Portrayals of God in popular media have varied from a white-haired old man in Oh, God! to a woman in Dogma, from an entirely off-screen character to a figure of fun.^[1] According to trinitarian Christianity, Jesus Christ is God, so cultural depictions of Jesus in film and television also portray God.^[1]

Islam and Judaism both prohibit pictorial representations of God. However, television and Hollywood cinema emerged from a largely Christian tradition—whilst it shared the prohibition on idolatry was more relaxed about religious iconography—and the many cultural depictions of God in that tradition that preceded the invention of television and cinema.^[2]

Whilst even the humorous portrayals of God are rarely irreverent,^[1] portraying God is not without controversy. The animated television series God, the Devil, and Bob portrayed God as being a beer-swilling, ex-hippie character who closely resembled The Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, which raised objections from fundamentalist Christian groups in the United States, causing the show to be pulled from broadcasting in the United States after just 3 episodes (although the entire series was broadcast in the United Kingdom).^[3][4]

One of the last films that British activist Mary Whitehouse campaigned against was Irvine Welsh's The Granton Star Cause, which portrayed God as drunken and abusive. Ironically, the campaign backfired, only serving to advertise the film more widely.^[5]

The role of God is a difficult one to play, and also a difficult one to cast.^[1] The casting of Alanis Morissette as God in Dogma was influenced by the singer's own public dialogue with her faith, as expressed in her songs.^[5] Ella Shohat observes that God is a "rare challenge" for actors, raising the questions of how a method actor could possibly prepare for the part, and what possible personal feelings or experiences an actor could draw upon to portray a character that is omniscient, omnipotent, and the creator of the universe.^[2]

God has largely been cast as white and male, Morgan Freeman, Morissette, Ken Jeong^[6] and Jamie Foxx^[7] being exceptions to this, that line up alongside William Keighley's 1936 film The Green Pastures, where all characters, including God, are played by African American actors (Rex Ingram in the case of what the movie calls "De Lawd"). The opening prologue of that film included what amounted to a disclaimer to make the movie palatable to the white audiences in the United States of the time, asserting that:^[2][8]

God appears in many forms to those who believe in him. Thousands of Negroes in the Deep South visualize God and Heaven in terms of people and things they know in their everyday life. The Green Pastures is an attempt to portray that humble, reverent conception.

— The Green Pastures^[2][8]

A similarly unusual piece of casting can be found in Lars von Trier's 1996 movie Breaking the Waves, where God is a woman and identical to the movie's (human) protagonist.^[2]

Whilst in silent movies, the voice of God was simply an on-screen written caption, in the talkies, God's voice has presented a particular casting challenge, in biblical epics especially, since vocal intonation and accent carry implications of class, gender, and race. Although in both the Bible and the Qur'an God speaks, that voice is nowhere described. A filmmaker thus faces a choice about the voice to use, with no scriptural guidance to work from. This conflicts with the filmmaker's perceived task, in the case of biblical epics, of presenting scripture without interpretation or exegesis.^[2]

God's voice is generally cast in biblical epics and similar movies to provide a sense of authority. It is deep, resonant, and masculine, and usually the American English of Southern California (sometimes with a touch of British English).^[2] One unique approach used by the movie Switch, was to have God as two voices, one male and one female, speaking simultaneously.^[9][10] Director John Huston provided the voice of God in his 1966 epic The Bible: In the Beginning.^[11]

God has in fact been portrayed in movies ever since the days of silent cinema, in biblical epics, experimental films, everyday dramas, and comedies. A cantankerous animated God instructs King Arthur and his knights with their mission in the 1975 comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail.^[12] Robert Mitchum portrayed a cigar-smoking, American, God in Frédéric Fonteyne's 1992 comedy Les Sept péchés capitaux.^[2] A suicidal supreme being identified as "God Killing Himself" expires in an act of self-immolation in E. Elias Merhige's 1989 avant-garde feature Begotten.^[13] In Carlos Diegues' 2003 movie Deus é Brasileiro, God is a down-to-Earth character, exhausted from his labours, who is resting in the northeast of Brazil.^[2]

God as a character is often mentioned or intervenes in the plot of the CW show Supernatural, and eventually served as the series' ultimate villain. He seems as a loving, smart, serious, strategic, all-seeing, father, who observes events play out, but ignores them unless he absolutely needs to fix something. God has also been portrayed by actor Dennis Haysbert in the DC Comics-based show Lucifer starting in 2020 and 2021.