It’s a tragic coincidence that the late Pope Francis’ passing on Easter Monday happened so close to the recent Catholic holiday. And while there don’t seem to be any papal mysteries on the 2025 movie schedule at the moment, the 2025 Oscar winner Conclave is hitting its new streaming home, in yet another moment of coincidence. The public has certainly noticed these factors all playing out in a most peculiar way, and there have been both jokes and commentary on what this means.
While the matter of the Pope’s death and the papal conclave that will elect his successor are very serious, that hasn’t stopped people from making some light-hearted references to the news that Conclave is now available through a Prime Video subscription. As that development happened to break in this time of mourning, the conversation you’ll see in these social media reactions was bound to happen:
- “The marketing for this movie is crazy” - @firagawalkwthme
- “I guess it’s time to finally time to watch Conclave” - @QondiNtini
- “fine I’ll watch conclave. this marketing campaign is getting ridiculous” - @Niles100
- “I know Conclave has recency bias on its side, but it is funny that there was an actual movie from six years about about Pope Francis, portrayed by Jonathan Pryce in an Oscar-nominated performance, and I haven't seen a single person recommend or even mention it yet today.” - @jonathanmb32
- “Everyone who watched conclave should be able to vote for the next pope we are one of you now” - @lukasbattle
- “me and oomfs rewatching conclave tonight” - @evenstqrs
It does kind of feel weird that Conclave would overshadow the 2019 Netflix original film The Two Popes. Depicting Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce) and Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins) meeting upon the latter's decision to abdicate his holy seat, the story does have some potential reality-based parallels to its more recent counterpart. Though that film will probably also see an uptick in viewership, it's not exactly the sort of darling that the internet latches onto.
Meanwhile, Focus Features’ well-regarded picture focused on a Cardinal (Ralph Fiennes) overseeing a contentious papal election, has been a social media hit since it was released. Between Conclave’s all-star cast of fan favorites like Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini, and the parallels between this film and Mean Girls, you couldn’t stop people from chattering about it on the internet (as proven above).
The buzz was so powerful that it saw Film Independent’s lighthearted live-reading of the script take shape with a cast that included Ayo Edebiri, Patton Oswalt, and Brett Goldstein. So the social muscles for Conclave have always been strong.
Conclave was probably always going to be a hot topic among social media fans, especially with a new streaming home. And as far as the timing is concerned, the week after Easter may have been chosen as a strategic window to avoid any sort of controversy leading up to the actual holiday. Which just goes to show that sometimes life is crazier than any situation art can throw at us.
Whether you’re looking to revisit Conclave or see it for the first time, you can currently stream that film on Prime Video. Or if you are interested in streaming The Two Popes, that picture is still available through a Netflix subscription.
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