Doubt

In 1964, at a Catholic parish in the Bronx, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) delivers a sermon on doubt, arguing that, like faith, it can help bring the community together. That same night, Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), the strict principal of the school, discusses the homily with the other nuns and asks whether any of them has noticed anything unusual about the priest. Aloysius trusts in discipline and in the rules the school has upheld for years, even as the neighborhood begins to change. Shortly afterward, in the schoolyard, she sees a boy pull away from Flynn, and her unease begins to grow. Directed by John Patrick Shanley, the film pits a principal confident in her convictions against a charismatic priest whom she starts to regard with suspicion.