The latest: The Academy Award-winning Spotlight celebrates its 10th anniversary! Winning Best Picture in 2015, critics hailed the film as a must-watch drama with gripping tension and an incredible ensemble.
It’s time to track down your leads, dive into your research, and follow up with your informants. What you’ll find at the end of your investigation is the opportunity of a lifetime, to break the biggest story of the century: Our guide to the best journalism movies of all time!
There’s no need for a second pot of coffee, and you can put away that tape recorder you’ve hidden in your jacket. We’ve done all the work for you, uncovering everything from classics, like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s investigation into the Watergate scandal in All the President’s Men, to hidden gems, such as Ava DuVernay’s examination of caste systems throughout Germany, India, and the United States in her critically acclaimed 2023 film, Origin.
We’ve kept our list to narratives, so acclaimed documentaries like Citzenfour, 20 Days in Mariupol, and City of Ghosts were left off, but there’s bound to be something here that’ll scratch your investigative itch, whether it’s The Insider, She Said, or Steven Spielberg’s The Post. We rank them from Certified Fresh, followed by Fresh, and then Rotten-rated, but any one of these are sure to expose you to the truth!
#1
Critics Consensus: Orson Welles’s epic tale of a publishing tycoon’s rise and fall is entertaining, poignant, and inventive in its storytelling, earning its reputation as a landmark achievement in film.
#2
Critics Consensus: Anchored by stellar performances from Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, His Girl Friday is possibly the definitive screwball romantic comedy.
#3
Critics Consensus: Sweet Smell of Success boasts a top-notch cast, sharp direction, atmospheric cinematography, and an appropriately jazzy score, making it one of the best noir crime thrillers ever made.
#4
Critics Consensus: Blockbuster dramatist James L. Brooks delivers with Broadcast News, fully entertaining with deft, deep characterization.
#5
Critics Consensus: Spotlight gracefully handles the lurid details of its fact-based story while resisting the temptation to lionize its heroes, resulting in a drama that honors the audience as well as its real-life subjects.
#6
Critics Consensus: Intelligent, compelling, and packed with strong performances, The Insider is a potent corporate thriller.
#7
Critics Consensus: Much like the beloved TV personality that inspired it, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood offers a powerfully affecting message about acceptance and understanding.
#8
Critics Consensus: Restless, visually sleek, and powered by a lithe star performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler offers dark, thought-provoking thrills.
#9
Critics Consensus: Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent features a winning combination of international intrigue, comic relief, and some of the legendary director’s most memorable set pieces.
#10
Critics Consensus: Anchored by an outstanding Hugh Jackman, Bad Education finds absurd laughs — and a worthy message — in the aftermath of a real-life scandal.
#11
Critics Consensus: A taut, solidly acted paean to the benefits of a free press and the dangers of unchecked power, made all the more effective by its origins in real-life events.
#12
Critics Consensus: Frost/Nixon is weighty and eloquent; a cross between a boxing match and a ballet with Oscar worthy performances.
#13
Critics Consensus: A passionate and concise cinematic civics lesson, Good Night, And Good Luck has plenty to say about today’s political and cultural climate, and its ensemble cast is stellar.
#14
Critics Consensus: Capturing the compromises, dedication, and human fallibility of the newsroom, September 5 is a worthy chronicle of a tragic flashpoint in broadcast media history.
#15
Critics Consensus: A compelling look at Stephen Glass’ fall from grace.
#16
Critics Consensus: Brilliantly performed and smartly unconventional, The End of the Tour pays fitting tribute to a singular talent while offering profoundly poignant observations on the human condition.
#17
Critics Consensus: Almost Famous, with its great ensemble performances and story, is a well-crafted, warm-hearted movie that successfully draws you into its era.
#18
Critics Consensus: Based on a powerful true story and led by note-perfect performances from Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, Philomena offers a profoundly affecting drama for adult filmgoers of all ages.
