The Two Popes (2019)
Directed by Fernando Meirelles
No — The Two Popes is not woke, scoring 12 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
The Two Popes confines two elderly clerics to a series of well-appointed rooms and lets them talk.
Consciousness Markers
The film features Latin American actors in supporting roles as Argentine clergy, but the lead role of Bergoglio is played by Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce, and the cast is predominantly white European, reflecting the story's real-life subjects rather than a deliberate diversity push.
The film is dialogue-heavy and debates church reform, faith, and forgiveness, but its moralizing is theological rather than a modern social justice lecture.
The film is a heavily fictionalized account of private conversations between two real popes, and it implies Benedict was responsible for allowing Marcial Maciel to remain leader, which is historically inaccurate, but it does not rewrite history for modern progressive ends.
No LGBTQ+ themes or characters are present.
The film focuses on two male popes and the male-dominated Catholic hierarchy, with no feminist agenda.
While the film touches on Argentine political history and poverty, it does not engage with racial consciousness or systemic racism.
No environmental or climate themes.
The film critiques Vatican bureaucracy and scandal but does not advance an anti-capitalist or eat-the-rich message.
No body positivity themes.
No neurodivergence themes.
Why it received this score
The Two Popes confines two elderly clerics to a series of well-appointed rooms and lets them talk. Fernando Meirelles, who once directed City of God, has settled into a gentler register here, filming the reconstructed Sistine Chapel with the reverence of a museum tour and letting Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce do the heavy lifting. The plot concerns Cardinal Bergoglio's desire to resign and Benedict's secret wish to abdicate, which is a fine pretext for an argument about tradition and change. The argument is conducted in complete sentences, with pauses for Inspector Rex.
The screenplay, by Anthony McCarten, treats this invented summit as a vehicle for theological debate. The two men spar over reform, forgiveness, and the future of an institution that has failed its flock. The film stages these conversations as moral instruction, though the instruction is doctrinal, not social. Bergoglio's time in Argentina during the Dirty War supplies the only passage of real weight, and the film handles his guilt without converting it into a lecture about state violence. Where it drifts from the record is in the confession scene, which implies Benedict tolerated Marcial Maciel's abuses. The timeline there is wrong, and church historians have said so. This is dramatic license in service of a tidy ending, not an ideological rewrite.
On the matter of cultural consciousness, the film keeps its ambitions narrow. The cast is largely European, which suits the subject, and the Argentine supporting players ground the flashbacks without being asked to carry an argument about representation. There is no romantic subplot, no environmental crusade, no critique of wealth, no neurodivergent arc. There is nothing else on offer but a two-hander about power and penance, performed with skill, and mildly instructive in the way such films have always been. It is a well-made film about God, and it has the good sense not to pretend it is about anything else.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
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.
Questions about The Two Popes
Is The Two Popes woke?
No — The Two Popes is not woke, scoring 12 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does The Two Popes have any woke elements?
Very few. None of the 10 markers reaches 30, the level where a marker counts as present; the highest is Representation Casting at 25.
How does The Two Popes compare to other 2019 movies?
It ranks #169 of the 284 films from 2019 we've scored; their average is 22. The wokest is Black Christmas (79).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.