This week brings two films that demand attention for entirely different reasons—one a gripping new theatrical release that has audiences buzzing, the other a quietly powerful Oscar-nominated drama that has just arrived on streaming. While Weapons delivers a visceral thrill with its mysterious classroom disappearance premise, it’s Conclave—Edward Berger’s meticulously crafted exploration of power, faith, and secrecy inside the Vatican—that lingers in the mind long after the credits roll.
What makes Conclave particularly compelling right now is its uncanny timing. Just months after the film’s initial release, the world witnessed the actual passing of Pope Francis and the subsequent conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV in May 2025—the first such gathering in twelve years. Suddenly, Berger’s dramatization of the papal election process feels less like historical fiction and more like a beautifully shot documentary, capturing rituals and tensions that most of us will only ever glimpse from afar.
Our focus here isn’t just on whether Conclave is worth your streaming time (it absolutely is), but why it transcends typical political or religious drama. This is a film that operates on three distinct levels: as a stunningly accurate historical recreation, a penetrating study of human ambition and doubt, and a work of art that earned its eight Academy Award nominations through sheer craft and emotional intelligence. We’ll explore how Berger, fresh from his success with All Quiet on the Western Front, brings both grandeur and intimacy to this enclosed world of whispered alliances and moral compromises, and why Ralph Fiennes’ performance as Cardinal Lawrence might be one of his most nuanced yet.
If you’re looking for something more substantial than the usual streaming fare—something that engages both the intellect and the emotions—Conclave offers that rare combination of impeccable filmmaking and genuine depth. It’s not just about who becomes the next Pope; it’s about what the struggle for power reveals about all of us, even those who claim to serve higher ideals.
The Conclave Primer: Where to Watch and Who’s Behind the Camera
If you’re looking for a film that combines intellectual heft with genuine narrative tension, Edward Berger’s Conclave deserves your immediate attention. Fresh off its acclaimed theatrical run and multiple Oscar nominations, this meticulously crafted drama is now readily accessible for streaming, making it one of the more compelling viewing options currently available.
At the helm is Edward Berger, the Swiss-German director whose masterful adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front demonstrated his exceptional ability to handle weighty historical material with both precision and profound emotional impact. His direction here is similarly assured, guiding a stellar cast through a story that is at once intimate and epic in its implications. Leading that cast is the incomparable Ralph Fiennes, who brings his signature blend of intellectual rigor and vulnerable humanity to the role of Cardinal Lawrence. He is joined by a formidable ensemble including Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini—actors who know how to convey volumes with a mere glance, a crucial skill in a film where so much of the power dynamics play out in hushed conversations and silent gestures.
The logistical barrier to experiencing this cinematic achievement is refreshingly low. Conclave is streaming now for subscribers on Amazon Prime Video. For those who prefer to own their digital content or use other services, it is also available for purchase or rental across most major platforms like Apple TV, Google Play, and Vudu. This wide availability means there’s little reason to miss what amounts to a masterclass in slow-burn political suspense.
The premise itself is deceptively simple, which is often the mark of the most sophisticated stories. The Pope has died. In the wake of his passing, the ancient, secretive ritual of the papal conclave must begin. Cardinal Lawrence, a man more comfortable with administration than ambition, is tasked with overseeing the process—ensuring that the sequestered cardinals follow the strict protocols as they debate and vote on who will next lead the global Catholic Church. It sounds, on paper, like it could be a dry affair. But Berger and screenwriter Peter Straughan, adapting Robert Harris’s gripping novel, quickly peel back the layers to reveal a narrative rich with the stuff of great thrillers: espionage, scandal, blackmail, and the raw, unvarnished greed that can fester even in the most sacred of rooms.
What makes Conclave so riveting is how it uses this locked-room scenario—the cardinals are cut off from the outside world, their phones confiscated, the windows shuttered—as a pressure cooker for human nature. The robes and rituals provide a majestic backdrop, but the real drama is intensely personal. It’s a story about the individuals beneath the vestments, each wrestling with private doubts, hidden pasts, and the sudden, dizzying proximity to ultimate power. It’s less about who will become the next Pope and more about what the very desire for that position reveals about a person’s soul.
