Christ Walking on the Water (French: Le Christ marchant sur les flots) is an 1899 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès.

In the summer of 1899, Georges Méliès and his family took a vacation on the coast of Normandy. During the vacation, Méliès made three short actuality films: Bird's-Eye View of St. Helier (Jersey), Steamer Entering the Harbor of Jersey, and Passengers Landing at Harbor of Granville. He also filmed the open sea, to use as a backdrop for multiple exposure effects for two fiction films: Neptune and Amphitrite and Christ Walking on the Water.^[2]

Christ Walking on the Water was based on the story told in Mark 6:45-52.^[3] The film was Méliès's second film based on religious themes; the first was The Temptation of Saint Anthony, made the previous year.^[4]

The film depicted Christ in a simple storytelling fashion, emphasizing his magician-like qualities and the dramatic effect of the superhuman miracle. Méliès was not the only early filmmaker to favor this uncomplicated Christology; the religious films of the Lumière brothers use a similarly straightforward approach.^[3]

The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 204 in its catalogues, where it was advertised with the parenthetical subtitle exécuté sur mer véritable.^[1] It may have influenced Ferdinand Zecca's 1907 film La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, which features a similar scene of Christ walking on water.^[5]

Christ Walking on the Water is currently presumed lost.^[1]

• Christ Walking on the Water at IMDb

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