How the film sheds light on the secretive way popes are chosen

The 2024 film Conclave – a box office hit and Oscar winner – tells the story of a papal election in which there are no obvious favourites. For many people, it was a glimpse into the rarefied world of the Vatican, and the highly secretive process of choosing a leader for the Roman Catholic Church.

On Wednesday 7 May, life follows fiction when 134 cardinals begin the process of electing a successor to Pope Francis. As viewers of the film will know, the papal conclave will take place entirely behind the closed doors of the Sistine Chapel, beneath its world-famous Michelangelo frescoes.

Nobody outside the confines of the Vatican will know the outcome until the plume of white smoke will curl from its chimney, signifying that the Roman Catholic Church has a new leader.

But what does the film tell us about how the conclave could unfold, and why do people find the process so fascinating?

Adapted from the bestselling novel by Robert Harris, Conclave shows the cardinal-electors isolating themselves within the confines of the Vatican during the process of the election.

They are not allowed communication with anyone outside the conclave – although given the practicalities, they are not entirely cut off.

“They all need feeding, they’re not totally hermetically sealed off from the world,” says Stephen Bullivant, professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary’s University, Twickenham.

This self-imposed isolation is a tradition which stretches back hundreds of years.

In part, it is aimed at preventing the electors being influenced by external factors, although the idea of a process that happens behind closed doors may seem at odds with the modern world’s “focus on transparency, visibility and scrutiny”, according to Anna Rowlands, professor of Catholic social thought and practice at the University of Durham.

The film invokes an “incredible, introspective atmosphere” and sense of withdrawal from the world, she says. “I struggle to think of a more intense responsibility and feeling than being locked away in conclave.”

On the screen, claustrophobic and intense deliberations, strategic huddles and tactical moves abound. One cardinal undermines a frontrunner to improve their own chances. Others with unlikely prospects urge their supporters to change their vote.

This conflict of interests and competing ideologies provides much of the film’s drama. “It’s essentially about the political machinations that go on,” Nick Emerson, the film’s editor, told the BBC earlier this year.

While some cardinals will think the most important part is following divine guidance, others will have anxiety over making a quick decision, says Tina Beattie, professor emerita of Catholic studies at the University of Roehampton.

Given that Pope Francis’s health had been poor for a while, it is likely that, even before the conclave, “there will have been lots of politicking and jostling for position already behind the scenes”, she adds.

“There will be all those tussles going on and [the cardinals] won’t all be of one mind.”

Although in the film, some of the tensest scenes are focused on the act of voting, in reality, much of the drama may come in meetings in the days before conclave officially begins.

During this time, the participants will be “getting to know each other, working out what the priorities are and learning how to work together as a body so they can come up with a unified decision”, says Prof Rowlands, who is nearing the end of a two-year secondment to the Vatican.

In the film, an unknown cardinal – secretly appointed by the late pope – is catapulted into the fray.

In real life, this would not be possible. Although any baptised Roman Catholic male is theoretically eligible to be made pope, all cardinals voting in the conclave would need to have been appointed publicly by a previous pope.

Having said this, the imminent election may be one of the most unpredictable there has ever been. About 80% of the cardinals eligible to vote have been appointed in the past 12 years by Pope Francis. He consciously chose people from across the globe and with diverse political backgrounds.

Many of Francis’s appointees are from the developing world – “places and contexts which are not normally given a red hat”, says Prof Rowlands.

This adds a level of uncertainty as to their priorities and the ultimate decision.

The film presents the cardinals as fallible human beings jostling for power.

Director Edward Berger told the BBC last year that while the conclave was thought of as “an ancient spiritual ritual”, he wanted to bring the participants “into modernity”.

“We put them on this pedestal, and when you look closer, they’re going to have cell phones, they’re going to smoke, they have the same problems and vices and secrets as we do.”

Prof Rowlands says the film provides a peak behind a process, with all elements of human nature and human life in it: “Loss. grief, ambition, fear, temptation, courage.”

She adds: “It’s a very, very human thing, a conclave… It’s got a divine purpose to it, but it’s a very human thing.”