Spotlight
By Kit Macdonald
Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber and Mark Ruffalo are among the stars of this Oscar-winning 2015 film that tells the true story of The Boston Globe's investigative journalism team (known as Spotlight). The movie is set in 2001 and follows the team as they uncover widespread, systemic sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests in the Boston area, and a subsequent cover-up by the Church, in a project that won the Globe the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003.
Schreiber's character - the Globe editor Marty Baron - is a hero of the film and the real-life story, having come from outside Boston and the Roman Catholic world and finally punctured a culture of silence that had stretched back decades, even centuries. Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay deservedly came at the 2016 Oscars for a film that was and remains a timely reminder of the crucial importance of investigative journalism.