It got this documentary feel in a way that emphasize the story credibility like those are real reporters and real victims notnot some reenactment of event. That's what makes spotlight special also the incredible cast obviously
I might be one of the few who never truly felt Spotlight to be more than just a typical movie. Predictable, and no strong character-relationship cast. Very common, something to play in the background when I am doing other things. Don't get me wrong, the message of this movie is very strong but I felt they knew the story was so strong that it didn't need characters who had you truly rooting for them. I felt no connection to the characters, although I could sympathize with them. That's why I feel this movie is alright, noting special.
This is one of the best movies I´ve seen this year. It´s filmmaking how it used to be with a great cast. Even if you´d already know the story, which I didn´t particulary, you´d still get the suspense out of it. The movie is a real credit to the journalists who opened the lid on that box.
An amazing movie which shows you how far one group can go to defend power and the most awful problem that still persists in the world since the beginning of civilization.
I absolutely loved this movie, it's the kind of movie that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I grew up in a catholic household and one of my local priests was accused of pedophilia, everything about this movie felt so incredibly real. It's a story we've all heard before, yet when it's told by the victims and by those in the middle of it it becomes all the more powerful. The acting in this movie was superb, not just from the leads but from the side characters. The performances from the victims were fantastic and incredibly moving. The directing is so subtle and laid back, McCarthy lets the story do it's work without needing flashy visuals or incredible shots. The movie is so simple, and it lets it's story and acting be the center point, adding to the power. The score is perfect background music, it doesn't distract from the movie and fits perfectly into the background. I'm having a hard time thinking of anything I disliked about it, it was a little slow but that made it feel more real and worthwhile. It's easily my favorite film of 2015, passing Ex Machina. I almost never give movies 10/10, but this movie deserves it.
The brilliance of this movie lies in its tackling of the subject matter with deft powerful touch without feeling showy.
A really great, slow-burn investigative piece that pays fealty to classics of the genre like All the President's Men. It's been a while since I've seen a picture with this much grit, restraint and respect for the story, and that makes the last half-hour feel transcendent, even if it's also strikingly bittersweet. Michael Keaton is excellent in another Best Picture winner, his second in as many years, and Mark Ruffalo shows tremendous passion and fire in a major ensemble effort.
There's nothing flashy or indulgent about Spotlight, a rarity nowadays, and that vacancy leaves room for us to observe and appreciate the difficult, compounded, thankless efforts of these masters of their profession. It's also, often, a stark reminder that 2001 (where the movie is set) wasn't just yesterday. The world has changed fundamentally over the past fifteen years, and it's staggering how often this comes across, effectively, as a period piece. Essential viewing for a wide variety of reasons.
This is an absolutely brilliant film. The story is gigantic obviously, but it takes talent to tell it in the most serious, responsible possible way and I think the director and the writers excelled at that, here. The tone of the movie, the way they don't make the reporters these dramatic exacerbated heroes like we see in so many other portrayals, instead holding them accountable for turning the other cheek years before they finally broke the story. It's not twisted to add to the dramatic value of the movie, it lets the drama of the actual real life events speak for itself. One of the best, if not the best journalism movie i've ever seen.
One of the most interesting and touching movies in years. This true story makes you feel so ashamed for the sexual abuse of children carried out by the institute, called the Church. Disgusting.
If you like investigative news, you lived in Boston in the early 1990's, then you read The Boston Globe, went to Fenway Park and knew about Cardinal Bernard Law. This movie will bring back memories on how The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and the city Boston as a whole dealt with the "Catholic Scandal" which, by the way, are portrayed quite accurately from my account of the events. Although it was widely known, but it was neither talked nor acknowledged publicly, moreover it was actively diminished, hidden under the rug, like if everyone was hoping that it will somehow go away and disappear by itself.
The movie is the best 2015 dramatic movie, firmly based on real life events, well acted both in leading and supporting roles, with a great script full great dialogues, and with a slower pace than what is customary nowadays but one that suits perfectly the story, the deep investigative news work done by Spotlight.
A must see for everyone that likes good acting, good stories and good movies.
