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, life followed fiction when 133 cardinals began the process of electing a successor to Pope Francis. As viewers of the film will know, the papal conclave takes place entirely behind the closed doors of the Sistine Chapel, beneath its world-famous Michelangelo frescoes.

Nobody outside the confines of the Vatican knew the outcome until a plume of white smoke curled from its chimney on Thursday, signifying that the Roman Catholic Church had a new leader. That man was Cardinal Robert Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV.

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

'Intense responsibility'

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 from 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."