Although controversial, one film that has not been nominated for the 2025 Oscar was “Conclave,” a mystery thriller directed by Edward Berger, starring Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini and Stanley Tucci.
The Vatican actually reunited as revealed by Pope Francis, 88, a leader of the Catholic Church, passed on April 21, 2025, the day after Easter Sunday.
Although released in October 2024, “Conclave” hit a deep chord with viewers as Pope Francis’s decline in health in February 2025.
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The film “Conclave” stars Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini and Stanley Tucci, and the Cardinals gather to elect a new Pope. (Robinbeck/AFP via Getty Images)
The film follows closely in a novel of the same name written by author Robert Harris.
“It was pretty accurate,” Dennis Doyle, professor emeritus at Dayton University, Ohio, told Fox News Digital.
Doyle taught at the Catholic Studies University for 40 years.
“There were some differences, just like some of the Latin words weren’t accurate. The carpet was red in the film and that beige in real life,” Doyle said. “Seat arrangements were made in the film very dramatically. They weren’t like that in real life at all, and even the way they voted was not the same.”
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Pope Francis was elected Pope in 2013 after Pope Benedict XVI resigned from his role due to health concerns. (Gregorio Borgia/AP)
Despite his creative freedom, Doyle felt that the film was “very accurately done.”
“I was surprised at how well it worked and how they could present the characters in a way that in a certain sense, all of the characters are sympathetic,” Doyle told Fox News Digital.
Doyle read the book twice in preparation for the film.
“In the book, the characters were transgender, but they didn’t have surgery,” Doyle said. “In the film, the characters were intersex, born both ways, but still never had surgery.”
Some Catholics viewed social media as “anti-Catholic” and “injustice” when the film was released.
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Dennis Doyle, professor emeritus at the University of Dayton, told Fox News Digital that the Oscar-nominated film “Conclave” is “very accurate” to the minutes of the true Conclave. (Yara Nardi/Reuters)
“I thought everything about the film was very realistic until the end,” Doyle said. “On a literal level, I thought it was really not that realistic. I don’t think it would happen. I think someone who was intersex would be elected Pope. But symbolically, I found the ending very interesting.”
“We found out that the ending could be a turn-off for some Catholics,” he added.
Doyle, “a kind of overstatement,” spoke about the issue of the role of women in the church and whether the Catholic Church can equal men and women.
“In the film, all those who serve the Cardinals are sisters,” Doyle said. “They are all nuns, and in real life, the building just has staff who work in that building, they are people who serve food and change beds and stuff like that.”
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The Catholic Cards will gather for the Pope Conclave on April 21, 2025, just a few weeks after Pope Francis’ death. (Vatican pool, Arturomali)
The deeper question is that the film portrays men in leadership roles and depicts women as servants.
“The conversation about transgender is relatively recent [in the church]”Doyle said, “I think the conversation is more in the US and Europe than in the Catholic Church, or more globally or inevitably in Rome.”
The Vatican released the Vatican Dignitas Infinita, a declaration that Pope Francis condemned gender theory in 2024. The document argued that attempts to change an individual’s unchanging gender were ultimately a false attempt to play God.
“You can see this whole movie and the last two minutes aren’t the film’s problem. It doesn’t really show up. There are some premonitions about what the conclusion will be, but the film isn’t about that,” Doyle said.
After Pope Francis’ death, Doyle believes that the newly released film will create an interest in the Catholic Church.
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“It may make people more aware that a lot of politics continues, and that’s an interesting subject in the film and in the book,” he said. “Maybe in general, I don’t think it really affects how people think about the church. That makes Conclave’s ideals interesting.”
“Concrave” was nominated for a 2025 Academy Award nomination, including Best Picture and Best Actor, and won the best adapted script.
