What Netflix’s ‘Mary’ Gets Right — and What It Gets Wrong (2025)

The story of Mary and the Nativity is as old as the faith and as fresh as the future. What could be (or should be) more welcome around Christmastime than a movie about Mary and the birth of Jesus? On Dec. 6, such a movie — titled Mary — premieres on Netflix.

From Catholic director D.J. Caruso, and with every intention of making a reverential film, Mary is not short of drama focused on the Mother of Christ. To achieve authenticity, Caruso chose Israeli actress Noa Cohen and actor Ido Tako to portray Mary and Joseph. The most recognizable credited name is Sir Anthony Hopkins, who plays Herod. The casting of mostly unknowns becomes a plus in this film.

Mary is the kind of movie you see so little of. You wish there were more on the subject. But for Catholic viewers, there are several important reservations to keep in mind.

The script went through many rewrites, with consultation of Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders — and creative license is taken with dialogue, scenes and historical and theological realities. Still, it strays far from the real story.

Because this film focuses on Mary’s early life, the events begin with Anne and Joachim asking the Lord for a child, followed by the birth of Mary and a short glimpse of her early childhood until she is brought to the Temple. There, Mary is met by Anna, later the same Anna at the Presentation. Everything is quite atmospheric. An Israeli actor and actress make an understanding and sympathetic Joachim and Anna.

As Mary, Cohen is innocent, modest and, at 22 years old, believable as a young woman who will receive the divine message from St. Gabriel the Archangel. We see Mary’s innocence and virtue, her charity and care for the poor and beggars, bringing food from the table of the Temple girls. She is attacked spiritually and physically as Lucifer tries to tempt her while she’s in the Temple, but Gabriel comes to aid her.

Obviously, these are fictionalized what-ifs, like the film’s portrayal of Joseph meeting Mary, when he is looking for food and sees her across the river washing clothes and wants to help her retrieve a veil. This 20th-century hinted-at “meet cute” seems meant to connect with younger audiences. Since Joseph was led to that meeting by a strange figure wrapped in a blue tunic — the angel Gabriel — he just knocks on Mary’s parents’ door and claims Mary as his wife. Highly unlikely, given Jewish courtship norms of the day.

Then some of the most beautiful scenes and words in the Bible, as written by Luke, are strangely missing. When Gabriel comes to bring Mary the best message possible, he is a shadowy, frightening figure in that same tunic, with his face mostly covered, not the least bit like a magnificent archangel. Why the darkness? No sunlight — a perfect symbol for such a joyous announcement?

Gabriel tells her that her Son will reign over the house of David. But dropped is his eloquent explanation of how that Son “will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. … He will be called Son of God” (Luke 1:32-35).

Mary answers, “Let it be me.” Yet Luke writes that Mary answered Gabriel, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

Not to give away too many plot points, but Mary is expecting while in the Temple, tells Anna about the baby, and a spying girl tattles to the Temple priest, who then disgraces Mary — again, a fabricated event for dramatic effect.

The same goes for the exceptional visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. Here, it is very short, played in a dark cave-like space lit by only a small cooking flame. Elizabeth is happy, but she does not convey Luke’s description of an Elizabeth “filled with the Holy Spirit and [who] exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’” All of Mary’s beautiful words of the Magnificat, which have resounded for 2,000 years, are missing, omitting Mary’s essential prayer as she shows her obedience to God’s will and understanding how these events will resound through the centuries.

Herod’s Role

Naturally, this goodness is opposed. The film is not stingy with Herod, who claims to be the only king of the Jews. He appears in a much larger role than in similar films. His many scenes alternate with scenes of Mary, Joseph, her family and the Messiah. The result: The contrast between good and evil unmistakably stands out.

Hopkins is the quintessential Herod, capturing all of the cunning, ruthlessness and absolute evil that propels the tyrant. He slowly moves into paranoia, too. Hopkins is the king of all the actors who have ever played Herod. None have portrayed that real malice to this degree. Naturally, violence in various ways underlines Herod’s brutality.

Typical for biblical and historic movies, here, dramatic license imagines events and sometimes partners them with basic realities — and not always in chronological order. For example, when Jesus is born, a talkative shepherd tells Herod about the news.

Joseph’s Place

St. Joseph rescues Mary more than once, such as from what appears to be certain death by stoning instigated by you-know-who. Tako is the right age for Joseph, yet he does not project the maturity the husband of Mary surely had to have. Because Joseph was strong but silent, his dialogue is necessarily a dramatic invention. (“I’ve never experienced anything like this in my entire life,” he tells Mary’s father. “Something changed in me when I saw your daughter — a beautiful and gentle creature dancing in the wind. And I knew she is my wife. It would never have happened if this strange man in a blue robe did not lead me to her.”)

At the same time, Joseph does show determination, defending and protecting Mary, down to physically fighting for her honor and in high-end action taking on a crowd of townsmen singlehandedly when they want to stone her. He saves her, saying, “I don’t care about this. But what I do know is I’m going to love this child as best as I can. ... I will love you as best as I can.”

Arriving in Bethlehem, Mary is suffering. In a strange twist, the devil appears to tell her he will ease her pain. She faints. He carries her off. It takes St. Joseph to rescue her. Does anyone really think God would allow the devil to do that to his chosen Mary?

Mary’s Labor

Then Mary is shown as suffering intensely in labor and childbirth while two midwives assist. This does not comport with Catholic teaching. From the beginning, the Fathers and doctors of the Church, including Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, have taught that Mary alone would be exempt from such pains as a sign of her unique holiness. She alone had no original sin.

St. Irenaeus, in the second century, referred to the prophecy of Isaiah: “Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. Who has heard of such a thing? Who has seen such things?” (Isaiah 66:7). St. Gregory of Nyssa, circa 380, explained that “there were no labor pangs … his birth alone occurred without labor pains,” also referring to Isaiah. And St. Augustine taught, “In conceiving, you were all pure; in giving birth, you were without pain.” St. Thomas Aquinas explains even more.

The scene then becomes reverential as visitors arrive at the birthplace of Jesus and the Three Kings present their gifts.

Such reverence was evident in the Presentation scene, with Anna and an elderly Simeon beautifully portrayed as the humble, reverential people they are. Anna is waiting for Mary in a moving moment. There is quite a chronological reversal, however. This return to Jerusalem for the Presentation comes after Herod’s soldiers are massacring the infants as the story turns into an “action film” chase after the Holy Family, as Joseph and Mary flee using a horse and buggy, also strangely out of place. But more questionable are the intense confrontation when the soldiers finally catch up with the Holy Family and Joseph’s final action-movie moves. Then comes the return to Jerusalem for the Presentation.

For all of its invented events that can leave viewers unclear about all the real facts, Mary does strive to treat Mary with reverence in presenting her early life — and hopefully will prompt people to want to learn more about the real Mary.

Viewer Caveat

Violence; TV-14 rating