Uma baita história que acabou sendo muito mal dirigida, é muita informação e o diretor não consegue arruma-las de uma forma que não deixe o filme caótico, algumas decisões tomadas são convenientes demais para o roteiro e os personagens são muito simples, nenhum deles possui uma profundidade maior. O resultado final poderia ter sido bem melhor
5/10
First of all: damn, what an amazing cast! It’s a shame that this is a true story of course, but what an amazing way to translate one of the biggest scandals ever to the big screen. Amazing movie.
one of those movies that makes you want to scream at the world.
brilliantly executed, terrifying to witness.
This is a prime example of praising a story behind it rather than a film itself. It almost has no artistic merits to it. No interesting camera work, dialogue, acting. Which could have been even a good move, it could have given the film realistic feel. Except that the main story is presented in utmost bland way possible. With paint by the numbers shots of journalist work which I suppose was the main goal of the film.
And that's coming from a person that knew nothing about the main case except for vaguely remembering news that covered it briefly (I'm not from US and Catholicism doesn't represented even 1% of population of my country. Sure it was shocking, but focus quickly shifted to the next shocking thing). Well, wiki done a better job representing the case in that regard honestly.
So, "Spotlight" doesn't stand on it own as a film/work of art. It doesn't dives deep in the issue itself. And it made a poor representation of journalist's work uncovering all of it.
A superb Fincher-esque movie. Really impressed by the slow feeling of the movie but still the 2 hour sit feels like a 30 minute walk in the park. Great attention to detail, some nice suspense without overdoing it and great acting, Ruffalo is really in his prime in roles such as this one. The plot almost feels like a conspiracy but the fact that it's based on true events make thinfs even more unbelievable. Really surprises by McCarthy, I hope this is not a one time incident but he can create more of these subtle but great movies.
One of my all time favorite movies. The story is gigantic and is perfect. The acting is fantastic, Especially Mark Ruffalo. The writing is fantastic as well. The plot flows as well as everything about the movie. Overall it’s insane to think this is a real story that happened.
(10 out of 10)
Feels more like a documentary than an actual film. In fact I've seen documentaries more interesting than this. I didn't see any form of creativity in making it to earn it any sort of nomination or even attention. Not to mention the below average performance from everyone. I believe it won best picture to get more people to watch it and the message out there. Which is understandable, I suppose. Because otherwise I wouldn't have paid it any attention. OVERRATED.
Extremely thought-provoking. I generally Knew the story but not the specifics. I don't think it really ever sunk in about the vastness of what they found in this one city and the ramifications that has when thinking about the sheer prevalence world wide. Frightening. I can't imagine how anyone wouldn't question the Catholic Church after knowing this story. Mind-boggling.
Spotlight, for me, is one of those films I can't really put into words. It's one of those "you have to see it" kinds of films. The acting is phenomenal and it has some very emotionally sound scenes and, in my opinion, this is a damn great film.
10/10
This is a great journalism movie. Everyone in the cast is fantastic. The story is powerful. It's paced perfectly and just flows.
In Spain, in 2018, dozens of priests were accused of the same. Do you know what happened? NOTHING. It is now to eradicate that piece of s ... I have not lived that, but ... even so the movie has made me cry.
This film is poor not worth watching, even close to Oscar.
I (German) watched this with my (American) husband at the cinema today. We took away very different things from the experience. I enjoyed the film, though I felt it was a bit overlong, while my husband found it incredibly boring. The difference? He grew up in an environment (all boys school in a poor area) where school teachers and pastors abusing and having sex with children was a part of everyday life and followed this on the news when it happened - I grew up as far removed as can be and didn't follow it on the news when it initially happened. I was aware of key facts, but no details. I think this was quite frankly made too soon after the events. This story dominated airwaves throughout 2002, the earliest you can make a movie about it that is interesting to everybody is in another 10-15 years. Wait at least a full generation. It gets more enjoyable the less you already know - much like American Crime Story, to name another recent example (where my husband and I had the exact same reactions).
Uma baita história que acabou sendo muito mal dirigida, é muita informação e o diretor não consegue arruma-las de uma forma que não deixe o filme caótico, algumas decisões tomadas são convenientes demais para o roteiro e os personagens são muito simples, nenhum deles possui uma profundidade maior. O resultado final poderia ter sido bem melhor.
