke as a minister of a small congregation in upstate New York who grapples with mounting despair brought on by tragedy, worldly concerns, and a tormented past.

It grossed $4 million worldwide and received positive reviews from critics, who mostly praised Hawke's performance and Schrader's direction and writing.

As an experiment, Reverend Ernst Toller has decided to write down his daily activities and unfiltered thoughts in a journal for one year, planning to destroy the resulting record when he is done.

The congregation is tiny, and it was bought some years ago by Pastor Joel Jeffers' Abundant Life church, an evangelical megachurch in Albany, which pays the bills.

Michael relates how he wants Mary to get an abortion because he does not want to bring a child into a world that will soon be rendered almost uninhabitable by climate change, and Toller counters by telling Michael how, before he came to First Reformed, he was a military chaplain, but left the service after his son, Joseph, who he encouraged to enlist in the military, died in the Iraq War and his wife left him.

Not wanting Michael to feel responsible for taking a child from the world, as he does, Toller offers to help the young man search for the courage to overcome his despair, and they arrange to meet again.

In accordance with Michael's will, a service is held at a local toxic-waste dump, where his ashes are scattered while an environmental protest song is sung.

One night, a panicked Mary visits Toller in the parsonage of the church, and he offers to play Michael's role in a nonsexual rite of physical intimacy that she mentions the couple used to perform when she would get anxious.

[5] Schrader said that Paweł Pawlikowski's film Ida (2013) inspired him to shoot in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, saying it "drives the vertical lines, so you get more of the human body in the frame.

The website's consensus reads: "Brought to life by delicate work from writer-director Paul Schrader and elevated by a standout performance by Ethan Hawke, First Reformed takes a sensitive and suspenseful look at weighty themes.

[25] A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote: "First Reformed wrestles with contemporary reality, but it isn't a work of realism in the way that term is conventionally understood.

[29] Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune stated that "for such a deliberate exercise in a specific, methodical style, First Reformed is oddly bracing, full of unresolved, contradictory, vital ideas.