As the world mourns the death of Pope Francis, who died early Monday morning at the age of 88, they also await the results of the upcoming conclave, aka the secretive process behind the election of the next pope. And, thanks to Edward Berger’s Oscar-winning 2024 film, Conclave, a lot more people now know how that process works.
Obviously, the Conclave movie is a Hollywood drama, and not a documentary. It’s a mystery-thriller based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Robert Harris, in which Ralph Fiennes stars as a Cardinal who must organize the election of the next pope, after the previous pope dies. In the process, he finds the now-deceased pope was hiding a dark secret (or two!) that involves his potential successors.
That said, though all the Cardinals featured in Conclave are not based on real people, the author of the original 2016 Conclave novel, Robert Harris, said in an interview with Time that he was inspired by the real-life 2005 papal conclave, which ultimately elected Pope Benedict XVI. An alleged diary from one of the cardinals that described the process was leaked to the press, which provided inspiration for Harris. It’s hard to say how accurate the Conclave movie is, but it’s certainly an interesting speculation on what might be going down in Vatican City right now.
It’s too bad, then, that Conclave is no longer streaming on Peacock, and not yet available to stream free on Amazon Prime Video. Read on to learn where to watch the Conclave movie online, why Conclave is not on Peacock, and when we think Conclave will stream on Amazon Prime for free.
If you want to watch the Conclave movie today, you will have to buy or rent the movie on digital platforms like Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Fandango At Home, and more. The price may vary depending on which platform you use, but on Amazon Prime, Conclave costs $5.99 to rent, and $19.99 to buy.
But if you’re willing to wait a few days, we do expect to see Conclave streaming on Amazon Prime for free (with a Prime subscription).
Sadly, Conclave is no longer streaming on Peacock. Though the movie had previously been on Peacock, Conclave stopped streaming on Peacock last week. That said, we expect Conclave to stream on Peacock again, in about nine months, around February 2026.
This is because of a deal with Amazon Prime Video, in which Universal movies stream on Peacock for the first four months, and the last four months, of the 18-month “Pay 1” window. (“Pay 1” is the industry term for the year-and-a-half period that follows a movie’s run in theaters.) Under this Universal and Amazon deal, during the in-between months—aka months 5 through 14—the live-action Universal titles will stream free on Amazon Prime Video.
And yet, the Conclave movie is not streaming on Amazon, or any of the subscription-based streaming service at the moment. Ironically, Pope Francis died during this transition period, after Conclave stopped streaming on Peacock, but before Conclave comes to Amazon Prime.
We expect to see Conclave streaming free on Amazon Prime Video by the end of the week, possibly as soon as tomorrow. It was previously reported, via Amazon’s official “new on” list, that Conclave would be streaming on Amazon Prime beginning on April 13, so we’re not sure why you don’t yet see the movie on free on Amazon Prime. Hopefully, it’s coming soon.
Decider reached out to Amazon Prime to ask when subscribers could expect to see Conclave streaming free on Prime, but did not receive a response prior to publication.