Spotlight
Open Road Films (II) | Release Date: November 6, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
93
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 45 Critics
Positive:
43
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 25, 2015
With Spotlight, we get a reminder of the vital importance of an independent, professional press to any community. Read full review
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanNov 25, 2015
Director Tom McCarthy, who wrote the script with Josh Singer, has made a film without heroes. Read full review
100
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 24, 2015
If history’s tide runs against the Globe, at least those who worked there have the satisfaction of exposing a global wrong, and helping to end it. And they have McCarthy’s film, one of the best pictures of 2015, as a permanent record, a tribute in cinematic form, to their art and craft in its finest hour. Read full review
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallNov 16, 2015
Spotlight is a rare movie about the profession — and just enough about people in it — that simply feels right, speaking from the inside. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaNov 12, 2015
Inspiring stuff, the stuff of Hollywood all the way back to Frank Capra and before: a story of scrappy underdogs, determined to get to the truth, and toppling the mighty in the process. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 12, 2015
For all of its modesty and dedication to process, Spotlight winds up being a startlingly emotional experience, and not just for filmgoers with intimate knowledge of the culture it depicts. Read full review
100
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 12, 2015
McCarthy and his brilliant cast make hard work and truth-telling inspiring. Read full review
100
Portland OregonianJeff BakerNov 12, 2015
A snapshot of what happened at a particular time and place and doesn't try to glamorize its subjects or make any larger points about what it all means. By refusing to do so, by celebrating the process over the outcome and the work over the reward, it becomes a special experience, a movie that matters. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 12, 2015
Spotlight one of the best movies about journalism ever made, at once gripping and accurate. It doesn’t just get the big things right, such as how news stories evolve, but the small things, such as what offices look like and how staff tends to react to a new boss. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 12, 2015
Director and co-writer Tom McCarthy played a weasel of a journalist in "The Wire." Now he has made a meticulous, exacting procedural on real-life journalists who excelled at their job; had the resources to do it properly; and in early 2002, published the first in a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of grim, carefully detailed stories of pedophile priests. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezNov 12, 2015
Spotlight is simply a great story exceedingly well told, through characters whose fingers are perpetually stained with ink. Read full review
100
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 5, 2015
No need to bury the lede: Spotlight is a masterpiece. Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedNov 5, 2015
The year is not over, but I’ve already seen my favorite film of 2015. It’s Thomas McCarthy’s brilliant, responsible, galvanizing and unforgettable Spotlight. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 5, 2015
To turn a spotlight fittingly on Spotlight, it’s the year’s best movie so far, and a rarity among countless dramatizations that claim to be based on actual events. In this one the events ring consistently — and dramatically — true. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 5, 2015
Spotlight doesn't call attention to itself. Its screenplay is self-effacing, its accomplished direction is intentionally low key, and it encourages its fistful of top actors to blend into an eloquent ensemble. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 5, 2015
This tight, relatively low-key, step-by-step procedural has a stronger impact than any horror movie. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 5, 2015
Spotlight is a gripping detective story and a superlative newsroom drama, a solid procedural that tries to confront evil without sensationalism. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 4, 2015
One of the reasons that Spotlight is so deeply, absurdly satisfying to this newspaper writer — is that Tom McCarthy’s movie doesn’t turn its journalists into heroes. It just lets them do their jobs, as tedious and critical as those are, with a realism that grips an audience almost in spite of itself. Read full review
100
New York PostLou LumenickNov 4, 2015
Brilliantly acted by the year’s most carefully assembled cast, Spotlight is one of the year’s best films, showing just how hard it is to uncover painful truths. Read full review
100
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 4, 2015
This landmark film takes a clear-eyed look at the digital future and honors the one constant that journalism needs to stay alive and relevant: a fighting spirit. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyNov 4, 2015
Tautly directed by Tom McCarthy (The Visitor), the film hums as a tense shoe-leather procedural and a heartbreaking morality play that handles personal stories respectfully without losing sight of the bigger, more damning picture. Read full review
100
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekNov 3, 2015
Spotlight feels both timeless and modern, a dexterously crafted film that could have been made anytime but somehow feels perfect for right now. Read full review
100
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 22, 2015
It’s a more subtle, damning film for implicating the media – as much as the church, the courts, the legal profession and other Boston institutions – in the systematic, wider cultural cover-up it describes. Read full review
