One of the best films i have seen

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

At the beginning of the movie, we see a priest holding up the crucifix and not looking at anyone in the eye. Then he charges at a window. It really didn't explain why he did it which is rather odd. I was appalled at this because why would someone Anyways Fr Greg was such a devoted and loving priest, no wonder he was looked up by his lover. I was gutted that he was caught and arrested for "adultery". Like why did they arrest him and Graham. Was it that they were gay or they think they were having sex in a public area? I felt it was wrong to arrest innocent ordinary men y'know.I found it very hard to find out the girl, Fr Greg had confession with, was sexually abused by her father. Fr Greg should've gone to the place in the first place and shouldn't involve the Catholic Church's rules over rights. Where I live, no catholic church should tell anyone what to do and how to live their lives. I wasn't surprised that they made a big fuss on this films because they are a bunch of cowards. Sure this film has sexual scene's and a bit of references but it's just human life at the end of the day. I felt very sad and heartbroken when the girl and priest broke down with wrapping around each others arms. Sexual abuse must be reported and whoever reads this review, please get help. There will always be someone to talk to ♡

I remember this film when it first came out in 1994. Much was made by the media about it, particularly because there was the feeling that this film was an attack on the Catholic Church. In the intervening two decades we have read with dismay the sexual abuse by priests of young boys, our awareness of sexual predators of young children of both sexes and other abuses (such as the scandal of young girls being incarcerated in laundries all over Great Britain and the U.S. as indentured servants throughout their teens), that the Church hierarchy swept under the rug. This film explores some of the issues that have caused the church to experience much embarrassment, but little change. This is a well-acted, film with crisp direction, a strong script and I suspect a sense of moral outrage. Tom Wilkinson and Linus Roach are both outstanding. Wilkinson's liberal views of his church are pragmatic. His young house-mate is a smug and rigidly conforming young priest named Father Greg Pilkington who has hardly been buffeted by the realities of adulthood. He's so busy being holier-than-thou, he cannot really see his own hypocrisy. He meets another young man in a gay bar and has a fling with him, but cannot face the fact that he's a young man in search of some romantic connection. And when the young man comes to take communion at his church, Father Greg humiliates him by refusing to give him communion. His biggest challenge comes when one of his young parishioner confesses to him that her father has sexually abused her. The Church's sanctity about the privacy of confession is enough to make you condemn the Church for it's insanely strict rules. Father Greg pays for his rigidity when the girl's mother confronts him at church. He has a complete breakdown at that point. It is well deserved. The Church's authority has now exceeded its humanity. Tom Wilkinson, well on his way to the kind of regular movie stardom that has been conferred on to other excellent character actors such as Eli Wallach, Karl Malden, and more recently, Allison Janney and John Goodman,is his usual outstanding self as the liberal Father Matthew. He's in a serious but secret relationship with his housekeeper (the excellent Cathy Tyson who is given far little to do), enjoys his drink and holds liberal views that don't always sit well with the parishioners. It sometimes feels if the deck is too stacked against the church. Only the most devout will see the Church as innocents here, and in fact, the entire institution deserves the drubbing it receives here. There's a new Pope in Rome, whom many feel and hope will be a force of change to bring the Church to a more modern and compassionate level in our increasingly turbulent times. THE PRIEST can be enjoyed on many levels--as an entertaining film with a charismatic actor at its center, a polemic of the modern day Catholic Church or even a modern warning to the perils of our modern age. It holds up very well in this the twentieth year since its release.

You can leave the church of England; Catholics lapse; you're always a Jew. Of course I generalise, but religions differ in their ability to define the individual; perhaps its for this reason that the best dramas about Catholicism are written by Catholics. The Catholic church is ripe for attack; yet an attack made without understanding will not provide insight. In 'Priest', Jimmy McGovern has written a thoughtful, impassioned and above all else sympathetic account of the struggle of two priests to deal with their own imperfections, the trials and faith and the demands of the secular world. It's a strong drama; but it's also interesting to look at the world it portrays, an impoverished working class Liverpool with its roots in Ireland. But even in Ireland today, the church is on the retreat; and while it's been involved in plenty of scandals (with some resemblance to some of the issues touched upon in this film), those scandals have played their own part in its eclipse from the central role it once held in many people's lives. 'Priest' reflects that process, but critically, it was made at a time when the process was less advanced, and the church more powerful, than it is today. It's still powerful stuff, and recommended viewing.

If you are looking for a movie on the crisis in the Catholic priesthood in the late 20th century, this is it. Not related to the recent sex abuse crisis, it deals with adult sexuality and the struggle with celibacy. It also highlights two different styles of leadership among the Catholic clergy.Two priests with decidedly different approaches find themselves in the same parish in working class Liverpool. The younger priest Fr Pilkington (Linus Roache) takes the view that he is in the world but not part of it. His older counterpart Fr Thomas (Tom Wilkinson) plays fast and loose with church protocols while going to night clubs and keeping the parish housekeeper as his live-in girlfriend. Fr Pilkington breaks his own high standards by going to a gay bar where he meets a male partner for his own sexual gratification. When he returns late to the rectory, Fr. Thomas asks if he wants to talk but Pilkington disregards him. Succumbing to temptation, Fr Pilkington is unable to resist getting involved in a sexual liaison. When it becomes public, Fr Thomas becomes his ally and shows that he can befriend a man whose style is so at odds with his own. Without giving away the ending, the two priests have many heated discussions which in an odd way bring them together and leads to a dramatic showdown with their own parishioners. Tom Wilkinson is exceptional in the role of Fr Matthew Thomas; Linus Roche as Fr Pilkington walks a tightrope as a man dedicated to his faith and to his calling but cannot resist the temptation to have sex with another man. If you are interested in the priesthood and its challenges, don't miss this one.