Despite multiple reports during the past two moths about Pope Francis’ frail health, part of the world is still in shock about the recent news of his passing. One of the most progressive figures in the Church in recent years (under Church standards, that is), Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, broke several barriers: he was the first Latin American, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first from the Jesuit Order.
But the Papal figure has existed for many, many centuries. Mainly located in the heart of Rome, the Head of the Catholic Church has been an incredibly powerful and influential figure throughout history — mainly European, but also global. Naturally, artists from all walks of life have felt the impulse to use their creativity to portray that figure, as well as to unearth some of the Vatican’s darkest secrets. Because, let’s face it: what a very small, select group of people (men) decide behind closed doors ends up affecting millions of believers around the world. Cinema has explored this too, so here are four movies and one TV show you should watch if you want to deepen into what’s going on right now.
Conclave
Almost fresh off the oven, Edward Berger’s celebrated work is the ultimate Papal film you should be watching right now. With eight Oscar nominations and starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini, this tense thriller about the dirty games and complex politics behind the election of a new Pope will have you on a chokehold. After watching this, you won't trust your own shadow.
The Young Pope & The New Pope
Leave it to Paolo Sorrentino to portray Italy’s most decadent, layered, weird, surprising, funny, and wonderful characters. Almost ten years ago, in 2016, Jude Law became the most irreverent, shocking, and unpredictable Pope we’ve ever seen on the screen (big or small) — he smoked, he questioned his own belief in God, and put the entire Roman clergy upside down. The ten-chapter series was so successful that HBO asked Sorrentino to work on a second part — hence we got The New Pope (2019), where John Malkovich took over and gave us another brilliant, spectacular lesson in acting.
Amen
It takes guts to confront the Church’s past, especially when that past is actually very recent. Greek-born director Costas-Gravras proved how ballsy he was in Amen (2002), a movie that openly criticised the Vatican’s neutrality during World War II — a neutrality that has proven to be deadly to millions of people. Pope Pius XII’s silence is a cross the Catholic Church will bear (pun intended) for the rest of its days. In his film, Costas-Gavras tells the story of real-life Kurt Gerstein, a chemist and member of the SS in charge of supplying Ziklon B gas to the death camps that also told everyone in the German church about what he knew about the nazis.
The Two Popes
We may not be much aware of it, but the fact that we lived the transition from Pope Benedict XVI to Pope Francis was an extremely unique episode in human history. Netflix saw the opportunity and grabbed it by casting two forces of nature, Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, who played the two cardinals and their relationship in a very powerful way, under the direction of Fernando Meirelles.
The Shoes of the Fisherman
Released in 1968, this movie by Michael Anderson follows the story of a Ukrainian archbishop, Kiril Lakota, as he’s released from a forced labour camp in Siberia (he was there as a political prisoner) and is sent to the Vatican to advice the current pope, Pius XII, who’s gravely ill. With the Cold War as the backdrop, the film explores power, secrecy, politics, and faith.