This is a strong story.
Amazing cast.
It makes you see things from another point of view.
Sometimes it's easy to forget that we spend most of our time stumbling around the dark. Suddenly, a light gets turned on and there's a fair share of blame to go around. I can't speak to what happened before I arrived, but all of you have done some very good reporting here. Reporting that I believe is going to have an immediate and considerable impact on our readers. For me, this kind of story is why we do this.
For a film with such an emotive and challenging subject matter, this is such a low-key and underplayed film. The filmmakers seem to recognize that details of how the Catholic Church dealt with both the perpetrators and victims of child sexual abuse speak for themselves and instead they have used this as a background to a film that celebrates the hard work and graft of old-school journalism. In the Internet age of 24-hour news cycles and social media demand, it's refreshing to see a story that focuses on the reality of investigative journalism and the teamwork involved - there are no rushes to meet deadlines, no villainous editor or board trying to thwart their efforts, no heroic writer who uncovers the truth and threats from those complicit in the cover-up amount to little more than vague attempts at justifying their actions. Even the eventual publication of the work is simply portrayed as another day at the office, though the final moments do hint at the larger picture that is so widely known now. As the film is about a team of people that worked on the investigation, it is also nice to see a focus on the ensemble of characters rather than on one or two, with only one moment of cathartic grandstanding from Ruffalo that feels a little out of place in the film as a whole, notwithstanding his great performance. But it is difficult to single any one out here - perhaps for a film that celebrates the team effort in bringing such a difficult story to light, that is somehow appropriate.
Compelling account of a true event and shocking revelations about the Catholic Church. It is important, of course, to remember that abuse happens in all corners of the world, and even in your street. Whilst the film is important, it should not be assumed that every Catholic Priest is an abuser - as in all cases - teachers, neighbours etc. there are good people in the majority. The film highlights the injustice of the Catholic church in covering up the abuse and despite the knowledge prevalent amongst the public, it is hoped that there is now more honesty in such institutions.
Sadly, of course, the film is still relevant.
Considering the very controversial and sickening nature of this story and how it can be sensitively portrayed everything about this film is outstanding and highly impressive. From the performances of the leading ensemble cast to the supporting actors it is clear the entire team of the ‘Spotlight’ film knew the importance of what they were making.
For the victims then and the victims now this is a testament to the absolute corruption, abuse of power the true helplessness and impotence of those on the lower rungs of the ladder.
All of this in a film with no sensationalism, no recourse to graphic detail, no deliberate emotional overloads. It is as if the film crew followed the Spotlight team around as their long and difficult investigation. As far as I can tell this film is truly authentic which is a rare commodity in a film these days especially those that are based on true events. The cinematography relies on a natural look and this gritty realistic feel to the ongoing investigation is as important to the story as the top-class acting on display.
Everything about this movie is outstanding -- the performances, the way the true events are handled, the cinematography. In this day of digital news, this movie makes us stand back and realize what we may lose in the way of investigative journalism as we slowly kill off print media.
Each character is portrayed very well and I never got the feeling that the story was preaching or too dramatic. The cast truly is an ensemble cast and no one actor pokes their head above the parapet shouting look at me, look at me. Mark Ruffalo clearly studied Mike Rezendes’ manners and way of behaving and Rachel McAdams gives her best performance to date. In this part of the review I could just list each actor and say how great they were but really looking at the cast list you know you are going to get good value for money, Live Schreiber and Stanley Tucci are in it for goodness sake. I was particularly impressed with how each character was given just a little background story beyond their life as a reporter to flesh them out, make them ‘real’, but not enough to distract, slow-down or make the film melodramatic. Other film-makers should take a long hard look at that aspect.
There is never a wasted scene or character in the film, nothing is sensationalised but the overwhelmingly powerful message is that this happened, was allowed to happen and then covered-up by those with the power to stop it – and worst of all is still happening and probably will continue….
Sometimes a film is more than just a film.
It's supposed to be set in the 70s but looks closer to today with the fashion style and environment. The subject matter alone doesn't make it good but nice try Hollywood. It's boring. It's one of those films designed with award winning in mind from the start. Mute the movie and it could be any typical Hollywood movie about a president or the fbi yet without any interesting scenes. The cinematography is as bland as hell. You're dumped in the movie with a bunch of charcaters and you don't care about anyone of them. No drama. No horror. No suspense. Don't bother.