This isn’t a film that preaches or offers easy answers. Instead, it invites you into a closed world, observes its inhabitants with a clear and compassionate eye, and asks you to sit with the complicated questions it raises long after the final, haunting image fades. For anyone seeking intelligent entertainment that trusts its audience, your next movie night has just been decided.
The Silver Screen’s Sistine Chapel
When a film takes on the task of depicting one of the world’s most secretive and visually stunning rituals, the burden of authenticity rests heavy. Edward Berger’s team understood this weight intimately. Their solution wasn’t to approximate or suggest, but to recreate with near-archaeological precision. For ten weeks, Cinecittà Studios became a parallel Vatican, with local artisans meticulously rebuilding the Sistine Chapel’s interior from the ground up—or rather, from the ceiling down.
The attention to detail borders on obsessive, and that’s precisely what makes Conclave compelling. Consider the pectoral cross cords: the production team sourced threads in the exact shades of red and gold used in actual Vatican vestments. They studied the specific types of hooks installed on the doors, the precise patterns of marble flooring, even the particular pile of carpets that would cushion cardinal footsteps. This wasn’t set decoration; it was historical reconstruction.
What’s fascinating is how these physical details serve the narrative. The closed shutters, the sequestered cardinals, the guards at every entrance—these aren’t dramatic flourishes but accurate representations of conclave protocol. The smoke signals from the Sistine Chapel chimney, that iconic grey and white visual language understood around the world, are rendered with ceremonial solemnity because the filmmakers understood their symbolic weight extends beyond Catholic tradition into global consciousness.
The impossibility of filming in the actual Vatican forced a creative discipline that ultimately serves the film better. By building their own Sistine Chapel, the production gained control over lighting, camera angles, and atmospheric conditions that would never be permitted in the holy site. The result feels both authentic and cinematically enhanced—a rare combination where historical accuracy and artistic license don’t conflict but complement.
This dedication to verisimilitude extends to the conclave’s procedures themselves. The voting process, the burning of ballots, the gradual elimination of candidates—all follow established protocols that the filmmakers studied through public records and consultations with willing clergy members. Some elements necessarily remain speculative (the handling of the deceased Pope’s body, for instance), but the core mechanics of the election are presented with documentary-like faithfulness.
What emerges from this meticulous recreation is something surprising: despite the exotic setting and unusual circumstances, the environment feels strangely familiar. The closed doors, the hushed conversations, the weight of decision-making—it’s not so different from corporate boardrooms or political backrooms, just with better art and more dramatic costumes. The physical accuracy becomes a gateway to emotional accessibility.
This chapter of filmmaking represents a growing trend where production design isn’t just background but active storytelling. The environment becomes a character, the details become dialogue, and the audience’s trust is earned through this visible commitment to getting things right. In an age of digital shortcuts and green screens, there’s something almost radical about Conclave’s physical, handcrafted approach to world-building.
The eight Academy Award nominations, including for production and costume design, acknowledge this achievement. But the real success is how these elements serve the story rather than distract from it. You might not consciously notice the exact shade of a thread or the specific pattern of marble, but you feel the cumulative effect—a world that feels lived-in, authentic, and worthy of the high-stakes drama unfolding within it.
The Human Drama Behind the Sacred Robes
What happens when men of God are forced to confront their very human desires for power? Conclave strips away the religious vestments to reveal the universal struggles beneath – the same ambitions, insecurities, and moral compromises that play out in corporate boardrooms and political chambers everywhere. The film’s genius lies in showing how even the most sacred spaces cannot escape fundamental human nature.
Cardinal Lawrence, portrayed with exquisite subtlety by Ralph Fiennes, embodies the tension between humility and ambition. There’s a quietly devastating moment when he stands before his mirror, repeating “You’re a manager” like a mantra meant to ward off temptation. This isn’t some grand dramatic monologue – it’s the kind of private self-talk we all recognize, that internal negotiation between what we want and what we think we should want. Lawrence’s resistance to power becomes its own form of ambition, a paradoxical dance that feels authentically human rather than scripted. His shaken faith doesn’t make him less qualified for leadership; it makes him more relatable. We’ve all experienced that gap between our public confidence and private doubts, even if our decisions don’t determine the future of a global institution.
