The Two Popes

Frustrated with the direction of the church, Cardinal Bergoglio requests permission to retire in 2012 from Pope Benedict. Instead, facing scandal and self-doubt, the introspective Pope Benedict summons his harshest critic and future successor to Rome to reveal a secret that would shake the foundations of the Catholic Church.

The Two Popes earned strong notices at Telluride and maintained broad critical goodwill, driven largely by the chemistry and craft of Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce. The film's dramatization of a private dialogue between two very different men in the Church struck most critics as absorbing, though some noted that the screenplay's exaggeration of their contrasts occasionally tips into hokiness. It lands more as an intimate character piece than a docudrama, and the warmth and humor of the performances carry it further than the script alone might.