The Nun (2018): Cast, Plot, Ending and Where to Watch

The Nun (2018), directed by Corin Hardy, follows a priest and a novice sent by the Vatican in 1952 to a remote Romanian abbey after a nun takes her own life there. Father Burke, played by Demián Bichir, is a priest who deals with troubling miracles for the Church, and he brings Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), a young novice who has not yet taken her vows. A local farmhand nicknamed Frenchie guides them to the abbey, and, once they arrive, they find the villagers afraid of the place and the remaining nuns behaving strangely.

From there the film becomes a slow descent into the building itself. If you are new to the saga, the story stands on its own, although its final scene points back to The Conjuring (2013). Because it is the first story in time, it is also where the chronological list in conjuring movies in order begins.

The full story of The Nun (2018) plays out as a siege inside the abbey of St. Carta, where a few people try to outlast a demon dressed as a nun. Frenchie, the French Canadian farmhand who found the dead sister in 1952, brings Father Burke and Sister Irene up to the building. The residents say they pray without pause to keep something at bay, and Irene starts seeing visions that suggest the warning is meant literally. Burke and Irene work out that the entity is Valak, a demon that takes the form of a nun, and that it draws its strength from a gateway in the catacombs, opened long ago by a duke's occult rituals.

The midpoint twist undercuts much of what the film has shown. Many of the sisters who spoke with Irene were never there, which means she has been praying by herself, and the Abbess turns out to have been dead from the start. The pair then locate a vial of the blood of Christ, the one thing able to stop the demon. Valak takes hold of Irene for a time, and Frenchie breaks the possession by exposing her to the blood. Valak then turns on Frenchie, and Irene drives it off.

The finale has Irene spitting the blood into Valak's face, which closes the gateway. Burke, Irene and Frenchie walk out of the abbey, and the story appears to be over. A last jump to the 1970s reveals that Frenchie had been secretly possessed all along, and that his exorcism is the one Ed Warren describes in a lecture in The Conjuring (2013).

The Nun (2018) opened in Australia on September 6, 2018, and in the UK and the US on September 7, 2018, with a running time of 96 minutes. The film is rated R in the US, 15 in the UK and MA15+ in Australia.

Was it a hit? On a $22 million budget, the film took $117 million in the US and Canada and $249 million internationally, for $366 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. That is more than 16 times its cost. It also outgrossed every earlier film in the saga, including The Conjuring 2 at about $323 million, and it stayed the series high until The Conjuring: Last Rites arrived in 2025. Among the ten films released so far, only that one has earned more. The full comparison sits on the conjuring box office page.

In release order the film sits fifth, after Annabelle: Creation in August 2017 and before The Curse of La Llorona in April 2019.

The ending of The Nun (2018) shows Irene sealing the gateway beneath the abbey, but Frenchie, whose real name is Maurice, carries the demon out with him. Irene uses the blood of Christ to push Valak back and close the catacomb gateway, which saves the abbey. The victory is not complete, because Frenchie has a hidden mark showing the demon had already entered him.

The film then cuts to about twenty years later and shows Ed and Lorraine Warren's lecture footage from The Conjuring (2013). Ed names the possessed man in that footage as Maurice, which ties the abbey events to the Warrens' first encounter with Valak. The thread continues in other films. A tag scene in Annabelle: Creation shows Valak at the Abbey of St. Carta in 1952, and in The Nun II, set four years after the first film, Maurice is possessed again. For the order of events, see the conjuring timeline.

In my opinion, the closing sting is the neatest piece of franchise building among the spinoffs, because it turns a self contained abbey story into the missing first chapter of the saga that audiences met in 2013, and it does so with footage rather than explanation.

Why do some viewers rate it lower than the main films? It could be argued that a prequel has a problem built in: Frenchie has to survive to appear in the lecture, so the tension has to come from how Irene gets there rather than whether she does. That being said, the box office tells its own story, and perhaps the film's real strength is its setting, with real castles and a built abbey church carrying more atmosphere than the plot does. For our own verdicts on the series, see conjuring reviews.

The Nun (2018) was filmed in Romania, at two historic castles, a site near Bucharest and a studio complex. Corvin Castle in Hunedoara served as the main abbey exterior. Bethlen Castle in Cris supplied extra monastery scenes, and a graveyard was built there specially for the shoot.

Tunnels at Mogosoaia, near Bucharest, were used for the sets beneath the abbey. The abbey church interior was a built set at Castel Film Studios, also near Bucharest, because Romanian law bars filming inside churches. The same studio held other built interiors for the film.

The Nun (2018) comes with several production details that show how it was built and where it sits in the saga.

• James Wan shares the story credit, produced the film, and also worked as second unit director.
• The owners of Corvin Castle asked that the set be left standing after the shoot, hoping to attract film tourists.
• The part of Daniel is credited to two actors, August Maturo and Jack Falk.
• It is the first film in chronological order, and The Nun II picks up four years later.
• Bonnie Aarons plays the demon nun in The Conjuring 2, The Nun (2018) and The Nun II.
• Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet and Bonnie Aarons all return for The Nun II.

For the other spinoffs, see the conjuring spin offs page.