Rent All the President's Men (1976)

Follow the Money, Follow the Truth - All the President's Men review by griggs

I didn’t expect a film about men on phones and typewriters to feel even tenser on a rewatch, but All the President’s Men still hums like a thriller. You already know how Watergate ends, yet watching Woodward and Bernstein inch towards the truth feels oddly nerve-racking, like you’re waiting for the penny – or the presidency – to drop.

Pakula turns newsroom grind into cinema: long takes, quiet corridors, that cavernous Library of Congress shot. Redford and Hoffman are great company, all frayed nerves and stubborn curiosity, backed by a parade of beautifully sketched side characters who seem one bad decision away from disaster.

What lands hardest now is how modern it feels. The film isn’t just about Watergate; it’s about who gets to define reality when power is cornered. In an age of spin, bots and “fake news”, its faith in painstaking, unshowy journalism feels almost radical. One of those rare films that deepens every time you return.

One of the great Conspiracy Thrillers - All the President's Men review by GI

This is one of the great conspiracy thrillers and exposé stories of the 70s and made more impactive in that it's based on true events, the story of the Watergate scandal that brought down the President, Richard Nixon. More recent and similar films such as Spotlight (2015), The Post (2017) and Bombshell (2019) have all been strongly influenced by this and the style in which the story is told exudes authenticity making it all the more interesting and watchable. Robert Redford plays Bob Woodward, a relatively inexperienced reporter on the Washington Post newspaper, who is covering a small story of a group of men arrested for burgling the Democratic Party offices. He becomes suspicious when some top government lawyers have been brought in to defend the men and this leads to the uncovering of a major conspiracy that goes right to the heart and the top of the Republican Party and the US Government. Dustin Hoffman plays Carl Bernstein, another reporter who works with Woodward to uncover the story. The cast are fantastic and include the great Jason Robards as editor Ben Bradlee (played by Tom Hanks in The Post) and Hal Holbrook who is the mysterious informer codenamed Deep Throat. It's a great story and a significant one too. The recreation of the busy newsroom and the difficult task of getting people to talk after they've all been threatened adds to the feel of the film as a suspense thriller. The story is a complex one and you have to stay focused but this is a major film of the 1970s and one that is worth seeking out if you've never seen it.

Political Thriller - All the President's Men review by Steve

The quintessential 1970s conspiracy thriller is also an extraordinary true story and one of the best political films ever made. It is adapted from the book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about their investigation for the Washington Post into surveillance ordered by the US President on the Democratic opposition, which was covered up by all the highest levels of state.

But you don't have know anything about Richard Nixon... This is so brilliantly directed by Alan J. Pakula, that the story is compelling even though there is a surplus of information to absorb. The state of the art editing, sound and photography all contribute, and William Goldman's Oscar winning script tells the complex events with clarity. And for maximum suspense.

Remember, follow the money... The portrayals of the journalists by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are understated. There is no odd couple comedy. This is all about the politics. The support performances are muted, except perhaps Hal Holbrook as the informer. There is realistic detail of how serious newspapers once worked and how stories like this were broken.

Now it seems like nostalgia for a golden age of journalism, when the press told truth to power- but without bias. Could there even be a Watergate now, in the era of fake news? Woodward and Bernstein convey that truth and integrity are necessary for democracy to survive, but may be lost without tenacity, curiosity and toil. This now stands as a memorial to such ideals.