The Two Popes
Netflix | Release Date: November 27, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 3, 2019
The Two Popes is movie nirvana, but anyone watching could appreciate the clash between these opposing dispositions and world views. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorSep 10, 2019
It is extremely difficult to make something as invisible and ineffable as religious faith seem real, let alone touching, on film; doing that is only one of the achievements of Fernando Meirelles’ unusual look inside the papacy. Read full review
100
TheWrapSasha StoneSep 4, 2019
What makes The Two Popes so delightful, other than the very funny script, is watching two seasoned actors play off each other for two hours. Both Hopkins and Pryce illustrate what the craft of acting is really about. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 26, 2019
Among the virtues of The Two Popes, a sparkling confection with a serious side, is that, given its prosaic title, its crowd-pleasing attributes come as pretty much of a surprise. Read full review
90
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 8, 2019
The delicate dance between the two veteran actors, both eagerly devouring a late-life jewel of a script, is a joy to behold. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 4, 2019
While its subject may be religious, The Two Popes doesn’t want to convert the viewer. Rather, as an extraordinary piece of writing — and an even more impressive showcase for its actors — it eloquently communicates the importance of giving people something to believe in. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberSep 3, 2019
Anchored by two outstanding performances from Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, the film is a triumph of writing as well as unostentatious filmmaking. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonNov 27, 2019
Overall, the film is superbly acted and a lot of fun to watch, which I suppose is not enough hardcore critical substance to hang three and a half stars on, but there you go. Read full review
88
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 25, 2019
Hopkins and Pryce have sensational chemistry and are rather heavenly inhabiting their character arcs, which power this pious take on “Frost/Nixon.” Read full review
83
ConsequenceRobert DanielsDec 22, 2019
A tightly constructed narrative, which examines the role of forgiveness,The Two Popes is a lowkey buddy comedy that simply follows two actors at the top of their game. Read full review
83
UproxxVince ManciniDec 19, 2019
Mostly it’s just a joy to watch these two actors face off in front of grand tapestries and stunning frescos. Two Popes has a gentle but winning sense of humor, and the two make an adorable couple. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattDec 9, 2019
As these vastly different men parry, spar, and circle one another, Meirelles’ intimately talky two-hander — not counting, depending on how you might choose to qualify these things, a third invisible hand upstairs — works with wit and quiet humor to demystify perhaps the most powerful and insular post in the world. Read full review
83
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodSep 4, 2019
Somehow the filmmakers found lightheartedness and – gasp – laughs in a story of political intrigue at the top of the notoriously buttoned-up Catholic Church. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerNov 30, 2019
The Two Popes shouldn’t work, a two-handed conversation about Vatican minutiae. But with great writing, smart direction and late career-high performances from Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, it’s a high-end treat. Send up the white smoke, we have a winner. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreNov 27, 2019
The Two Popes may be a fantasy about a closed institution flinging its doors open, but it’s also a compelling actor’s showcase. The combination is surprisingly potent. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 27, 2019
The film is a dramatic and visual feast, one that portrays its adversaries as passionate humans who move us and make us laugh while they’re having at each other in search of common theological ground. Read full review
80
TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanNov 27, 2019
The way in which tradition and progress convenes amid such challenging circumstances becomes Meirelles’ tribute to his subjects. The fact that we fully believe in this apparent impossibility feels like his gift to us. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenNov 27, 2019
Meirelles injects enough visual snap to remind you that he once made City of God. If the second half gets a little sidetracked by flashbacks, another meaty Vatican scene is never too far away. Watching these two actors chewing over big issues—God, aging, loneliness, celibacy, abuse in the priesthood—under the vast ceilings of this gilded palace is a joy. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 26, 2019
Want to see a master class in acting? Watch Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins show how it’s done in The Two Popes, a fiercely moving and surprisingly funny provocation that pivots on speculative conversations between the German John Ratzinger, a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI (Hopkins), and Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pryce), the future Pope Francis. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJan 25, 2020
