The A.V. Club
Plenty of high-profile filmmakers released critical and/or financial flops last year, including Michael Mann (Blackhat), Brad Bird (Tomorrowland), Cameron Crowe (Aloha), and Andy and Lana Wachowski (Jupiter Ascending). But only one beleaguered auteur of 2015 wound up nominated for the Best Director Academy Award the following January. To be clear, Tom McCarthy isn’t up for an Oscar because of a last-minute groundswell of support for The Cobbler, his 2015 disaster. He’s up for an Oscar because less than a year after The Cobbler snuck in and out of theaters, McCarthy followed his commercial and critical nadir with Spotlight, one of the most acclaimed films of 2015 and a real contender for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars.
Real life stories of how principled individuals stand up against powerful entities and eventually expose large-scale injustices are often cathartic and intriguing, since we know how difficult it is to oppose said entities. If you like Dark Waters for its themes, its basis in true events or its leading man, here are four other films to watch.
Ensemble dramas aren’t the easiest types of movies to film. Too many diverse dynamics between big personalities could go very wrong. But if the cast shares sizzling chemistry, the movie becomes a joyride instead.
Winner of the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Picture, Spotlight is a very hard film to watch. It’s not hard to watch because it isn’t interesting or compelling, but it’s hard to stomach because it is the true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the unbelievable scandal of child molestation and cover – up within the local Catholic Archdiocese and cause massive shake-ups within the entire Catholic Church.