Then there’s Cardinal Tremblay, played with delicious complexity by John Lithgow, who represents ambition in its more recognizable form. But Conclave wisely avoids painting him as a simple villain. His drive for the papacy emerges from genuine belief in his own capabilities, mixed with that dangerous conviction that he alone knows what’s best. We’ve all worked with this person – the one who believes their ambition serves a higher purpose, making ethical compromises feel like necessary sacrifices. The film presents his moral compromises not as mustache-twirling evil but as gradual slippages, the kind that happen when someone becomes too convinced of their own indispensability.
What makes the psychological tension so compelling is the密室环境 (secret meeting environment) itself. Locked away from the world, stripped of devices and distractions, these men face only each other and their own consciences. The film becomes a laboratory of human behavior under pressure, where small gestures – a glance across the chapel, a hesitation before voting, the way one handles the communion wafer – carry enormous significance. Director Edward Berger understands that real power struggles rarely involve shouting matches; they happen in quiet conversations, strategic alliances, and the careful withholding of information.
The most fascinating aspect might be how Conclave explores self-deception. Lawrence genuinely believes he doesn’t want the papacy, but might part of him crave the validation? Tremblay genuinely believes he’s serving the Church, but might part of him be serving his ego? The film sits comfortably with these ambiguities, refusing to provide easy answers. This resonates because we all contain these contradictions – the gap between our self-perception and our actual motivations, between our stated values and our actions under pressure.
What emerges is a surprisingly relatable portrait of leadership anxiety. These aren’t distant religious figures but professionals facing the ultimate job interview, complete with office politics, strategic maneuvering, and the terrifying weight of imposter syndrome. Their struggles with faith mirror our own struggles with doubt in various forms – not necessarily religious, but the doubt that haunts any meaningful decision, any position of responsibility.
The psychological intensity builds through small moments rather than dramatic confrontations. A cardinal’s hands trembling as he casts his vote. The way eyes avoid meeting across the dining table. The weight of silence in the Sistine Chapel. These details accumulate into a powerful study of how people behave when they believe they’re acting for higher purposes, yet can’t escape their very human limitations. It’s a reminder that sacred settings don’t sanctify the people within them; they simply heighten the stakes of very human dramas.
The Artistry Behind the Accolades
When a film receives eight Academy Award nominations, it’s not just a pat on the back—it’s a recognition of countless hours of meticulous craftsmanship. Conclave‘s technical achievements represent more than just period-accurate costumes or beautifully constructed sets; they form the very foundation upon which the film’s emotional and intellectual impact is built.
The production design nomination speaks volumes about the dedication to authenticity. Recreating the Sistine Chapel at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios wasn’t merely about architectural accuracy—it was about capturing the spiritual atmosphere that has accumulated within those walls over centuries. The team didn’t just replicate Michelangelo’s famous ceiling; they studied how light falls through the windows at different times of day, how sound echoes off marble surfaces, and how the space feels when occupied by individuals engaged in one of the most significant decisions of their lives. This attention to environmental storytelling creates an immersive experience that goes beyond visual splendor, making viewers feel the weight of history in every frame.
Costume design in Conclave operates on multiple levels simultaneously. On the surface, we see the magnificent scarlet robes and intricate ecclesiastical vestments that signal rank and tradition. But look closer, and you’ll notice how costume choices reveal character nuances—the slight fraying on one cardinal’s cuff suggesting humility or weariness, the impeccable sharpness of another’s attire hinting at ambition and attention to image. These visual cues work subtly throughout the film, building character depth without a word of dialogue needed.
