To Save a Life is a 2009 American Christian drama film directed by Brian Baugh and starring Randy Wayne, Deja Kreutzberg, Robert Bailey Jr., Steven Crowder and Sean Michael Afable.

Jake Taylor, a high school student living in San Diego, California, attends the funeral of his ex-best friend Roger Dawson.

After the final basketball game of his senior year, Jake meets Chris Vaughn, a youth pastor, who had spoken at Roger's funeral.

Jake continues to struggle in dealing with Roger's death, frequently attending church and drawing concern from Amy because of his behavior.

Jake confronts the group about their shallow faith and failure to be inclusive and inviting, and a girl named Andrea suggests that they all have lunch together at school as a solution.

When Danny, the pastor's son, overhears Jake and Chris talking about Amy's pregnancy, he posts drawings all over the school announcing the news.

With Amy distracting the teachers that guard the exit, Jake runs past them to the road and steps in front of the police car, preventing Jonny from a drug overdose.

[3] Writer and producer Jim Britts was inspired to make the movie after observing a simple problem: many teenagers are hurting.

[4] Britts, a Christian youth pastor in Southern California, and his wife, a schoolteacher, began taking the many stories of teens' struggles and molding them into a film.

The movie includes scenes of teen drinking, marijuana smoking, cutting (inflicting self-injury), moderate profanity, and implications of sex.

Several Oceanside locations, including Oceanside High School, Calvin Christian High School, MiraCosta College, New Song Community Church, Eternal Hills Memorial Park, Harbor, Guajome Park Academy, and Beach are shown in the film.

[11] Marjorie Baumgarten of the Austin Chronicle gave the film a negative review, saying, "To Save a Life is a well-meaning but ineptly made message movie..."[12] Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice said, "For all its initial attempts to soften its religiosity... To Save a Life is about as subtle as this closing credit: 'The producers would like to thank: GOD.

'"[13] Andy Webster of The New York Times said, "The film would be a mere nuisance if not for its shameless exploitation of school shootings to advance its agenda.

Gary Goldstein of The Los Angeles Times said, "The teen drama 'To Save a Life,' nicely directed by Brian Baugh from a script by Jim Britts, manages to be appealing, poignant and inspiring in ways that are gentle and quite real.

This realistic background makes the story of repentance and forgiveness much more powerful..."[19] To Save a Life had a strong debut in its first weekend,[20] amassing a total of $1,581,517, despite playing in only 441 theaters.

The DVD features an in-depth behind-the-scenes of the making of the film, deleted scenes, a gag reel, and music videos.