It is really beautifully acted, and a lot of times it does feel like a play on film in all the best ways.

| Original Score: 7.5/10 | Feb 7, 2020

What do the two popes of Netflix's new film The Two Popes have in common with Sherlock Holmes and a murderous robot doll? Great stars, and unfortunately, an inability to break free of source material that doesn't matter all that much.

| Dec 23, 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.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 23, 2019

The Two Popes is thoroughly and purposefully fictionalized. But it's also a surprisingly sensitive and often funny take on the promise and perils of leadership, as well as the struggle to serve God when he seems to be silent.

| Dec 19, 2019

The screenplay by McCarten effectively balances moments of levity and weight...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 17, 2019

What emerges is a discussion of beliefs and responsibilities, yes, but mostly the story of two men at personal and ideological crossroads that happened to intersect on a world stage.

| Original Score: B | Dec 17, 2019

"The Two Popes" tells the story of one of the most consequential moments in the history of the Catholic Church with subtlety and grace, including two of the finest performances of the year.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 17, 2019

A meditation on humility and the role of faith in the modern era of secularism, The Two Popes showcases two heavyweight actors perfectly cast and nimbly spending the best parts of the film in debate with each other as a friendship blossoms.

| Original Score: 3/45 | Dec 12, 2019

The actors are such pros that the woodenness of the dialogue and implausibility of the set-up that McCarten has saddled them with almost don't matter. Almost.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 11, 2019

...we lose just a little too much momentum.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 10, 2019

...all these elements are exhilarating, but they're undercut by the director's addition to queasy-cam.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 9, 2019

Hopkins and Pryce lift Popes above its loose patchwork of monologue, flashback, and personal reckoning, and let the movie get down to its truest root: scaling the mystery that makes all men, even the most unknowable and sacrosanct, human.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 9, 2019

There's a simple pleasure in watching these two actors bring levity to godly men in their stiff robes.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 6, 2019

As a character study it is an exhilaratingly intellectual, deftly directed drama that in the end suggests very strongly not just that desire is destiny, but that temperament dictates theology.

| Dec 6, 2019

Well before its end, the film has settled into the groove of a corny buddy comedy so unreal that little trace remains of the serious issues at stake.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Dec 5, 2019

This lively, intriguing and insistently humanistic flight of fancy... brims with wit, warmth and some tantalizing what-ifs.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 5, 2019

There isn't anything in the bleeding-heart positions espoused by Jorge Bergoglio that complicates Pope Francis's public persona.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Dec 4, 2019

"The Two Popes" turns into a movie not about a power struggle, at all, but a grappling of faith.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 3, 2019

Its greatest value, ultimately, is not as a theocratic commentary, but as a testament to the possibility of deep, rewarding friendship under unlikely, even impossible circumstances.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 3, 2019

For anyone interested in Catholic church doctrine, "The Two Popes" is movie nirvana, but anyone watching could appreciate the clash between these opposing dispositions and world views.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 3, 2019