Edward Berger’s direction continues to demonstrate his distinctive approach to historical storytelling that first garnered attention with All Quiet on the Western Front. His style combines sweeping visual grandeur with intimate human moments, often within the same scene. Notice how he frames the cardinals—sometimes as tiny figures against massive architectural backgrounds, emphasizing their smallness in the face of institution and tradition, then suddenly in extreme close-up during moments of personal crisis, where we can see every flicker of doubt in their eyes. This oscillation between epic scale and psychological intimacy has become a Berger signature, and in Conclave, it serves the perfect purpose of showing how monumental decisions emerge from very human struggles.
What makes Berger’s evolution particularly interesting is how he handles dialogue-heavy scenes. Unlike many directors who might struggle with making conversations cinematic, he finds ways to build visual tension through composition and movement. Watch how he stages the cardinals’ discussions—often arranging them in patterns that reflect alliances and oppositions, using the physical space of the chapel to mirror their ideological divisions. The camera rarely stays static during these exchanges, instead moving with deliberate purpose that underscores the shifting power dynamics in the room.
Within the landscape of contemporary religious and political cinema, Conclave occupies a unique space. It avoids both the cynical deconstruction of faith found in some modern films and the uncritical reverence of more traditional religious cinema. Instead, it presents the Church as an institution populated by flawed humans trying—and sometimes failing—to live up to ideals that transcend human weakness. This balanced approach feels particularly relevant at a time when audiences seem hungry for narratives that acknowledge complexity rather than reducing everything to simplistic binaries.
The film’s artistic achievements extend to its sound design and score, which work in concert to create a sense of sacred space while maintaining thriller-like tension. The echo of footsteps in marble halls, the rustle of silk vestments, the distant chanting of prayers—these auditory elements build a world that feels both ancient and immediately present. The score avoids overt melodrama, instead using subtle motifs that evolve throughout the film, mirroring the internal transformations of the characters.
Perhaps the most significant artistic accomplishment of Conclave is how it makes a process that could easily feel static or theatrical instead feels dynamic and deeply cinematic. The voting procedure, with its repeated balloting and ceremonial rituals, could have become repetitive visually. But through creative editing, varied camera angles, and a focus on the human reactions to each development, Berger maintains suspense and visual interest throughout. He finds ways to show the passage of time that feel organic—the changing light through the windows, the growing fatigue on faces, the subtle transformations in body language as days pass in confinement.
This combination of technical excellence and artistic vision places Conclave within a tradition of serious adult-oriented cinema that seems increasingly rare in today’s market. It’s a film that assumes intelligence and attention from its audience, rewarding close viewing with layers of meaning and nuance. The Oscar nominations recognize not just individual achievements in specific categories, but the successful integration of all these elements into a cohesive and powerful whole that transcends its genre conventions to become something truly distinctive in contemporary filmmaking.
The Final Revelation: Tradition Meets Transformation
Every great story holds its secrets close until the final moments, and Conclave is no exception. The film’s concluding revelation—centering on a cardinal’s concealed medical history—doesn’t arrive as a cheap twist but as a carefully constructed philosophical pivot that reframes everything we’ve witnessed. This isn’t storytelling for shock value; it’s narrative architecture designed to make us reconsider the very foundations of tradition and progress.
What makes this revelation particularly compelling is how it emerges through a private conversation with Cardinal Lawrence—a moment of quiet intimacy in a film filled with grand rituals and political maneuvering. The disclosure introduces themes of identity and inclusion that the Catholic Church has historically struggled with, creating what might be the film’s most contemporary and relevant dimension. Some viewers have found this shift jarring, arguing that it introduces modern sensibilities into an ancient process where they don’t belong. Others see it as the film’s boldest stroke—a necessary injection of today’s conversations into yesterday’s institutions.
This division among audiences reflects a broader cultural moment where traditional institutions everywhere are grappling with modernization. The film doesn’t provide easy answers but instead asks uncomfortable questions: How does an ancient institution remain relevant in a rapidly changing world? When does tradition become obstruction? Can centuries-old rituals accommodate contemporary understandings of identity and humanity?