#19
Critics Consensus: Safety Not Guaranteed‘s ostensibly modest ambitions are outmatched by the movie’s strong performances, beguiling charm, and heartfelt story.
#20
Critics Consensus: Driven by populist fury and elevated by strong direction, powerful acting, and an intelligent script, Network‘s searing satire of ratings-driven news remains sadly relevant more than four decades later.
#21
Critics Consensus: Artfully composed, powerfully acted, and fueled by a powerful blend of anger and empathy, The Killing Fields is a career-defining triumph for director Roland Joffé and a masterpiece of cinema.
#22
Critics Consensus: Spearheaded by an excellent Kirk Douglas, Ace in the Hole is an incisive and sardonic satire that, much like its opportunistic hero, never lets moral compunction get in the way of a good story.
#23
Critics Consensus: A quiet, dialogue-driven thriller that delivers with scene after scene of gut-wrenching anxiety. David Fincher also spends more time illustrating nuances of his characters and recreating the mood of the ’70s than he does on gory details of murder.
#24
Critics Consensus: Brawny in both intellect and scope, Reds is an intimate epic that captures the tumult of revolutionary change and the passion of those navigating through it.
#25
Critics Consensus: Philip Seymour Hoffman’s riveting central performance guides a well-constructed retelling of the most sensational and significant period in author Truman Capote’s life.
#26
Critics Consensus: The Post‘s period setting belies its bitingly timely themes, brought compellingly to life by director Steven Spielberg and an outstanding ensemble cast.
#27
Critics Consensus: Although She Said struggles to add cinematic flair to its fact-based story, it remains a worthy, well-acted tribute to journalistic integrity.
#28
Critics Consensus: Rising on the strength of Rebecca Hall’s gripping performance, Christine offers an empathetic look at its subject’s public career and painful private life.
#29
Critics Consensus: With a story inspired by Antonioni’s Blow Up and a style informed by the high-gloss suspense of Hitchcock, DePalma’s Blow Out is raw, politically informed, and littered with film references.
#30
Critics Consensus: With gripping themes and a stellar cast, The China Syndrome is the rare thriller that’s as thought-provoking as it is tense.
#31
Critics Consensus: Thoughtful and wonderfully acted, The Quiet American manages to capture the spirit of Green’s novel.
#32
Critics Consensus: A Private War honors its real-life subject with a sober appraisal of the sacrifices required of journalists on the front lines – and career-best work by Rosamund Pike.
#33
Critics Consensus: Carried by Lily Sullivan’s outstanding lead performance and enriched by an expertly administered sense of creeping claustrophobia, Monolith is an eerie thriller that burns slow and lingers.
#34
Critics Consensus: The Parallax View blends deft direction from Alan J. Pakula and a charismatic Warren Beatty performance to create a paranoid political thriller that stands with the genre’s best.
#35
Critics Consensus: Brutal yet captivating, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the result of David Fincher working at his lurid best with total role commitment from star Rooney Mara.
#36
Critics Consensus: Flawed yet fundamentally worthy, Mr. Jones peers into the past to tell a fact-based story that remains troublingly relevant today.
#37
Critics Consensus: Smart, well-acted, and uncomfortably prescient political satire from director Barry Levinson and and all-star cast.
#38
Critics Consensus: Solid performances lift this drama to a higher level.
#39
Critics Consensus: A taut, well-acted political thriller, State of Play overcomes some unsubtle plot twists with an intelligent script and swift direction.
#40
Critics Consensus: A moving drama that’s unafraid to ask big questions, Origin honors its source material with powerful performances in service of a deeply emotional story.
#41
Critics Consensus: It occasionally fails to live up to its subject matter — and is perhaps an ‘important’ film more than a ‘great’ one — but the performances from Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire are superb.
#42
Critics Consensus: A well-crafted political thriller, Nothing But the Truth features a strong cast that helps the real-life drama make an effortless transition to the big screen.
