The Day Christ Died is a 1980 American television film directed by James Cellan Jones, and produced by 20th Century Fox and CBS-TV.

A dramatization of the last 24 hours of Jesus Christ's life, it is based on Jim Bishop's 1957 book of the same name.

[2] The book was co-adapted by James Lee Barrett, who, 15 years prior, had scripted The Greatest Story Ever Told for George Stevens.

[4] Around the same time that a popular mob hero named Barabbas is arrested and convicted by Pontius Pilate and his lieutenant governor/aide Tullius, Jesus of Nazareth arrives in Jerusalem in time for the celebration of the Passover/Seder.

This ideas initially goes well with Pilate since he fears a riot from a mob clamoring for Barabbas release.