Spotlight is a movie about a team inside The Boston Globe, called Spotlight. They investigate stories and work confidential. When a new editor start the work for the Globe, Spotlight is made to investigate the Geoghan case, which is about a priest that molested children. Once Spotlight starts working on the case they find out about more and more priests who did the same thing.
I was blown away by how great the actors were. Mark Ruffelo and Liev Schreiber stood out for me. They really became Mike Rezendes (Mark’s character) and Marty Baron (Liev’s character) which I find very fascinating. The way they talk, the way their faces move, it’s truly amazing. Michael Keaton as Walter Robinson aka Robby is so good as well (what’s new). I feel like all the roles Rachel McAdams plays are kind of the same (she played Sacha Pfeiffer in this one), but she was as marvelous as ever. It wasn’t only the main character though. Even the actors with smaller roles were so good. I really enjoyed the acting in Spotlight, which obviously makes the movie even better.
I’m so happy this move got oscars because it really deserves it. The movie is a biography and I love watching films like these because most of the time I didn’t even know about the story. As I said before, the actors where great, it’s an interesting story and I highly enjoyed it.
'All the president's men' meets the Catholic church.
omg. this change my way of view in relation with the church. I can't look a father and not think "he's doing bad things to this kids?". I will never leave my kids alone with someone of the church.
This movie should be viewed by people who love the church more that they love themselves and their family. They can still go to church but be more open eyes and with things and try to save the live of a kid.
well, probably the best movie of the year
It's a good docu-drama that does things the way you should, there is nothing obviously wrong with it, but somehow the final product is only a good movie, not a great one, maybe because the focus feels wrong. It's not about the content of the story they are writing, it's not about the people who did horrible things, or their victims, it's a process story about how they came to write that great story, and everyone got themselves some awards. It's news media inside baseball.
Definitely a great movie, excellent cast and rithm. Not easy to make this sad and shameful true story on movie, they succeeded.
Just got wondering why I haven't watched it before, this movie's parts of awesomeness everywhere. It has got me addicted and curious every second. If you're wondering on watching it or not, just go for it and I promise that you will have a good time (if you like drama movies or if you are ecletic, of course).
Man! I've loved this movie from the beginning until the end, the rythm is great!
I think I just witnessed the best picture of the year.
First of all: damn, what an amazing cast! It’s a shame that this is a true story of course, but what an amazing way to translate one of the biggest scandals ever to the big screen. Amazing movie.
A thrilling journey touching on faith, hope, and justice.
Excellent acting throughout.
20 minutes into this movie, and I'm regretting ever playing it. So boring.
The fourth estate has unquestionable power as long as it is free to act. Mark Ruffalo brilliantly captured the spirit of a committed journalist.
Absolutely GREAT MOVIE
Acting
Characters
Writing
Theme
They all Scored a 10/10 for me
Execution of the plot was pretty Solid why I scored it a 8.3
Pacing I scored it a 9.5.. It kept me interested but felt dragging towards the end
But definitely a GREAT MOVIE!!!!!
"If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one."
I don't know why I like movies that uncover horrible sins, but I do. Spotlight is not only a well written film, but it is a true story about atrocious things that have been happening in the catholic communities for many years (and still do). The cast kills it, and Keaton shines as usual. Bumping up my original rating by half a star.
A fantastic movie that reveals the grinding and impactful work done by Press.
Spotlight talks about the fantastic work done by the Spotlight team of the Boston Globe to tackle a worldwide issue.
“They knew and let it happen! It could’ve been you, it could’ve been me, it could’ve been any of us.”
- Mike Rezendes
It gets more amazing each time. Great cast, great writing and a gut wrenching story.
:man_bowing_tone2::book: :church: :japanese_ogre:
Pretty good, but it feels somewhat lacking in what one would expect to find in an academy award-winning movie. The story is strong, however the telling of it feels stiff (not including the cinematography which was great). I think the telling of the story would have delivered a more impactful message / served its purpose better if it was told in the form of an actual documentary, but one could imagine how much harder that would be to create.
