Durkheim's concepts of the sacred and the profane dominated religious and social criticism for decades. Although these two inexorably linked concepts are often linked to religion, we can apply them to the quasi-religion of the “American Dream” in order to analyze the lives of Lester and Carolyn Burnham, Buddy Kane, and Angela. Hayes in the movie “American Beauty”. In “American Beauty,” the characters' experiences illustrate the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane, the morality associated with the sacred and the profane, and the influences that the sacred and profane have on the characters. The sacred and the profane are spread across all the characters. of American Beauty and their motivations. Durkheim's (1912) idea of ​​fear is that the ideal that society holds to, the "dream". In this case, instead of a specific religion, the characters are lulled into the religion of the “American dream”. We know that the “American Dream” is an adequate source of the sacred because “sacredness does not require a God. Flags, national holidays, and other symbols of collective solidarity are sacred in the same way – and serve the same group-bonding function – of crosses and holy days” (Graham and Haidt 2011). There are several manifestations of the sacred throughout the film, taking the forms of the beautiful Angela and the lucky Buddy. As we see these manifestations of the sacred, we must remember that the power of the sacred is that it has no real existence in the world. Lester and others like him have the idea of ​​something higher, more beautiful, freer and greater than what they have. “In a word, above the real world where he spends his profane life he has placed... at the center of the paper... the urn of Economic Psychology. 11(1):35-67. Retrieved February 13, 2014. (http://www.researchgate.net/publication/4839111_The_sacred_meanings_of_money/file/9fcfd50d80f7b28cb3.pdf) Durkheim, Emile. 1912. “The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life” pp 243-254 in Classical Sociological Theory, edited by Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, et al. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2007.Graham, Jesse and Johnathan Haidt. 2011. The Social Psychology of Morality: Exploring the Causes of Good and Evil. New York: APA Books. Retrieved February 15, 2014. (http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~jessegra/papers/Graham&Haidt.in_press.Sacredness.Herzliya_chapter.pdf) Pickering, WSF 1990. “The Eternity of the Sacred: The Fallacy of Durkheim?” Archives of Social Sciences of Religions. 69(35):91-108. Retrieved February 15, 2014. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/30114718?seq=2)