In the early 1960s, during the Vatican II era, a young woman training to become a nun struggles with issues of faith, sexuality and the changing church.
Acting
Melissa Leo's Reverend Mother—terrifying, tragic, never leaves you.
Direction
Margaret Betts' debut: intimate, unflinching, female gaze on female devotion.
Cinematography
Convent corridors as psychological space—claustrophobic, luminous, holy.
Director
Margaret Betts
Margaret Qualley
Sister Cathleen
Melissa Leo
Reverend Mother
Julianne Nicholson
Nora Harris
Dianna Agron
Sister Mary Grace
Lisa Stewart
Sister Genevieve
Morgan Saylor
Sister Evelyn
Liana Liberato
Sister Emily
Rebecca Dayan
Sister Emanuel
Eline Powell
Sister Candace
Chelsea Lopez
Sister Charlotte
Maddie Hasson
Sister Sissy
Denis O'Hare
Archbishop
Chris Zylka
Chuck Harris
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Vatican II (1962-1965) radically modernized Catholic liturgy—Reverend Mother's resistance mirrors real conservative backlash, including schismatic traditionalist movements that persist today.
Margaret Qualley spent two weeks in a real convent preparing; Melissa Leo, not Catholic, based Reverend Mother on her own authoritarian father. The whipping scenes used practical effects so intense that crew members left set.
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