All The President's Men
AMC Theatres' release of All The President's Men in select theaters is timely not only in honoring the passing of Robert Reford but in terms of current events with a corrupt administration hiding its crimes and going on an attack against the press and the First Amendment. Released in 1976, the film follows hungry reporters Bob Woodward (Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) looking into the Watergate break-in and uncovering a story so large it would eventually lead to the resignation of Nixon a year later.
Perhaps more than any other film, All The President's Men is a love letter to investigative journalism and reporting. Along with giving us plenty of behind-the-scenes newsroom sequences,, the script focuses on the struggle of the two thrown-together reporters first finding the truth and then the grueling process to prove what they've found.
With a career spanning more than six decades and 80 films, while one might argue its not his most singular role, it is, for me, Robert Redford's best film. Both he and Hoffman are terrific, and director Alan J. Pakula creates a vibrant film as it follows the pair's ups and downs searching for the truth and uncovering further layers to the mystery that they stumbled upon after Woodward hears three letters spoken at the arraignment hearing of the Watergate burglars: CIA.
An instant classic, taking home four Academy Awards (although losing Best Picture to Rocky), the film has aged remarkably well capturing the bustle of an old-school newspaper room with its constant hum and also smell the ink hitting the printed page. Released nearly 50 years ago, it also offers a timebottle nostalgia viewing it in 2025. It remains the standard to which all films about journalism are still measured. Along with being a terrifically made film, it's an important one honoring the struggle to ask questions, uncover the truth, expose corruption, and honor the principles and self-evident truths on which this country was founded. It reminds of us both what we need to be ever vigilant against and what we can, at our best, strive for.
Watch the trailer- Title: All The President's Men
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