POPE FRANCIS, THE UNLIKELY MOVIE STAR

6 FILMS SHOW THE LATE PONTIFF'S CINEMATIC APPEAL

- STORY: ALISSA WILKINSON / NYT

Watching Edward Berger's hit Vatican thriller Conclave last year, I found it hard not to think of Pope Francis. The film is fictional, based on Robert Harris’ 2016 novel, published three years into Francis’ papacy. But one key character in the film is a Mexican archbishop working in Kabul, Afghanistan, a reformer calling on the church to focus on those marginalised and historically excluded by the institution.

Plenty separated the Conclave character from the sitting pope, who died last Monday, the day after Easter. But such a simple yet eloquent on-screen activist could recall only Francis, the first Latin American cleric to assume the papacy. He drew both admiration and controversy, based largely on his concern for the poor, immigrants and refugees; his calls for environmental stewardship; and his efforts on behalf of gay and lesbian Catholics. That work inflamed more conservative wings of the church while endearing him to many, Catholic or not, who saw a new way forward in his life and teachings.

And that also made the pope an unlikely movie star. Francis may have been the most cinematic pope, with fictional and documentary representations of him proliferating during his 12-year papacy. Some of those films were made by and for Catholics, including the 2013 documentary Francis: The Pope From The New World, produced by the Knights of Columbus; Beda Docampo Feijóo's 2015 Francis: Pray For Me, a biographical drama about his pre-papal days; and Daniele Luchetti’s 2015 Chiamatemi Francesco (Call Me Francis) which concentrated on his work as “the People’s Pope”.

But many of these movies weren't really aimed at an audience of the devout. Instead, they show the source of Francis’ wider appeal. His attention to issues of social and cultural import gave filmmakers a way to approach him as a screen character, not just a religious leader. Here are six such films, which help frame Francis’ legacy and illuminate why he made such an appealing subject.