From 'Torment and Ecstasy' to 'Conclave', when cinema tells the story of the Popes

Also worth mentioning is Daniele Luchetti's 'Call me Francis - The People's Pope' from 2015, where much of Bergoglio's life was covered, played as a young man by Rodrigo de la Serna and as an old man by Sergio Hernández.

Chiamatemi Francesco

Throughout the history of cinema, screenplays that have chosen to depict the world of the Vatican have often relied on the thriller genre, depicting the power dynamics within the Church as a veritable game of massacre to ascend to the Papal Throne.

This is basically the plot of Edward Berger's 'Conclave', a film released last year and now more topical than ever: based on the novel of the same name by Richard Harris, it features a rich cast consisting of names of the calibre of Ralph Fiennes, Sergio Castellitto and Isabella Rossellini.

The conclave is also one of the main twists in a feature action film like Ron Howard's 'Angels and Demons', based on Dan Brown's best-selling novel. High tension also in 'Amen. (2002), a film in which Costa-Gavras described the controversial relationship between the Vatican and Nazism.

The young Pope

Italian cinema, too, has often shown the machinations behind the power of the Church, in films such as Marco Bellocchio's recent 'Rapito', but also in past feature films such as Marcello Aliprandi's 1982 'Morte in Vaticano', without forgetting Luigi Magni's underrated trilogy on the relationship between the Roman people and aristocracy and the papal power: 'Nell'anno del signore' of 1969, 'In nome del Papa Re' of 1977 and 'In nome del Popolo Sovrano' of 1990.

Among the classics on the subject, two titles from the 1960s are worth mentioning: the first is Carol Reed's 'The Torment and the Ecstasy' from 1965, centred on the relationship between Pope Julius II (played by Rex Harrison) and Michelangelo Buonarroti (Charlton Heston); the second is Michael Anderson's 'The Man from the Kremlin' from 1968, with Anthony Quinn as the absolute star as an archbishop who is elected Pope.

In more recent times, a certainly very different film is Sönke Wortmann's 2009 'The Papess', based on the legendary story of Pope Joan.

Perhaps the bravest and most interesting film of all, however, is Nanni Moretti's 'Habemus Papam' from 2011, a prophetic work in which the director imagines the newly elected Pope fleeing the Vatican in a panic attack.

Perhaps even more striking and decidedly controversial are Paolo Sorrentino's two series: 'The Young Pope' and its sequel 'The New Pope'. Lenny Belardo's story is one of those designed to create scandal but also to make people think: Sorrentino's Pope, played by Jude Law, focuses on invisibility in a world where human beings are increasingly overexposed and has a spirituality all his own.

While waiting to know who will be the next pope, and certain that the story of Pope Bergoglio will not cease to inspire filmmakers, what is certain is that cinema and television serials will continue to tell the story of the Vatican, captivated by its charm and by those mysteries that film and video cameras have often tried to portray (and, perhaps, unveil) by transporting them to the screen.