FAQ

Doubt is a film adaptation of a 2004 play with the same name by American playwright John Patrick Shanley, who also directed the movie.

It's not an MP3 player, but rather a device known as a pocket transistor radio with an earpiece. Such monaural radios were first marketed in the mid 1950s. Judging by their sizes, receiver and the attached earpiece may seem anachronistic but they are not. Rather they simply hadn't yet come to be as common as they would in the 1980s or as ubiquitous as they would in the 2000s; plus, as far as the earpiece is concerned, there's the possibility that it was adapted from the transducer found in a hearing aid or a telephone.

Christian and, more specifically, Roman Catholic. The nuns are of the Sisters of Charity.

Since it was the 1960s, people of color were barely accepted anywhere, and sexual abuse and harassment weren't at the forefront of public consciousness as they grew to be in the present. Donald has no friends and no role models. Mrs. Miller is just thankful that someone is looking after him, regardless of the circumstances, and that Donald also leaves at the end of June to go to high school, so whatever "relationship" they were having would end at that time.

Mrs. Miller also tells Sister Aloysius that Donald was beaten for he's allegedly gay, and if Donald or Father Flynn were to be outed or removed from the school, Donald would be blamed by his father and possibly be killed.

Since Shanley has a policy of not allowing his plays to be rewritten for the screen, the ending plays out exactly like the play—leaving it up to each viewer to decide.