Character mistake: After the smoking seminarians joke, Bergoglio replies to Pope Benedict 's phrase about being alone "Isaiah 41, chapter 10." It's not chapter 10, but rather verse 10, of chapter 41. (00:52:50)
Factual error: Pope Benedict and Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio are hanging out in the room by the Sistine Chapel having a pizza and a drink together. The drink of choice is Fanta, apparently Joseph Ratzinger's favourite beverage. The scene is supposed to happen in 2012, but the label of the bottle is a more modern one, introduced in 2016. (01:34:20)
Factual error: The narration of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio's controversial tenure during the Peronist regime concludes with Pope Benedict saying "You were cast out of office[...], sent abroad." The date shown is "1983." Correct, but then it goes on, saying "You were sent to the mountains" and shows Bergoglio in Cordoba, Argentina, which happened much later, circa 1990 - and a 1990 book is the first one he's shown reading, "La nueva evangelización; perspectiva de los oprimidos". And yet, at the end of the prolonged scene, featuring also a 1983 book in "Plueberina", the calendar shows the time passing, starting from 1983. We're already in 1990. (01:24:00 - 01:27:50)
Factual error: When Pope Benedict and Cardinal Bergoglio are sharing a pizza they start to say grace but don't make the sign of the cross. Catholics always make the sign of the cross before prayer.
Continuity mistake: When Pope Ratzinger and Cardinal Bergoglio are having lunch with pizza and drink, the Pope places a Fanta bottle on his side on the right. When he says the prayer and the shot is from the above, the bottle returns to its place next to the other one and then it is again on the Pope's side. (01:34:45)
Factual error: The scene is supposed to take place in 2005 but there's a 2011 MacBook Pro on the table. (00:37:03)
Factual error: Pope Benedict had to leave the moment the helicopter landed, and Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio starts exploring Rome on his own. In the second shot, when he is on the sidewalk opposite a fruit stand, the ad on the billboard he passes by carrying his bags is the ad for a car ("T-Roc; Born Confident") which debuted in the summer of 2017, 5 years after the events of the movie (set in 2012). (00:56:50)
Continuity mistake: After Pope Benedict played the piano, the two protagonists are watching TV together. Ratzinger begins the scene with a remote control in his hand; left hand in a quick establishing shot, right when he is commenting on the poor signal. Cardinal Bergoglio puts the letter on the table, with a pen that keeps changing position between shots. Moreover, Ratzinger pushes the letter aside...to reach the remote control, that somehow made its way all the way during a cut. (00:50:00)
Continuity mistake: Bergoglio and Ratzinger are having a quiet conversation at a side table after the Pope's dinner. When Hopkins says the line about "a spiritual hearing aid", the handkerchief he was clutching in the previous part of the scene is gone, and it keeps appearing and disappearing depending on the angle. (00:37:00)
Character mistake: After Cardinal Bergoglio has given Pope Benedict absolution and blessing after his confession, Anthony Hopkins is shown completing the sign of the cross and reaches for each shoulder and then goes up to his forehead, realises his mistake (the forehead is always touched first before the shoulders) and then scratches his nose instead.
Character mistake: The main storyline of the movie is set in 2012. When Bergoglio is at the Pope summer residence the first evening and he switches off the football match, he says to the Holy Father that Germany might play against Argentina "next year." Bergoglio is a football fanatic and there's no way he would have not known that the World Cup was to take place in the summer of 2014, not 2013. (00:35:00)