Whenever the film settles on the two leads—who both melt into these real-world personas so thoroughly that Hannibal Lecter himself is soon forgotten—it becomes an intimate portrait of faith as a struggle, even for those at the very top. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleDec 5, 2019
The Two Popes might promulgate an optimistic portrait of the Catholic Church and its leaders. But in these sweetly sincere scenes, you forget Benedict and Bergoglio are pontiff and pontiff-to-be. And the moment of respite from the world’s arguments and divisions feels like a benediction. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 4, 2019
This lively, intriguing and insistently humanistic flight of fancy — imagined conversations between hard-line conservative Pope Benedict XVI and his more progressive successor, Pope Francis — brims with wit, warmth and some tantalizing what-ifs. Whether the fact that it’s mostly pure speculation will get in the way of the audience’s enjoyment will depend on each viewer’s threshold for artistic license. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 2, 2019
It’s reassuring to see Hopkins return to form, after several years of authoritative coasting. As for Pryce, his affinity for morally comprised men of high achievement (“The Wife,” etc. ) keeps his portrayal of the film’s clear moral paragon from hardening into sainthood. Read full review
75
Original-CinKim HughesNov 27, 2019
The very opposite of kinetic, director Fernando Meirelles’ (City of God) The Two Popes is a slow-moving, ruminative, dialog-driven think piece set to film which might enjoy a successful second life as a stage production, and might actually be better served by that forum. Read full review
70
The AtlanticDavid SimsNov 29, 2019
At heart, the film is mostly a buddy comedy, an odd-couple clash between an old-fashioned stick in the mud and his more easygoing replacement. That makes it a breeze to watch—one just wonders if a movie about the modern papacy should be so cheerful. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekNov 27, 2019
Mostly, though, it’s an enjoyable portrait of a prickly friendship between two men of vastly different temperaments. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 26, 2019
The actors draw out both the spiritual and the psychological dimensions of their characters. The interplay, a duet with sweet and eccentric harmonies, is fascinating to observe, even as it undermines the overall structure of the narrative. Read full review
70
SlateInkoo KangNov 25, 2019
See The Two Popes for its fine performances, but don’t be tempted by its naïveté. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiDec 11, 2019
It’s one of the more interesting aspects of Fernando Meirelles’ new film The Two Popes, these peeks into overly regimented and often extravagant ceremonies of the Vatican City being a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnSep 1, 2019
The endearing chemistry between these characters and the movie’s breezy tone often clashes with the subject at hand. That creates a peculiar dissonance whenever the movie attempts to dig deep on matters of faith, or the bleaker controversies involving the Catholic Church today. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 22, 2019
A revealing, intimate and interesting peek behind the fresco-bedecked walls of an institution trapped in a past of its own invention, confronting a future in which it still relies on a succession of very old men to meet. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 5, 2019
The Two Popes is the kind of well-made but flawed release you can wait to catch on home video. Read full review
63
New York PostSara StewartNov 25, 2019
If nothing else, the mere sight of two popes drinking brews and watching a soccer game together is one of the more surreal things you’ll see at the movies this year. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeDec 1, 2019
It doesn’t all work; the flashbacks are unwieldy and the pacing falters in the second half. It’s also rather coy in addressing some of the more damning elements in recent Catholic history. But there’s something disarming about a scene of papal bonding over beer and footy. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 12, 2019
An enjoyable double-act – but not an infallible one. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloNov 26, 2019
Apart from its impressive (though partially digital) recreation of the Sistine Chapel, The Two Popes offers little in the way of purely cinematic pleasures, relying almost exclusively on the expert parrying of Hopkins and Pryce. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyDec 5, 2019
Both Pryce and Hopkins are fine. But on the basis of the rest of the movie they shouldn’t have a prayer. Read full review
50
Film ThreatAlex SavelievNov 20, 2019
The two actors are bound to be showered with awards, as is the production design, the polished script, etc. But there’s no intrigue, no real substance beneath all the gloss. Read full review
38
Slant MagazinePat BrownDec 3, 2019
There isn’t anything in the bleeding-heart positions espoused by Jorge Bergoglio that complicates Pope Francis’s public persona. Read full review
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