Spotlight (2015), Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (2010), All the President's Men (1976), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), Disconnect (2012), Dirty Wars (2013), Bad Education (2019), State of Play (2009) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Investigative Journalism movies.
Storyline: When the Boston Globe's tenacious "Spotlight" team of reporters delves into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston's religious, legal, and government establishment, touching off a wave of revelations around the world.
Plot Keywords: child molestation, investigation, sexual abuse, gay, homosexual, investigative journalism, journalist ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: After a bloody invasion of the BOPE in the High-Security Penitentiary Bangu 1 in Rio de Janeiro to control a rebellion of interns, the Lieutenant-Colonel Roberto Nascimento and the second in command Captain André Matias are accused by the Human Right Aids member Diogo Fraga of execution of prisoners. Matias is transferred to the corrupted Military Police and Nascimento is exonerated from the BOPE by the Governor. However, due to the increasing popularity of Nascimento, the Governor invites him to team-up with the intelligence area of the Secretary of Security. Along the years, Fraga, who is married with Nascimento's former wife, is elected State Representative and Nascimento's son Rafael has issues with his biological father. Meanwhile Nascimento and the BOPE expel the drug dealers from several slums but another enemy arises: the militia led by Major Rocha and supported by the Governor, the Secretary of Security and politicians interested in votes. Nascimento is manipulated to help ...
Plot Keywords: person on fire, pistol, lecture, police corruption, police helicopter, political conspiracy, ex husband ex wife relationship ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party, and eventually into the White House itself.
Plot Keywords: investigative journalism, newspaper, presidential campaign, political cover up, american politics, government corruption, american president ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle suspects murder and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, ruthless computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from almost forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history; but, the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.
Plot Keywords: disappearance, journalist, hacker, pendant, femme fatale, f rated, misogynist ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A hard-working lawyer, attached to his cell phone, can't find the time to communicate with his family. A couple is drawn into a dangerous situation when their secrets are exposed online. A widowed ex-cop struggles to raise a mischievous son who cyber-bullies a classmate. An ambitious journalist sees a career-making story in a teen that performs on an adult-only site. They are strangers, neighbors and colleagues and their stories collide in this riveting dramatic thriller about ordinary people struggling to connect in today's wired world.
Plot Keywords: laptop computer, text message, dry cleaners, suv, news report, spit in the face, interracial marriage ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Dirty Wars follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, author of the international bestseller Blackwater, into the hidden world of America's covert wars, from Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond. Part action film and part detective story, Dirty Wars is a gripping journey into one of the most important and underreported stories of our time. What begins as a report on a deadly U.S. night raid in a remote corner of Afghanistan quickly turns into a global investigation of the secretive and powerful Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). As Scahill digs deeper into the activities of JSOC, he is pulled into a world of covert operations unknown to the public and carried out across the globe by men who do not exist on paper and will never appear before Congress. In military jargon, JSOC teams "find, fix, and finish" their targets, who are selected through a secret process. No target is off limits for the "kill list," including U.S. citizens.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: interview, iraq war, iraq, secrecy, investigative journalism, expose, special forces ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A Long Island school superintendent and his assistant are credited with bringing the district unprecedented prestige. Frank is a master of positive messaging, whether before an audience of community leaders or in an office with a concerned student or parent. That changes when a student reporter uncovers an embezzlement scheme of epic proportions, prompting Frank to devise an elaborate cover-up.
Plot Keywords: gay man, gay character, gay, investigative journalism, embezzlement, infidelity, gay interest ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A petty thief is gunned down in an alley and a Congressman's assistant falls in front of a subway - two seemingly unrelated deaths. But not to wisecracking, brash newspaper reporter Cal McAffrey who spies a conspiracy waiting to be uncovered. With a turbulent past connected to the Congressman and the aid of ambitious young rookie writer Della Frye, Cal begins uprooting clues that lead him to a corporate cover-up full of insiders, informants, and assassins. But as he draws closer to the truth, the relentless journalist must decide if it's worth risking his life and selling his soul to get the ultimate story.
