The Eternal City is a 1915 American silent drama film directed by Hugh Ford and Edwin S. Porter, produced by Adolph Zukor.

[3] It was remade in 1923, directed by George Fitzmaurice and starring Barbara La Marr, Bert Lytell, and Lionel Barrymore.

[4] The wife of Leone, a member of the Papal Guard, believing herself to have been deserted, leaves her young son David with the Sisters of Charity and commits suicide.

One long scene showed Thomas Holding as David Rossi, pleading with Fuller Mellish as the pope during a walk in the Vatican gardens.

Famous Players created the Select Booking Agency to distribute initially The Eternal City and other prestigious feature-length films before being turned over to Paramount.

The Canadian Board of Censors barred the film from the province of Quebec on the grounds that the story of David Leone, the foundling son of Pope Pius XI, would prove offensive to the majority Roman Catholics.

[8] By the time The Eternal City opened at the Astor Theatre in New York on 12 April 1915, it was proclaimed to be one of the foremost features produced in the United States.

[9] Kinematograph Weekly said in part: “We congratulate the Famous Players Film Company upon the complete and signal success of their effort in every way, for the production stands out as one of the best that has been submitted for public approval.

It is a real classic in picture production, and words are inadequate to thoroughly express our full and emphatic admiration of the subject, which we are convinced will meet with as hearty a reception from the public as any previous subject has yet employed.”[7] The Bioscope wrote "Thanks to its makers The Eternal City is a production planned and executed on a grand scale.