Brilliant performances from both actors! It was a fantastic story as well...full of drama and character development. All I can say is bravo!

Good acting from both Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins. It's more entertaining than you would think but it still was kinda boring.

"Two of the finest performances of the year."

This movie is a great challenge to my deep-rooted cinicism when it comes to religion, and especially the catholic church, an institution that has surrounded me my whole life and that i've always rejected. The thought that most often popped into my head watching it was that the real story can not have been this "pretty", it felt too heartwarming and cute to represent something as corrupted as the catholic church. However, if you ignore the real life reference to this, no doubt, partly fictional version of it, you get a great, entertaining, moving film about two powerful, loved, yet highly flawed people, that try to find common ground in tolerance for the sake of some greater good. If only high-level Catholicism in the real world was as tolerant and human as this movie makes it look...

Technically wise, the way Meirelles shoots this movie to make it look like a documentary was inspired and makes for a very interesting and fun watching experience. I love his filmmaking style!

Amazing dialogues between the two popes! Really surpreended me to see how human they were represented.

I honestly didn't know what to expect, other than some vague expectation of quality based on the lead actors.

It's not a plot-heavy movie, it's rather a long conversation between two people of fundamentally different opinions. It touches on some of the controversies around the catholic church, but they really only matter peripherally, as far as they directly impact our two characters.

It still manages to have some powerful conversations about responsibility and guilt and penance.

How much of it and of the facts given are true I really can't tell, but there is a moment of confession where to audio artistically fades to 0, that feels more like a legal choice than an artistic one, and that in turn gives anything else a bit more credibility.

from hannibal to pope ,,,, amazing anthony

It's 2020 and I've just started shipping Popes.

This movie has great performances by Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Price. This movie is based on actual events that transpired during the time and after the death of Pope John Paul. It is dialogue driven but keeps the viewer on the edge of their seats whether you are a catholic sympathizer or not.

Goes on a little too long perhaps, and it does meander occasionally. Still, with two wonderful performanances at the centre of the film, and with some insight into the faith that drives them, ultimately, I have to give this film my blessing.

Ratzinger: Another thing: you openly give sacraments to those who are out of communion. To the divorced, for instance.
Bergoglio: Oh, I believe that giving communion is not a reward for the virtuous, it is food for the starving. [...] Did Jesus build walls? His face is a face of mercy. The bigger the sinner, the warmer the welcome. Mercy is the dynamite that blows down walls.
__
Ratzinger: Inoltre, tu concedi i sacramenti a chi non vive in grazia di Dio. Ai divorziati per esempio."
Bergoglio: Ah beh, io credo che il sacramento della comunione non sia un premio per i virtuosi, ma cibo per gli affamati. [...] Gesù ha mai costruito muri? Il suo volto è sempre misericordioso. Più grave è il peccato, più calorosa è l'accoglienza. La misericordia è la dinamite per distruggere qualsiasi muro.