Benedetta

Benedetta (2021) is Paul Verhoeven's incendiary period drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. In a 17th-century Tuscan convent, a nun raised to believe she was chosen by God begins to see visions of Christ — and wakes with the bleeding wounds of the stigmata on her hands and feet.

Virginie Efira plays Benedetta as a riddle: nobody, least of all the Church, can tell where her faith ends and her ambition begins. When a battered young woman named Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia) takes refuge in the convent, the two begin a forbidden affair. Plague and gossip spread through the cloister, the abbess (Charlotte Rampling) loses her grip on power, and inquisitors arrive to decide whether they are looking at a miracle or a heretic. The higher Benedetta rises, the more dangerous her position becomes.

Verhoeven stages all of it with his usual refusal to look away, pushing religious ecstasy and the flesh into the same frame. The film opened the Cannes festival and split audiences down the middle. It's built for viewers ready for a blunt, provocative take on sainthood. Stream Benedetta (2021) online on iFILM.