What’s remarkable about this narrative choice is how it mirrors actual tensions within the Catholic Church. The film arrives at a time when real-world conversations about inclusion, transparency, and modernization are happening within Vatican walls. This parallel gives Conclave an almost documentary-like relevance that elevates it beyond mere entertainment.
The medical revelation also serves as a final test for Cardinal Lawrence’s leadership philosophy. His response—compassionate, pragmatic, yet deeply respectful of the institution he serves—becomes the ultimate expression of the film’s central question about what makes a good leader. Should he prioritize rigid tradition? Institutional protection? Or compassionate progress? His decision becomes the film’s final statement on the balance between preserving what’s valuable in tradition while making space for what’s necessary in evolution.
This concluding arc also completes the film’s examination of secrecy versus transparency. Throughout the conclave, we’ve seen how secrecy can protect sacred processes but also enable corruption. The final revelation asks whether some secrets—particularly those involving personal identity and medical history—might be better served by transparency and acceptance rather than concealment.
For viewers who appreciate films that continue to resonate long after the credits roll, Conclave delivers precisely because of this challenging conclusion. It refuses to provide comfortable resolution, instead leaving us with questions that might inform our own perspectives on leadership, tradition, and progress in our various communities—whether religious, professional, or personal.
The brilliance of this narrative choice lies in its timing: just as we think we understand what kind of film we’re watching, it expands its scope to include conversations that feel immediately vital. This isn’t a historical drama content to remain in the past; it’s a film that uses the past to speak directly to our present moment.
What remains most memorable about Conclave‘s conclusion isn’t the twist itself but the emotional and philosophical weight it carries. The film suggests that true leadership might involve knowing when to preserve tradition and when to challenge it—when to protect the institution and when to help it evolve. This balanced wisdom feels increasingly rare in our polarized world, making Conclave not just a fascinating film about papal elections but a timely meditation on how we navigate change while honoring what came before.
Beyond Entertainment
Conclave stands as a testament to what intelligent entertainment can achieve—a film that doesn’t just pass the time but occupies your thoughts long after the credits roll. It’s that rare cinematic experience that manages to be both immediately engaging and persistently resonant, like a conversation you keep returning to in your mind. In an era of disposable content, here’s a work that actually deserves the overused label of “prestige television”—except it’s a film, and it’s available right now on your streaming device.
What makes it so distinctive isn’t just its impeccable craft or stellar performances, though it has both in abundance. It’s the film’s willingness to sit with complicated questions rather than provide easy answers. The papal election serves as the perfect backdrop for examining something far more universal: the eternal tension between institutional power and individual conscience, between tradition and progress, between the person we present to the world and the one we confront in private moments.
Which brings us to the central question the film leaves us with: what kind of person should hold ultimate authority? Is it the reluctant leader like Cardinal Lawrence, wrestling with doubt but guided by principle? Or the confident ambitious type who knows exactly what they want and how to get it? The film doesn’t dictate an answer, but it gently suggests that perhaps the best leaders aren’t those who seek power but those who understand its weight—those who see leadership not as a prize but as a responsibility that might cost them their peace of mind.
I found myself thinking about this long after watching, applying it not just to religious institutions but to workplaces, community organizations, even parenting. We’ve all seen what happens when leadership becomes about ego rather than service, when maintaining power trumps doing what’s right. Conclave reminds us that true leadership often looks like the opposite of what we expect—it’s quiet, uncomfortable, and frequently requires breaking the very rules you’re supposed to uphold.
So here’s a question to sit with, one the film poses without ever stating it outright: if you found yourself unexpectedly facing the ultimate power position in your world—whether that’s running a company, leading a community, or making decisions that affect countless lives—what would you do? Would you embrace it as your destiny or resist it as a temptation? Would power reveal your best qualities or your worst ones?
Conclave doesn’t provide easy answers because there aren’t any. Like all great films, it gives us not conclusions but companions for our thinking—images, moments, and questions that continue working on us long after we’ve turned off the screen. In that sense, it’s more than just a movie; it’s an invitation to reflect on the complexities of power, faith, and human nature that play out in closed rooms and quiet consciences everywhere, Vatican City or otherwise.
