David and Bathsheba (1951)

King David (Gregory Peck) rules Israel with a wise and just hand, but when he spies Bathsheba (Susan Hayward), who at the time is another man's wife, the monarch falls foul of his earthly desires, distancing him from God's graces.
The Old Testament judgements, the kind that shine a murky light on the religion's tenets, mean the message is open to one-sided interpretations, which may be a good and/or bad thing, and I feel that a story of adultery loses some of its power when one of the participants has multiple wives, but the dialogue is of a sort that made Hollywood great, once upon a time. The two leads enjoy some of the best examples, but David's first wife, Michal (Jayne Meadows) steals a few impassioned scenes with what she's given.

4 draconian stones cast out of 5