A personal nitpick: Knowing the Oscar buzz surrounding this movie, the whole time I'm watching it, whenever one of the main characters has a long, important speech, I just can't shake off the thought in the back of my head that this was all for their time to shine for their shot at the oscar. Granted there were a few standout scenes, but the whole way the movie was shot feels to me more self-serving to the cast than it was to the actual incredible people at spotlight and the insanity that was the actual story. I think what I'm trying to say here is that the acting feels like acting at times, the way some of the speeches were really drawn out.
It's still a good movie all in all, but there was still that something missing in the story and could have flowed better.
“The Church is an institution of men and that’s passing. My faith is in the Eternal. I try to separate the two.”
A very well put together 'docu-drama'. A great cast with great direction telling the story of the amazing uncovering of one of the biggest cover-ups.
Spotlight is a well made film, the acting, directing, and script are hard to find complaint with. Then why did it fail to enrapture me? Am I not able to appreciate fine film making?
Wow. Just wow. Great movie.
A strong docu-drama but nothing more. Cannot understand how it won best picture, i understand the message and the importance of it but nothing else was that good. Solid performances though.
The movie really concentrates on the role the journalists played --- in the style of All the President's Men --- in publicizing of the child abuse scandal by Catholic priests in the Boston area. As several Popes have noted, this filth needs to be rooted out, and it is a good thing that a spotlight was shined on this problem by the conscientious journalists depicted in the film.
I had only one major problem with the movie. It shows the conscientious reporters doing a great job of being journalists --- which they were in real life. But the movie also shows the journalists as being very restrained in their glee about the shame and opprobrium that they knew their story would inflict upon The Church. That the journalists were as ambivalent about their feelings for the Catholic Church as depicted in the film I deeply doubt. It is not a secret that the majority of mainstream journalists are quite secular and could only cheer for anything at all which would show Christians, and Catholic people in particular in a bad light. I do not doubt the integrity of the journalists depicted in the movie. I also don't doubt however, that they were gleefully congratulating themselves for the black eye --- very deserved, certainly --- that they were inflicting upon The Church. The film shows its bias when not only doesn't depict this part of the story, but actually shows up the reporters torn up about what they are doing. And the film's gloating can certainly be felt when one of the journalists has her devout Catholic grandmother read the story while sitting at the breakfast table in her presence.
I've heard a lot of reccomendations from friends to watch this movie... and I thought maybe.. But yet instead of just maybe... I gave it a shot... and this movie has a lot of emotion... and it has this effect that probably will stay within me for a couple more days... But mostly it was not because priests molested children... That is awful too... But that the system knew about it... and covered it up... so that made me wonder... how many priests in the world are still like this... are there any in my country? Because you wouldn't even know..So How is it still possible to trust the system? How could you turn the blind eye to all of these facts... That's why I think it is better to believe in God. Than just follow religion blindly as much as a lot of christians does these days... Also movie is worth it cause Liev Schreiber and Stanley Tucci are damn good in their roles... and has awesome wigs.
Loved it.
it shows you the power of media, and how people ignore any crimes by religious men.
well written script, that's for sure, and it molded it self into an amazing honest portrait of how those kids was a true suffering souls.
interesting story, well conducted and interpreted
Really great movie, and I had my expectations very high. I gotta say I wouldn't expect these performance, but the cast was really great and Mark Ruffalo surprised me, a lot. It was impressive, even if it's not perfect, it was a 10 out of 10 experience for me.
Sometimes this movie was... slow, but definitely is so interesting the story and the journalism investigation they did.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-01-11T23:52:40Z
It's hard to say how much knowing what happens affects our enjoyment of a story. We live in the age of the spoilerphobe, where nerds like me abandon social media in the days leading up to a major release for fear of having significant plot points or major twists revealed too soon. But in Shakespeare's day, everyone knew the stories being told, and the lack of novelty of the tale didn't lessen the draw. And that's a reminder that what the story is need not, and arguably should not, overshadow how the story is told.
Which is to say, I'm not sure how much the greater effect of Spotlight is lost on me already knowing a decent amount about the molestation scandal within the Catholic Church that played out in the newspapers and on our television screens for years after the time depicted in the film. The film is, if not exactly a mystery, than certainly a story of the intrepid reporters of the Boston Globe's "Spotlight" team starting small and uncovering how widespread a pathology this phenomenon was.
