The film stars Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis.

Streep, Hoffman, Adams, and Davis were highly praised for their performances, and all were nominated for Oscars at the 81st Academy Awards.

Sister Aloysius, the strict principal of the church's parish school, becomes concerned when she sees a boy pull away from him in the courtyard.

Sister James, a young and naïve teacher, receives a request for Donald Miller, an altar boy and the school's only black student, to see Flynn in the rectory.

She describes her difficult position: since she is unable to protect her son from his father's violence, Flynn is the only male figure who has shown Donald any kindness.

James, still believing in Flynn's innocence, is shocked by her lie, but Aloysius restates, "In the pursuit of wrongdoing, one steps away from God."

The child actors who played the students of the school include Mike Roukis as William London, Lloyd Clay Brown as Jimmy Hurley, Frank Shanley as Kevin, Frank Dolce as Ralph, Paulie Litt as Tommy Conroy, Matthew Marvin as Raymond, Bridget Clark as Noreen Horan, Molly Chiffer as Sarah, and Lydia Jordan as Alice.

[5] The "garden" exterior scenes were shot at the historic Episcopal Church St. Luke in the Fields on Hudson Street in New York's Greenwich Village.

Before Viola Davis was cast as Mrs. Miller, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan, Taraji P. Henson, Sophie Okonedo and Adriane Lenox were all considered for the role.

The site's consensus reads, "Doubt succeeds on the strength of its top-notch cast, who successfully guide the film through the occasional narrative lull.

The Observer's Philip French wrote, "Doubt is a provocative, pared-down work that in the theatre carried the subtitle 'A Parable', and it has four outstanding performances.

Once again, they prove capable of transforming themselves, creating persuasive characters without adopting excessive make-up or a battery of eccentric mannerisms.

They're supported by Amy Adams, who has several excellent scenes as Sister James, a young woman of transparent integrity, and by Viola Davis as Mrs Miller, a loving mother attempting to maintain her personal decency under intolerable conditions.

[10] NPR called Davis's acting in the movie "the film's most wrenching performance ... the other [actors] argue strenuously and occasionally even eloquently, to ever-diminishing effect; Davis speaks plainly and quietly, and leaves [no] doubt that the moral high ground is a treacherous place to occupy in the real world".

The scholar Daniel Cutrara, in his book on sex and religion in cinema, commented that the film works as a metaphor for worldwide uncertainty over priests accused of pedophilia—specifically through Father Flynn's resignation as an indication of guilt and then Sister Aloysius's subsequent doubt.