One of the best cinematic monologues of 2024 is a sermon.
Conclave, a mystery-thriller about the cardinals of the world gathering to elect the next pope, centers Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), who has been tasked with leading the conclave. As part of his duties, he delivers the opening homily to more than 100 of the most influential Catholic leaders in the world — men with a wide range of views on, for instance, women’s ordination, interfaith relations, and LGBTQ+ rights. Understandably, Cardinal Lawrence’s colleagues advise him to play it safe. “The trick is to offend no one,” Cardinal Joshua Adeyemi tells him. Instead, Cardinal Lawrence decides to preach about something that will offend almost everyone in the room: the virtue of doubt.
“There is one sin which I have come to fear above all others: certainty,” he says. “Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end. … Let us pray that God will grant us a pope who doubts, and let him grant us a pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on.”
The films below feature characters — real and fictional — who doubt, who sin, who ask for forgiveness, and who try to carry on and seek justice in a universe full of violence, corruption, and sickness, but also humor, love, and reconciliation.
A Real Pain
In this dark comedy, two strikingly different American cousins (a responsible, aloof Jesse Eisenberg and a charming, reckless Kieran Culkin) reunite in Poland for a Holocaust remembrance tour, which they hope will help them honor both their recently deceased grandmother and their Jewish heritage. With the backdrop of gas chambers, tombstones, and hotel dining rooms — and the eager, kind company of their tour group of strangers — the cousins search for ways to honor and process grief, both the personal and the inherited kinds.
God & Country
“God & Country serves as a crash-course in how this hyper-conservative, white-dominant minority — one that doesn’t represent the values of most Christians or even most evangelicals according to the film’s data — came to be such an effectively vocal voting bloc,” writes culture columnist Abby Olcese. Leaning on interviews with faith leaders like Rev. William J. Barber II, Sister Simone Campbell, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, and Rob Schenck, the documentary aims to interrogate common Christian nationalist arguments and shows viewers what they can do to thwart the movement’s assent.
Furiosa
In the prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, we learn how Furiosa became the woman who would liberate the enslaved “breeders/wives” of the tyrannical Immortan Joe. As contributing editor JR. Forasteros pointed out in his review, this action film is an Exodus movie: Both Moses and Furiosa were born into slavery, went on to experience the comforts and privileges of empire, and then led oppressed peoples to a promised land. Their stories help viewers answer an imminent question, writes Forasteros: “How do those of us who live in the lap of the empire truly act as agents of liberation?”
Heretic
The “biggest scare” of this religious horror film “isn’t demonic or paranormal or gory,” writes Zachary Lee: “It’s the unique terror of being caught in a theological conversation with a self-righteous man.” Mr. Reed invites two missionaries into his house, feigning curiosity about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but in reality, the religiously disillusioned “theo bro” wants to test their faith by bringing the young women closer and closer to death. Heretic is as scary as it is theologically stirring, ultimately reminding viewers “that perhaps the true heretics are not those who doubt but rather those who are certain,” writes Lee.
Leap of Faith
A couple years ago, 12 pastors from across the political and theological spectrum agreed to meet together over the course of the year. They wanted to find a way to love each other despite their differences, and they agreed to let Nicholas Ma and Morgan Neville film the process. The result, writes Jim McDermott, is a hopeful, raw documentary that doesn’t shy away from silence or vulnerability — “a revelatory portrait of what it’s like to be a pastor today.”
Dune: Part Two
In this spectacle of speculative fiction, religion and politics are deeply, dangerously entwined. Political elites have spent centuries laying the groundwork for a messiah-figure to emerge and fully activate a holy war. And while Paul Atreides initially dismisses the false prophecy, over the course of the film, his integrity gets weaker as his enemies grow stronger. “As it turns out,” writes Ezra Craker, “being the messiah comes in handy in moments of political and military desperation. That kind of influence is hard to resist.”
Exhibiting Forgiveness
Exhibiting Forgiveness centers on the reunion of Tarrell (André Holland) with his estranged father, La’Ron (John Earl Jelks), who was abusive throughout Tarrell’s childhood. La’Ron, now recovering from addiction, has come seeking reconciliation and forgiveness. In this autobiographical, feature-film debut, director Titus Kaphar searches for a way to forgive without forgetting. “Forgiving doesn’t mean — shouldn’t have to mean — that you are putting yourself back in a situation that is dangerous for you or dangerous for your family,” he told Sojourners associate editor Josina Guess. “You can forgive and go a different path.”
Between the Temples
Ben Gottlieb is a newly widowed middle-aged cantor who’s lost his voice (and more concerningly, his purpose in life). Carla Kessler O’Connor is a free-spirited septuagenarian who wants to take Ben’s bat mitzvah class at the synagogue (Carla’s non-Jewish parents never allowed her to have the ceremony as a child). The premise of Between the Temples makes it sound like a quirky age-gap romance, and in some ways it is. But the comedy is also a warm, surprising, hilarious portrait of how two misfits skirted religious convention to cultivate spiritual belonging for each other.
Conclave
Conclave is a thrilling, humanizing look at the papal election process, a secretive event that few people ever get to witness. But the film also uses color, silence, and one powerful monologue by Sister Agnes (a stoically powerful Isabella Rossellini) to critique the patriarchal power structures of the Vatican. “In the beginning, the critique only simmers in the visual imagery, the background to the political maneuvering,” writes Sarah Vincent in her review of the film. “But by the end of the movie, it has taken center stage.”
Want more ideas about what to watch? Check out these other film roundups:
+Sojourners’ Top Movies and TV Shows of 2023
+Sojourners’ 2022 Film and TV Roundup to Inspire Faith and Justice
Jenna Barnett is senior associate culture editor at Sojourners. Find her on Twitter: @jennacbarnett.
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