#43
Critics Consensus: Tough and unsettling by design, Civil War is a gripping close-up look at the violent uncertainty of life in a nation in crisis.
#44
Critics Consensus: A charismatic turn by star Matt Damon and a consistently ironic tone boost this quietly funny satire about a corporate whistle-blower.
#45
Critics Consensus: Timely, solidly acted, and unabashedly earnest, Rosewater serves as an impressive calling card for first-time director Jon Stewart.
#46
Critics Consensus: Kill the Messenger‘s potent fury over the tale of its real-life subject overrides its factual inaccuracies and occasional narrative stumbles.
#47
Critics Consensus: Scoop wrings riveting drama out of its real-life story, even if the actual interview footage remains an arguably superior watch.
#48
Critics Consensus: A loving ode to the spirit of journalism, The French Dispatch will be most enjoyed by fans of Wes Anderson’s meticulously arranged aesthetic.
#49
Critics Consensus: Medium Cool merges a bracing cinéma vérité with deft drama to authentically chronicle a nation at odds with itself and a media struggling to get the story straight.
#50
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#51
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#52
Critics Consensus: Despite its somewhat disjointed narrative, Oliver Stone’s Salvador is a vivid and powerful political drama that sets an early tone for the director’s similarly provocative future projects.
#53
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#54
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#55
Critics Consensus: A raucous Andy Griffith channels the corruptive influence of celebrity in Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd, a prescient critique of American media.
#56
Critics Consensus: Both a smart, suspenseful tale of intrigue and a sweeping romance, The Year of Living Dangerously features excellent performances from Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver as a pair of journalists covering political unrest in Indonesia.
#57
Critics Consensus: Fast and frenetic, The Paper captures the energy of the newsroom thanks to its cast and director on first-rate form.
#58
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#59
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#60
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#61
Critics Consensus: Quotably funny — and fast-paced enough to smooth over the jokes that don’t land — Fletch is one of the best big-screen vehicles for Chevy Chase’s brand of smug silliness.
#62
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#63
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#64
Critics Consensus: While WTF is far from FUBAR, Tina Fey and Martin Freeman are just barely enough to overcome the picture’s glib predictability and limited worldview.
#65
Critics Consensus: Kate Winslet’s gripping performance in the title role helps elevate Lee beyond its disappointingly conventional biopic trappings.
#66
Critics Consensus: Although it suffers in comparison to similar suspense thrillers, Most Wanted benefits from solid casting and a taut, intelligent storytelling approach.
#67
Critics Consensus: Bombshell benefits from a terrific cast and a worthy subject, but its impact is muffled by a frustrating inability to go deeper than the sensationalistic surface.
#68
Critics Consensus: Boston Strangler is nowhere near as gripping as it should be, but the worthy story and strong cast are often adequate compensation.
#69
Critics Consensus: Velvet Goldmine takes a visual and narrative approach befitting its larger-than-life subject, although it’s still disappointingly less than the sum of its parts.
#70
Critics Consensus: A string of questionable plot contrivances threaten to bury its story, but Capricorn One manages to unfurl an amusing, sharply cynical conspiracy yarn.
#71
Critics Consensus: A thriller that plays at social commentary, The Mean Season fumbles with its weightier themes, but does so in a generally watchable way.
#72
Critics Consensus: Truth‘s terrific cast and compelling message are often enough to overcome its occasionally didactic and facile dramatization of a nuanced real-life tale.
#73
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#74
Critics Consensus: Ben Foster’s impressive efforts to channel Lance Armstrong are often enough to power The Program past director Stephen Frears’ frustrating unwillingness to delve deeper into its real-life story.
#75
Critics Consensus: Snowden boasts a thrilling fact-based tale and a solid lead performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, even if director Oliver Stone saps the story of some of its impact by playing it safe.
#76
Critics Consensus: Profile‘s unique narrative gimmick is enough to carry the film partway, but it’s ultimately overwhelmed by an increasingly ludicrous plot.
Source link
-
-
-
-
-
