It begins with the Agony in the Garden of Olives (i.e., Gethsemane), continues with the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, the brutal Scourging at the Pillar, the suffering of Mary as prophesied by Simeon, the crucifixion and death of Jesus, and ends with a brief depiction of his resurrection.

Jesus then carries a heavy wooden cross on the road to Golgotha with two thieves, Dismas and Gesmas, following behind, while Satan observes his suffering sadistically.

'"[22] The script was written in English by Gibson and Benedict Fitzgerald, then translated by William Fulco, S.J., a professor at Loyola Marymount University, into Latin and reconstructed Aramaic.

[25] The film was produced independently and shot in Italy at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, and on location in the city of Matera and the ghost town of Craco, both in the Basilicata region.

According to the DVD special feature, Martin Scorsese had recently finished his film Gangs of New York, from which Gibson and his production designers constructed part of their set.

Jonathan Morris, and a local priest, Philip J. Ryan, who visited the set daily to provide counsel, Confession, and Holy Communion to Jim Caviezel.

[26] There were other priests involved with the filming, including Abbé Michel Debourges from the Institute of Christ the King, Stephen Somerville, and Jean-Marie Charles-Roux, all of whom were asked by Mel Gibson to daily celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass.

[49] The film additionally received public endorsements from evangelical leaders, including Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Robert Schuller, Darrell Bock, Christianity Today editor David Neff, Pat Robertson, Lee Strobel, Jerry Falwell, Max Lucado, Tim LaHaye and Chuck Colson.

[65] In addition, it witnessed immense popularity in countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates where political parallels with the Palestinian situation resonated with audiences.

[68] The Passion Recut, a re-edited version, was released in theaters on March 11, 2005, with five minutes of the most explicit violence deleted, in hopes of attracting more viewers by making the film approachable to consumers who found the original cut too gruesome.

[70] On the Passion Recut's rating and appeal to wider audiences, Berney explained:[72] The goal was to try and reach toward a PG-13 level, but the MPAA felt it still was an R due to the overall intensity of the film, so we are going out unrated and perhaps it’s ultimately somewhere in between.

The website's critical consensus reads: "Director Mel Gibson's zeal is unmistakable, but The Passion of the Christ will leave many viewers emotionally drained rather than spiritually uplifted.

[84] In a positive review for Time, its critic Richard Corliss called The Passion of the Christ "a serious, handsome, excruciating film that radiates total commitment.

"[83] New York Press film critic Armond White praised Gibson's direction, comparing him to Carl Theodor Dreyer in how he transformed art into spirituality.

[86] Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times gave the movie four out of four stars, calling it "the most violent film I have ever seen" as well as reflecting on how it struck him, a former altar boy: "What Gibson has provided for me, for the first time in my life, is a visceral idea of what the Passion consisted of.

[89] Writing for the Dallas Observer, Robert Wilonsky stated that he found the movie "too turgid to awe the nonbelievers, too zealous to inspire and often too silly to take seriously, with its demonic hallucinations that look like escapees from a David Lynch film; I swear I couldn't find the devil carrying around a hairy-backed midget anywhere in the text I read.

"[83] The June 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly named The Passion of the Christ the most controversial film of all time, followed by Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971).

[102] On December 5, 2003, Passion of the Christ co-producer Stephen McEveety gave a rough cut[103] of the film to Archbishop Stanisław Dziwisz, the pope's secretary.

[104] Pope John Paul II watched the film in his private apartment with Archbishop Dziwisz that night, and later met with McEveety[105] and Jan Michelini, an Italian and the movie's assistant director.

According to Rod Dreher in the Dallas Morning News, McEveety was sent an email from papal spokesman Navarro-Valls that supported the Noonan account, and suggested "It is as it was" could be used as the leitmotif in discussions on the film and said to "Repeat the words again and again and again.

"[112][110] Dreher opined that either Mel Gibson's camp had created "a lollapalooza of a lie", or the Vatican was making reputable journalists and filmmakers look like "sleazebags or dupes" and he explained: Interestingly, Ms. Noonan reported in her Dec. 17 column that when she asked the spokesman if the pope had said anything more than "It is as it was," he e-mailed her to say he didn't know of any further comments.

In a follow-up column in The Wall Street Journal, Noonan addressed the question of why the issues being raised were not just "a tempest in a teapot" and she explained:[110]The truth matters.

[...] The priests have big noses and gnarly faces, lumpish bodies, yellow teeth; Herod Antipas and his court are a bizarre collection of oily-haired, epicene perverts.

In the episode, Eric Cartman leads a neo-Nazi rally whilst dressed as Adolf Hitler, Kyle Broflovski has nightmares about the excessive violence and complains about the Jews' apparent responsibility for the death of Jesus, and Stan Marsh and Kenny McCormick go to Mel Gibson to get a refund.

"[128] Conservative columnist Cal Thomas also disagreed with allegations of antisemitism and wrote in Townhall: "To those in the Jewish community who worry that the film might contain anti-Semitic elements, or encourage people to persecute Jews, fear not.

"[129] Bob Smithouser of Focus on the Family's Plugged In also believed that the film was trying to convey the evils and sins of humanity rather than specifically targeting Jews, stating: "The anthropomorphic portrayal of Satan as a player in these events brilliantly pulls the proceedings into the supernatural realm—a fact that should have quelled the much-publicized cries of anti-Semitism since it shows a diabolical force at work beyond any political and religious agendas of the Jews and Romans.

"[70] Moreover, senior officer at the Vatican Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, who had seen the film, addressed the matter so: Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, distorts the truth in order to put a whole race of people in a bad light.

Scott in The New York Times wrote "The Passion of the Christ is so relentlessly focused on the savagery of Jesus' final hours that this film seems to arise less from love than from wrath, and to succeed more in assaulting the spirit than in uplifting it.

When Rogan asked if he would be recasting the lead character, Gibson confirmed that Caviezel will reprise the role, and added that the use of CGI and various special effects would be used to allow the actor to appear the same age.

A press release has revealed that Caviezel, who will reprise his role as Jesus in the sequel, is “just a month out from starting production on ‘The Resurrection.”[144][145][better source needed] According to the report, an Italian outlet has Gibson scheduled to arrive in the southern Province of Matera to shoot scenes in April 2025.