The Pope-Themed Political Thriller That’s Finding New Fans On Prime Video
What if “Gossip Girl” or a “Real Housewives” franchise took place in Vatican City? Somehow, that question is answered by Edward Berger’s 2024 film “Conclave,” a political thriller about backstabbing cardinals and the election of a new pope that took home a few Academy Awards … and is now available to stream with an Amazon Prime Video subscription. Not just that — it’s been number one on Prime Video’s streaming charts in the United States for several days, and shows no signs of slowing down.
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Led by a veritable murderer’s row of actors that includes Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and the inimitable Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave,” which is based on Robert Harris’ 2016 novel of the same name and was adapted for the screen by “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” writer Peter Straughan, meets a group of cardinals in Rome after the pope passes away. In the aftermath of the religious leader’s death, Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Fiennes), who also happens to be the dean of the College of Cardinals, must convene fellow Catholic cardinals from all over the world, many of whom hope to be named the next Pope. Those hopefuls include a liberal American cardinal named Aldo Bellini (Tucci) who’s a close friend of Lawrence, as well as the conservative and traditional Italian cardinal Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), another conservative who hails from Nigeria named Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), and a Canadian moderate who we learn was dismissed by the Pope before the man’s death named Joseph Tremblay (Lithgow). Rossellini, meanwhile, plays Sister Agnes, who runs housekeeping and catering for the cardinals and knows all of their dirty little secrets and indiscretions. Just before the papal conclave begins, a Mexican cardinal named Vincent (Carlos Diehz) who secretly served the Pope in Kabul shows up to join the fray.
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“Conclave” was, by any metric of this word, a success. Not only did the film charm both critics and audiences upon its release, but it also performed admirably at the box office, which is wild when you consider that a lot of filmgoers went into this movie only knowing that it was about “picking a new pope.” With that all said, what did the reviews for “Conclave” conclude?
What did critics think of Conclave?
I cannot stress this enough: Film critics loved “Conclave.” Right here at /Film, Witney Seibold gave the film a 7.5 out of 10 and called it a “tightly wound bureaucratic fantasy about an open-minded Catholic Church that longs to be more progressive, and that aches to make palpable, swift, sweeping changes,” and this is pretty firmly in line with the rest of the critical reactions towards the movie.
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Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie boasts a whopping 93% with a critical consensus that declares, “Carrying off papal pulp with immaculate execution and career-highlight work from Ralph Fiennes, ‘Conclave’ is a godsend for audiences who crave intelligent entertainment.” As far as individual critics go, they also showered praise upon the film, like Peter Travers for ABC News: “Ralph Fiennes delivers a master class in acting in Edward Berger’s juicy, jolting mystery thriller that uses the fictional election of a new pope in Rome to mirror America’s own dirty politics. What fun! And the drama of it will pin you to your seat.” Writing for the Boston Globe, Odie Henderson honed in on the drama of it all, saying, “Imagine an Agatha Christie mystery set in the Vatican, where everybody has something to hide and the movie can’t wait to expose it for your shock and awe.” Manohla Dargis of The New York Times pointed out that “there’s a great deal of talking in ‘Conclave,’ not just dark-corner murmuring, yet the dialogue remains largely naturalistic throughout.”
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A few critics, like NPR’s Justin Chang, zeroed in on Fiennes’ performance: “‘Conclave’ is undeniably engrossing to watch as it shuffles and reshuffles the narrative deck and serves up one juicy cardinal-red herring after another. While the story may be a parlor trick, there’s nothing phony about Fiennes’ performance.” Maxwell Rebb at the Chicago Reader called it “Ralph Fiennes’s best role in recent memory.” Naturally, there were a few naysayers, including Richard Brody, who wrote in his review for The New Yorker that the performances were hampered by the movie itself: “Instead of rising to the awe-inspiring heights of their settings, the refinement of the performances is narrowed to monotony.” That certainly didn’t stop “Conclave,” though, which eventually became an Oscars darling.
Conclave’s ending helped set it apart — and the film ended up winning a few Academy Awards
At the end of the day, “Conclave” was one of the biggest and best films of 2024, inspiring a whole bunch of papal memes and plenty of discourse about the movie’s explosive ending, which centers on Cardinals Lawrence and Benitez coming together to reveal something shocking, transgressive, and thought-provoking. Whether or not you like the ending — I happen to find it striking and emotionally resonant — there’s no denying that this movie was huge as 2024 came to a close, and this ultimately led to some big wins at the Oscars.
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The 2025 Academy Awards, which took place on March 2, didn’t end up being quite as suspenseful as prognosticators might have initially thought; Sean Baker’s twisted fairytale and surprising romantic comedy “Anora” ended up sweeping a whole bunch of categories, including Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture (not to mention earning a statue for the film’s young star, Mikey Madison). For a while, it did seem like “Conclave” could surge ahead and snag Best Picture, but at the end of the day, “Anora” was anointed — which isn’t to say that “Conclave” left the ceremony empty-handed. Peter Straughan took home the award for Best Adapted Screenplay, giving audiences two very worthy screenplays to revisit when you pair it with Baker’s script for “Anora,” but it lost out on other major categories like Best Actor (where Ralph Fiennes lost to Adrien Brody in “The Brutalist”) and below-the-line categories like Costume Design (an award that went to Jon M. Chu’s massive blockbuster “Wicked,” in which the costumes were created by Paul Tazewell).
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With all that in mind, “Conclave” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video now, and it’s probably not a coincidence that this movie is making waves just as a real-life papal conclave is set to begin on May 7, 2025.