Much of the film is framed with the Spotlight team investigating something seemingly isolated and being shocked to find how the tendrils stretch out and reach areas and individuals they never would have expected. But the impact of this gradual discovery is blunted when you already know how deep the rabbit hole goes. Sure, there's something to the characters' realization that tries to drive the magnitude of the discovery home, but as horrible as what they uncover is, the film loses some of its narrative punch when it's telling you something you already know.
Which is why the film's most vivid and poignant scenes are those involving the Spotlight's team interviewing the victims of the abuse. There's a stark quality to these sequences, which feature straightforward but moving recountings of how these men were taken advantage of as boys, that make them stand out. The film as a whole has a Wire-esque sparseness in the production design and cinematography that makes these scenes, and the horrors they represent, more palpable, awful, and affecting.
But they also reveal a difficult hurdle for the film -- the story of what happened is more striking than the story of the people who found out what happened. But it's a sprawling, very individual story, splintered across thousands of victims and abusers, and director/co-writer Tom McCarthy uses the frame of the newspaper investigation to tie it all together. The unfortunate side effect is that it mediates terrible events that the film is concerned with, mixing them up with didactic discussions of psychological pathology and the personal effect that learning all of this has on the reporters who discover what happened.
There's a fair attempt made both to educate about this crisis and to bring its wide-ranging impact home by showing how it affects Mike Rezendes's (Mark Ruffalo) connection to his faith, or Sacha Pfeiffer's (Rachel McAdams) relationship with her grandmother, or Matt Carroll's (Brian d'Arcy James) sense of the safety of his children in his neighborhood. And yet even as the film is about the Catholic Church's molestation scandal, it's as much about the way that communities close ranks in the face of a potential crisis, and in how there's a certain complicity to it, a sometimes unconscious acceptance of how things are that invites horrific actions to be swept under the rug.
A laudable performance from Michael Keaton as Spotlight editor Walter Robinson anchors the latter theme in the film. As Robinson hunts down old leads and sources, he encounters resistance from well-meaning fellow journalists who believe the story was culled from the crank file, less-than-subtle suggestions from friends and community leaders who urge him not to rock the boat for the good of the community, and disdain from veteran soldiers in the fight to expose the abuse who chastise him, and by extension The Boston Globe, for not doing more and doing it earlier. Carpetbagging editor- -in-chief Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber, who makes a strong impression with a lived-in performance in a smaller role), represents the way an outsider can cut through the status quo and see the collective shame for what it is without the history in the community or the stomach to ignore it.
It's legitimate material to explore in a film of this sort, and yet it ultimately feels very paint-by-numbers in the attempt. Spotlight has all the trapping of the prestige picture. It hits on a Big Issue; it features palatable protagonists fighting against something abhorrent; and it boasts an impressive cast who are given more than enough room to underline the film's points. Every scene seems to end with a line or an exchange that puts a very obvious bow on whatever the audience has just witnessed. Ruffalo gets his Oscar reel moment to bang on the table and demand justice. And the end of the film features the predictable moment of self-questioning, the inevitable bit of triumph, and the white text on a black background explaining the real life consequences of the "Based on Real Events" story the viewer has just witnessed.
That means that the film gets every opportunity to make its statements, to throw in standard-if-creditable character moments, and to work in small but salient details of the scandal. It simply does not make this all feel like something other than a movie going through the motions in the lead up to the Academy Awards. The film has something to say, and it's worth saying, but it doesn't delve particularly deep into these ideas, and doesn't offer anything especially creative in how it presents them either.
Spotlight is a good enough film. It has a sturdy structure, good acting across the board, and locks in on some worthwhile thematic material. It's not a movie I'm sorry to have watched, but also not a movie I'm likely to ever watch again, because even if I haven't seen this exact film before, I've seen this type of film 100 times. It's a solid take on the dogged reporter breaking a scandal story, and hits all the right notes for an Oscar hopeful. But Spotlight never goes a step beyond that commendable-yet-spiritless flavor to the proceedings that seems to persist through so many movies in the same vein.