Faith, Power, and the Weight of Change: The Two Popes Finds New Relevance in a Post-Conclave World
In the wake of Conclave’s theatrical debut and the resulting cultural resurgence in Vatican-centered storytelling, a previously celebrated gem has quietly reemerged on Netflix—and viewers are once again paying attention.
The Two Popes, Fernando Meirelles’s elegantly restrained and emotionally intelligent 2019 film, has returned to the platform’s most-watched ranks, reminding audiences why it remains a masterclass in character-driven cinema.
Where Conclave leans into intrigue and suspense, The Two Popes walks a quieter path. It is not a film about conspiracy or ecclesiastical ambition. It is about conversation. About doubt. About two men who have worn the same white robes but carry radically different visions of what those robes should mean.
Inspired by true events, The Two Popes dramatizes a moment without precedent in modern Catholic history: the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the subsequent election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would become Pope Francis. At the heart of the film lies not only a seismic transfer of power, but a rare coexistence between two pontiffs—one a theologian steeped in tradition, the other a reformer with a heart turned outward toward the world.
Anthony McCarten’s screenplay, both sharp and deeply compassionate, renders this meeting not as ideological warfare but as something far more human—a collision of conscience. Meirelles, best known for the kinetic chaos of City of God, opts here for intimacy over intensity, letting silences speak as loudly as words.
Of course, the film’s emotional weight is shouldered by its two leads: Anthony Hopkins as the reserved, cerebral Benedict, and Jonathan Pryce as the affable, quietly wounded Bergoglio.
Together, they create something rare on screen—an authentic spiritual dialogue. Hopkins’s Benedict is no caricature of aloof conservatism; he is weary, intelligent, and painfully aware of his own limitations. Pryce, meanwhile, imbues Bergoglio with a priest’s compassion and a politician’s realism, capturing both humility and haunting self-reckoning.
As scandals within the Vatican swirl in the background, the two men debate doctrine, soccer, music, and the meaning of mercy. Their conversations become not only theological sparring matches but meditations on power, legacy, and personal failure. The film never pushes toward verdicts. It offers questions wrapped in robes, questions echoed by millions of Catholics today.
What makes The Two Popes especially timely in this moment of renewed ecclesiastical curiosity is its insistence that transformation—both institutional and personal—is possible, but never easy. The film isn’t about one man triumphing over another. It’s about two men listening, and through that listening, changing.
In an age where polarization reigns and compromise is often viewed as weakness, The Two Popes offers a rare and vital narrative: that even the most entrenched beliefs can be softened by empathy. That leadership may require not certainty, but the courage to ask hard questions and still choose to love.
As public interest again turns to the hidden corridors of the Vatican, The Two Popes doesn’t just provide a window into its gilded halls—it brings us into the rooms where doubt is prayed over, argued through, and sometimes forgiven.
A Story of Two Men, and a Church in Transition
The Two Popes is not just a film. It is a conversation turned cinematic. It is a story of departure and arrival, of tradition and change, of men shaped not by infallibility but by failure and grace.
In rediscovering this film now—amid fresh conversations about the Church’s role in a fractured world—we are reminded that the future of faith may lie not in choosing sides, but in choosing to speak, and more importantly, to listen.
For anyone seeking not just to understand the Church, but to understand how human beings carry the burden of sacred responsibility, The Two Popes remains required viewing.