Plot Keywords: conspiracy, journalism, political conspiracy, newspaper, congressman, suspense, video surveillance ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: This film tells the true story of fraudulent Washington, D.C. journalist Stephen Glass (Christensen), who rose to meteoric heights as a young writer in his 20s, becoming a staff writer at "The New Republic" for three years (1995-1998), where 27 of his 41 published stories were either partially or completely made up. Looking for a short cut to fame, Glass concocted sources, quotes and even entire stories, but his deception did not go unnoticed forever, and eventually, his world came crumbling down...
Plot Keywords: liar, lying, journalism, independent film, based on true story, scandal, writer ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb. The film takes place in the mid-1990s, when Webb uncovered the CIA's past role in importing huge amounts of cocaine into the U.S. that was aggressively sold in ghettos across the country to raise money for the Nicaraguan Contras' rebel army. Despite enormous pressure not to, Webb chose to pursue the story and went public with his evidence, publishing the series "Dark Alliance". As a result he experienced a vicious smear campaign fueled by the CIA. At that point Webb found himself defending his integrity, his family, and his life.
Plot Keywords: based on true story, crack cocaine, media manipulation, drug smuggling, cover up, investigative journalism, reporter ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Charles Brubaker is the astronaut leading NASA's first manned mission to Mars. Seconds before the launch, the entire team is pulled from the capsule and the rocket leaves earth unmanned much to Brubaker's anger. The head of the programme explains that the life support system was faulty and that NASA can't afford the publicity of a scratched mission. The plan is to fake the Mars landing and keep the astronauts at a remote base until the mission is over, but then investigative journalist Robert Caulfield starts to suspect something.
Plot Keywords: astronaut, cover up, mars the planet, political thriller, manhunt, conspiracy, investigative reporter ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A young journalist, a seasoned cameraman and a discredited war correspondent embark on an unauthorized mission to find the no. 1 war criminal in Bosnia; they find themselves in serious jeopardy when they are mistaken as a CIA hit squad and their target decides to come after them.
Plot Keywords: bare chested male bondage, investigative journalism, hotel, greek island, friendship, execution, emotional breakdown ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A family of police officers - patriarch, two sons, and a son-in-law - deals with corruption in a precinct in Washington Heights. Four officers die in an ambush at a drug dealer's apartment. It's brother Francis's precinct, so when the investigation led by brother Ray finds hints of police corruption, there's pressure to close ranks and save Frankie's career. Dad, a police brass, promises Ray that he and Frankie can clean things up, and Ray should focus on catching the drug dealer who killed the cops. Meanwhile, brother-in-law Jimmy, a hothead and an enforcer, is visited at home by a lowlife. Is Jimmy involved in the corruption? Where can this take the family?
Plot Keywords: police, drug dealer, corrupt cop, police officer, new york city, foot chase, framed for murder ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Jonah Hill plays Michael Finkel, a recently terminated New York Times journalist who's struggling for work after a story gone wrong. One day, he receives a phone call from a man regarding an FBI Most Wanted individual named Christian Longo, who's been captured and claimed to be living as Finkel. Longo and Finkel meet and form a potentially marriage shattering bond while Longo is in prison awaiting his trial. Finkel exchanges journalism tips for the real events behind Longo's alleged heinous acts of murdering his family. Through the twists and turns in the movie, only at the end will Finkel uncover the True Story.
Plot Keywords: journalist, murder trial, prison visit, investigative journalism, murder of wife, murder, based on true story ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: On 9/11 2001, the World Trade Center is destroyed by the Al Qaeda terrorist organization. In the resulting tumult, the reporters of the Knight-Ridder news service, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel under the editorship of John Walcott, hear odd reports that President Bush's senior administration is not so much concerned with finding the Al Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, as they are in blaming the secular dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. Despite their intelligence sources saying that Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, the K-R reporters discover that the White House is obsessed with finding any excuse to attack Iraq with cherry-picking intelligence reports and blatant lies by its officials. As the journalists dig deeper, their competitors uncritically repeat the Bush Administration's falsehoods that too much of the public is gullible enough to believe, making their quest to find and print the truth proves as a frustrating struggle as events barrel to a needless war.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol1970@gmail.com)
Plot Keywords: guitar playing, family relationships, mother son relationship, investigative journalism, middle east, terrorist attack, journalist ...
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