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Pope Leo names Holocaust film among his all-time favourite films
The pontiff’s revealed his top film four film choices ahead of his meeting with a group of Hollywood A-listers
November 11, 2025 12:25
The pontiff’s revealed his top film four film choices ahead of his meeting with a group of Hollywood A-listers
November 11, 2025 12:25Pope Leo XIV has named the Oscar-winning Holocaust tragi-comedy Life is Beautiful as one of his all-time favourite films.
The 1997 Italian film, which earned its star Roberto Benigni an Oscar for best actor, tells the story of a father who uses humour and imagination to shield his young son from the horrors of reality, when the family are interned in Auschwitz.
It won three Academy Awards in total, including best foreign language film and best original dramatic score. Benigni memorably collected his best actor award after dancing over the backs of the auditorium’s seats and jumping up the stairs to reach the stage.
However, opinion among the Jewish community was divided at the time of the film’s release, and remains so today with critics accusing it of romanticising the horrors of the Shoah.
When the JC covered the release of the film, it noted that the “response to the movie within the 30,000-strong Italian Jewish community has been warm, but not unanimous”.
The 1998 story quotes Shlomo Venezia, who spent 10 months in Auschwitz and told the JC: "You could never show on film just what Auschwitz was really like. For someone who didn't live through it, I think this film can have a greater effect than Schindler's List.”
He added: "Several people in the Jewish community suggested that the film could be used in schools as a teaching tool about the Holocaust, but said that it would have to be shown in conjunction with additional educational material to provide a context.”
The Vatican has released a list of the pontiff’s top four films ahead of his upcoming meeting with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including actors Cate Blanchett, Chris Pine and Dave Franco, and director Spike Lee.
Also making the cut are The Sound of Music – which features a Nazi storyline too; the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life; and the Robert Redford tearjerker Ordinary People, which is set in the Pope’s home state, Illinois.
Pope Leo, born Robert Francis Prevost, is due to host around 30 Hollywood movers and shakers at the Apostolic Palace of Vatican City on Saturday, and is keen to “deepen the dialogue with the world of cinema, and in particular with actors and directors, exploring the possibilities that artistic creativity offers to the mission of the Church and the promotion of human values,” according to a Vatican statement.
Last month, the Pope hosted two Jewish environmental campaigners at his faith-driven conference on climate change, the Raising Hope convention, providing kosher food and a space to pray during Yom Kippur.
Naomi Verber, CEO of UK Jewish charity EcoJudaism, said she and fellow Jewish attendee Rabbi Yonatan Neril, the founder of the Interfaith Centre for Sustainable Development in Israel, were hosted with “warmth and consideration”.
Life is Beautiful was partially inspired by a memoir written by Italian Holocaust survivor Rubino Romeo Salmoni, In the End, I Beat Hitler. Salmoni, who died in 2011 at the age of 91, lost two brothers in Auschwitz. But, as he wrote in his memoir: “I came out of Auschwitz alive, I have a wonderful family, I celebrated my golden wedding anniversary, I have 12 splendid grandchildren – I think I can say I ruined Hitler's plan for me."
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