<\/p>\n
Pope Leo XIV has revealed his top four favorite films \u2014 a lineup of wholesome uplifting classics \u2014 ahead of a first-of-its-kind meeting with movie stars at the Vatican.<\/p>\n
The Chicago-born pontiff, the first American to lead the Catholic Church, will host a special audience on Saturday morning inside the Apostolic Palace, welcoming a delegation of Hollywood A-listers including Cate Blanchett, Chris Pine, Viggo Mortensen, Alison Brie, Dave Franco and Monica Bellucci. Oscar-winning directors Spike Lee, George Miller, Giuseppe Tornatore and Gus Van Sant are also expected to attend.<\/p>\n
More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n According to the Vatican, the gathering is part of the Church\u2019s ongoing Holy Year celebrations and aims \u201cto deepen dialogue with the world of cinema \u2026 exploring the possibilities that artistic creativity offers to the mission of the Church and the promotion of human values.\u201d<\/p>\n To mark the occasion, the Vatican released a video of the pope naming his five favorite movies: Frank Capra\u2019s It\u2019s a Wonderful Life (1946), Robert Wise\u2019s The Sound of Music (1965), Robert Redford\u2019s Ordinary People (1980), and Roberto Benigni\u2019s Life Is Beautiful (1997). Each is a crowd-pleasing staple of the moral-uplift canon \u2014 though not all are without footnotes.<\/p>\n Capra\u2019s It\u2019s a Wonderful Life remains the definitive parable of grace and redemption and a durable holiday classic. Wise\u2019s The Sound of Music, uses its killer soundtrack to nice weave together twin messages of family values and anti-fascism (it made The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s own list of the 40 Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time<\/a>). Redford\u2019s Ordinary People pushed that spirit inward, examining guilt, grief and reconciliation inside a fractured American family. Benigni\u2019s Life Is Beautiful \u2014 a critical and commercial hit at the time, winning three Oscars \u2014 has not aged as well, with many now viewing its sentimental take on the Holocaust as uncomfortably glib.<\/p>\n The Hollywood event is part of the Vatican\u2019s ongoing attempt to engage with popular culture. This is Pope Leo\u2019s first celebrity audience but his predecessor, Pope Francis, hosted a gathering of comedians <\/a>in June last year that included Conan O\u2019Brien, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon.<\/p>\n Pope Leo also had a private audience with Robert De Niro and his family last week in Rome. But Saturday\u2019s star-studded summit marks a new chapter in the Church\u2019s engagement with the world of cinema and celebrity.<\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pope Leo XIV has revealed his top four favorite films \u2014 a lineup of wholesome uplifting classics \u2014 ahead of a first-of-its-kind meeting with movie stars at the Vatican. The Chicago-born pontiff, the first American to lead the Catholic Church, will host a special audience on Saturday morning inside the Apostolic Palace, welcoming a delegation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2151088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[77120,319670,348511,305383,353229,350465,353968,22860,34395,375362,396260,371126,393403],"class_list":["post-2151087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-alison-brie","tag-cate-blanchett","tag-chris-pine","tag-dave-franco","tag-george-miller","tag-giuseppe-tornatore","tag-gus-van-sant","tag-hollywood","tag-hollywood-reporter","tag-monica-bellucci","tag-pope-leo","tag-the-vatican","tag-viggo-mortensen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pope-Leo-Reveals-His-Top-4-Films-Ahead-of-Hollywood-Vatican.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2151087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2151089,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151087\/revisions\/2151089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2151088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2151087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2151087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2151087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}