Sunlight, in fact, is absent from much of “Conclave” by the plot’s design. When the cardinals meet to elect the new pope, all the windows in the Vatican are sealed with blackout grates.

For “Conclave” production designer Suzie Davies, however, replicating Vatican environments was never the end goal. It was only the beginning. For one thing, Davies wanted to tweak the layout ...

Pope Francis died at age 88 on April 21, setting off a series of centuries-old rituals to select a new leader of the Catholic Church.

gave the film a B-plus for “accuracy in terms of the procedures of a conclave,” quibbling only about minor details, like the misuse of some terms and the layout of the tables in the Sistine Ch ...