‘Conclave’ hive, assemble. How ‘this very serious movie about Catholicism’ has inspired a rabid online fanbase this awards season.

Conclave is nominated for eight Oscars, but it won’t need to win any of them to be a massive success in the eyes of its enthusiastic online fanbase.

The community of passionate supporters has been posting about the movie since it was first in theaters in October 2024, sharing playful memes, clever fan edits and heartfelt writing about it. What’s unusual is that the film that has inspired such a rabid response is a slow-burning, PG-rated thriller about cardinals gathering to select a new pope.

Yahoo Entertainment surveyed 55 people who are part of a Conclave fan community on Discord about their love of the film. Many acknowledged that it would be nice to see the cast and crew honored at the Oscars, but say the movie’s value transcends any little gold statue. It seemed that the movie’s awards season hopes were dashed altogether until it won Best Film at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards on Feb. 16. Now it’s climbing up the Yahoo Best Picture Leaderboard.

“Winning an Oscar is certainly a goal, but I wouldn’t say it’s the main one. I mostly want all of my friends to watch it and tell me what they think about it,” a 19-year-old art history student named Molly said.

“Personally, I really couldn’t care less about the awards. That said, if Conclave wins Best Picture, I am going to be really annoying for at least 14 business days,” said Isa, a 26-year-old attorney.

The intensity of the online fandom makes it an outlier, but Conclave isn’t just successful on social media. It’s set to cross the $100 million mark at the global box office this week, a major milestone for a film aimed squarely at adult audiences, according to Variety.

Although some respondents saw the movie because of their fascination with Catholicism or their affinity for its lead actor, Ralph Fiennes, a significant number were influenced by viral posts. Some favorites included comparisons to Mean Girls and RuPaul’s Drag Race, and fan edits set to music by Charli XCX and Chappell Roan. For Molly, it was a GIF of Fiennes carrying a turtle.

Several Conclave fans hailed its artistry, from the interior design of the Vatican to the cardinals’ complex costumes. Dissecting the film led to deeper conversations and connections between fans.

“The costumes are so beautiful and feel so real and weighty on the actor’s bodies, the soundtrack heightens the tension so perfectly, and I honestly just love it as a separate album as well. The actors are all at their best,” said Gerald, a 22-year-old artist. “But I think the thing that draws me in most of all is the dialogue. These are all such fascinating, complicated, gray characters that I love picking apart through fandom.”

Miranda, a 25-year-old artist, said she started posting about Conclave because she had the “urge to connect with people who also loved these things and were kind of in on the joke.”

“This very serious movie about Catholicism, that you would think is very straightforward, is full of messy bitches and vape hits,” she said.

As the cardinals vie for the top position in the church, scheming ensues and dubious motives are revealed. The film addresses corruption — sexual misconduct, blackmail, financial crime and crises of faith. It can be as gossipy as it is poetic.

“We joke about the cattiness and it being Mean Girls, but at the end of the day, it’s a profoundly hopeful film, and that’s exactly what I needed in my life right now,” said Sarah, a 32-year-old federal contractor. “I am rooting for a Conclave/Brutalist sweep, but I think the goal is just to have fun, be yourself, and sexualize old men in their 60s and 70s the way God intended.”

There’s plenty of imaginative fan art and hundreds of works of fan fiction speculating about the romantic subtext among canonically celibate cardinals, which is part of the joy of loving something so deeply that you make it your own.

Warning: The following paragraphs contain spoilers for Conclave.

One of the elements of the film most significant to fans is its twist ending, which ruffled some feathers in the Catholic community: The cardinal who is selected by his peers to be pope is intersex.

Jay, a 30-year-old social worker who is intersex, said: “This was the first time I was surprised by an already good film also featuring an intersex character.”

When Cardinal Benítez (Carlos Diehz) reveals his intersex status to Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes), he says, “I am what God made me.” That line struck a chord with many fans, including Jay.

“I have never in my life felt this moved,” said 26-year-old Daniela, a freelancer.

Em, a 23-year-old hazmat chemist, was touched by “the extreme hope that the church I was raised with could be good … that people like me, queer people, could be respected as members of the church, and loved so fully as God that he made an intersex man pope.”

It’s not uncommon for a TV show or movie to have an intense online fandom dedicated to discussing their shared interests, like Severance and Yellowjackets, especially as viewers try to untangle the messages of what they’ve just watched.

Susan, a 30-year-old artist, has recruited countless Conclave fans. Her Pope Crave X account, which references the celebrity news outlet Pop Crave, frequently goes viral by posting memes about the film. She waxed poetic about the beauty of Conclave.

“The costumes. The cinematography. The characters. The languages. The score. The sound design. The intent of the camera. The way it is Mean Girls meets 1970s Pakula paranoid political conspiracy. Its earnest and sincere depiction of hope. Its lightness and brevity for humor. Its deep capacity for grief,” she said. “The church as a sacred space juxtaposed with the imagined celluloid Vatican of red on red on red and fascist imprisonment. Absolute cinema, nothing like it.”

Her love of the film is so profound, she wanted to “exorcise Conclave from my skull” by making a zine to showcase writing and art from marginalized creators. It’s called “From the Crooked Timber of Humanity” — a reference to a quote from the philosopher Immanuel Kant mentioned in the Conclave script — and captures the interior battles constantly waged within its characters.

Susan formed a bond with the film’s distributor, Focus Features, on social media. In turn, she was included on the guest list for the now-viral Film Independent live read of Conclave on Feb. 10. The film’s director, Edward Berger, and Diehz signed copies of the zine.

Of the film’s star-studded cast, Diehz is perhaps the most keyed into online discussion about his character.

“When you make a film that validates identities often rendered invisible, and then you get up on stage and quote Leonard Cohen, [saying], ‘This is why we make movies: There’s a crack in everything, and that’s how the light gets in,’” Susan said, referring to Berger’s BAFTA acceptance speech. “[All] while the material reality we live in feels like it’s going to swallow people like me up whole, like, I’m sorry, dude, I can’t help but make a zine about the magic of cinema and the power of visibility. Conclave is so important to me.”

Susan said the zine has made $50,000 in gross sales from a four-week pre-order period. The team plans to donate all net proceeds to charities and nonprofit organizations such as the Intersex Human Rights Fund, Freedom Fund and Librarians and Archivists with Palestine.

“Conclave Hive has raised money for good causes; any awards are just extra sprinkles on top,” Susan said. “There is much pain in the world, but not in Pope Crave.”

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