All the President's Men is a tribute to the power of good and effective journalism, when the truth is exposed to hold the powerful to account. It's a real life political thriller, but not too fanciful or emotionally artificial. Instead it has a realism, being very restrained in many ways. It's a direct movie, without extraneous plot threads and sticking just to the issue at hand. All the President's Men is not the whole, long story of Nixon's downfall, but it covers many of the most important initial steps. The film doesn't explain itself, expecting us to keep up with the characters as they pursue the truth and all that is hidden within the political jungle. Lots of details play at once in All the President's Men, with so much dialogue and conversation, filled with names and procedural detail. However the film never loses momentum, with creeping paranoia and tension as each conversation becomes more important. The truth also becomes hard to find, as alternative news appears everywhere, through lies on television, non-denial denials, and people who only hint rather than make anything clear. All the President's Men is a masterful depiction of real events, made with intelligence and skill. Every second intrigues and the filmmaking is perfectly executed.

My Top Films of the 1970s