100
HitfixGregory EllwoodSep 5, 2015
Like any creative endeavor a film is the sum of its parts. In the most elementary terms it needs a screenplay as a base, a cast to bring the script to life and a director to orchestrate the pieces into something of considerable impact. Excuse the hyperbole, but Tom McCarthy's Spotlight is an example of when all those pieces fit together almost perfectly. Read full review
95
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 3, 2015
Spotlight is that rare journalistic procedural that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as “All the President’s Men,” and while the movie never glamorizes or makes saints of its hard-working newsgatherers, it does stand as a reminder of the power and importance of a free press, particularly in ferreting out local corruption and malfeasance. Read full review
91
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 3, 2015
It's the best film McCarthy has ever made: restrained, intelligent and grown-up, but unfolding with the pacing and rhythm of a thriller. Read full review
90
TimeJohn AndersonNov 7, 2015
For all the dogged journalism and righteous indignation in the film, it’s this sense of intimacy, of community, of betrayal and misdirected allegiances — it was the Church, after all — that keeps the film from reveling too much in victory or triumph. That, in turn, makes it an emotional tour de force. Read full review
90
SlateDana StevensNov 5, 2015
Spotlight provides a wealth of exceptional performances. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 2, 2015
One of its major virtues is what’s not there: no creepy flashbacks of prowling priests, or — as in the prelude to Clint Eastwood’s “Mystic River” — of children in the vortex of peril. Everything happens in the here and now, not least the recitation of the there and then. Read full review
90
VarietyJustin ChangSep 3, 2015
Like so many films consumed with the minutiae of daily journalism, Spotlight is a magnificently nerdy process movie — a tour de force of filing-cabinet cinema, made with absolute assurance that we’ll be held by scene after scene of people talking, taking notes, following tips, hounding sources, poring over records, filling out spreadsheets, and having one door after another slammed in their faces. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenNov 18, 2015
Spotlight is a great newspaper movie, ranking up there with "All the President’s Men" and "Citizen Kane", and it’s certainly the best of its kind since "The Paper" in 1994, which also happened to star Michael Keaton. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonNov 19, 2015
Keaton, who deserved an Oscar for his performance in “Birdman,” brings to Robinson a bracing blend of humor and authority. Ruffalo is the essence of the newsman who just won’t quit, and McAdams is just as effective as his more low-key colleague. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 14, 2015
Spotlight is a Valentine to investigative journalism and a stark reminder of where we’re headed now that this brand of writing has become an endangered species. The film is unique in that it focuses almost entirely on the process. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 13, 2015
Spotlight is not about fiery performances or thrilling set-pieces – it’s simply a tight and captivating look at professionals who excel at their jobs, and who legitimately care about making a difference. Sometimes, that’s more than enough. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 12, 2015
It’s not easy to make an emotionally involving film in which some of the most pivotal moments are about phone calls and making copies of documents and a source circling names on a document — but save for a few overly dry moments, Spotlight prevails. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyNov 5, 2015
A great newspaper movie of the old-school model, calling up not only obvious comparisons with "All the President's Men" and "Zodiac," two movies with similar devotion to the sometimes crushingly boring gumshoe part of reportage, but also Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell shouting into adjacent phones in "His Girl Friday." Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Nov 4, 2015
Like "All The President’s Men," it’s a muckraker movie that celebrates the power of the press by actually showing journalists doing their job, pen and notebook in hand. Read full review
80
Total FilmJamie GrahamJan 25, 2016
A rigorously detailed telling of an important story that never loses sight of the human devastation. Terrific turns from the ensemble cast. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 3, 2015
There’s no tidy moral to take away, because a story like this shouldn’t end in comfort. Instead, your skin’s left prickling by its deft deconstruction of the business of secret-keeping, and its perceptive setting out of the courage and diligence it takes to overturn it. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerNov 6, 2015
It plays out all the usual tropes of the investigative-journalism genre – the hot tips, the clandestine meetings, the hand-wringing about ethics, etc. – without adding a jot of novelty. Read full review
75
IndiewireEric KohnSep 3, 2015
The overly earnest movie falls below the rich ambiguities that Keaton brings to the part, resulting in a measured drama so restrained it sometimes underserves the material. Where "Birdman" magnified Keaton's talent, Spotlight leans on it. Read full review
70
Screen InternationalTim GriersonSep 3, 2015
A polished, engrossing procedural, Spotlight offers plenty of old-fashioned pleasures — chiefly, the sight of smart, scrappy muckraking journalists stopping at nothing to uncover systematic corruption. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineJesse CataldoNov 2, 2015
By modeling its structure so closely after "All the President's Men," Spotlight only draws closer attention to its lack of scope and ambition. Read full review
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