What are the best films and TV shows about pontiffs?
Oscar-winning film Conclave was released last year.
A series of films and TV shows have attempted to depict the inner workings of the Vatican and how the election of a new pope could be decided.
Pope Francis, who died aged 88 on Easter Monday, was not one to shy away from the limelight either, appearing in the Netflix series Stories Of A Generation, Leonardo DiCaprio’s climate change documentary Before The Flood, and Wim Wenders documentary Pope Francis: A Man Of His Word.
He was also depicted on screen by Slow Horses and The Crown actor Sir Jonathan Pryce in The Two Popes.
– Best films to watch?
Conclave was released last year, starring British actor Ralph Fiennes, and Hollywood stars Isabella Rossellini, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow.
It imagined the tension, bureaucracy, twists and turns behind the secret meeting to elect a new leader of the Catholic Church.
The film was one of the toasts of awards season, picking up four Baftas for outstanding British film, best film, editing and an adapted screenplay prize for British writer Peter Straughan – who also received an Oscar for his work.
Based on the novel by Robert Harris, the drama focuses on Fiennes as the Dean of the College of Cardinals who must contend with scheming clerics and threats from outside as he tries to find the best person to take over the role from his mentor.
In 2019 movie The Two Popes, Pope Benedict XVI, the first pontiff to resign in centuries, gets to know Francis as he is appointed.
The Netflix movie sees Sir Jonathan as the liberal future pope, while Hannibal actor Sir Anthony Hopkins plays the conservative Benedict.
It sees the two men discuss topics ranging from faith to football and food and earned both actors Oscar nods, with Sir Jonathan taking home a Cymru Bafta.
Other Hollywood films to touch on goings-on inside the Vatican include Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons, starring Oscar winner Tom Hanks, The Agony And The Ecstasy with Charlton Heston, and The Shoes Of The Fisherman with Laurence Olivier.
A 2009 German film, Pope Joan, tells the fictional story of the first female pontiff, and Scottish actor Tom Conti starred in Saving Grace, a 1980s comedy focused on a young pope.
– What TV series focus on a pontiff?
Oscar nominee Jude Law gave a brooding, chain-smoking portrayal in Sky Atlantic series The Young Pope in 2016, by Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino.
The fictional American-born pope, Pope Pius XIII, was an man of contradiction who wanted “revolution” in the papacy, and earned Law a Golden Globe nod.
Law’s character was resurrected in 2019 spin-off The New Pope, with John Malkovich playing an upcoming pontiff who is called “irresponsible, indolent, pompous and conceited”.
Running for three seasons, Sky Atlantic show The Borgias portrayed the Catholic Church at its worst, with characters murdering opponents and taking money for prayers.
The Neil Jordan series focused on the infamous Borgia family, headed by Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI, who tries to get his sons and daughters into the best political positions, while keeping his mistresses happy and attempting to stop the invasion of Italy’s regions by other European forces.
The family, whose reign is blamed for the Reformation and the break-up of Christianity into splinter groups, has also been portrayed in Canal+ show Borgia, and a 1980s BBC series also called The Borgias.
