The story of Daniel Jones, lead investigator for the US Senate’s sweeping study into the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, which was found to be brutal, immoral and ineffective. With the truth at stake, Jones battled tirelessly to make public what many in power sought to keep hidden.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.4/10
IMDb: 7.2/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
Metacritic: 66
TMDB: 7.0/10
Director
Scott Z. Burns
Production
Margin of Error, Vice Studios, Topic Studios, Unbranded Pictures
Cast
Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Sarah Goldberg, Michael C. Hall, Douglas Hodge, Fajer Al-Kaisi, Ted Levine, Jennifer Morrison, Tim Blake Nelson, Linda Powell, Matthew Rhys, T. Ryder Smith, Corey Stoll, Maura Tierney, Ian Blackman, Guy Boyd, Dominic Fumusa, Carlos Gómez, Ben McKenzie
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A dry but sharp procedural about institutional accountability, The Report turns a sprawling Senate investigation into a focused moral thriller. It’s talky and deliberately unspectacular, but the clarity of its outrage and Adam Driver’s committed performance make it compelling for viewers who like their political dramas rigorous rather than flashy.
Best for
viewers who enjoy investigative journalism or government-procedure dramas
audiences interested in post-9/11 history and accountability
fans of restrained, dialogue-driven thrillers
people who liked Spotlight, All the President’s Men, or Zodiac-style process movies
Skip if
you want a fast-paced conspiracy thriller
you prefer emotionally expansive or highly cinematic storytelling
dry, expository political dramas tend to feel too procedural for you
you’re looking for a balanced, feel-good, or neatly resolved ending
Overview
The Report is built less like a thriller than a case file, and that’s both its strength and its limitation. Scott Z. Burns treats the Senate investigation into CIA torture with journalistic discipline, emphasizing documents, timelines, and the grinding labor of proving what powerful people would rather bury. The result can feel austere, but it also has a real moral force: the film understands that bureaucracy can be a battleground.
Worth noting
Adam Driver gives the movie its pulse as Daniel Jones, playing him as stubborn, methodical, and increasingly exhausted by the scale of the cover-up. Around him, the film keeps returning to the same unsettling idea: that the language of security can be used to disguise cruelty, and that truth often survives only through obsessive persistence. The dramatized torture scenes are blunt and intentionally hard to sit through, serving as the film’s ethical anchor.
Bottom line
It isn’t a particularly elegant or emotionally layered film, and some of its speeches and confrontations are a little on the nose. But if you respond to procedural rigor, political outrage, and the drama of people fighting through paperwork to expose state violence, The Report is effective and worthwhile.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Patrick Willems (3★) · 925 likes
Made me want to go watch Zero Dark Thirty, which doesn't seem like the intent
davidehrlich (3.5★) · 526 likes
A bracing and unwaveringly journalistic dramatization of the largest investigative review in U.S. Senate history, “The Report” is so dry that it makes “Spotlight” feel like a Fellini movie by comparison. In isolated stretches, the rigor of Scott Z. Burns’ screenplay and the discipline of his direction can be enervating; if Robert Mueller were a filmmaker, this is the kind of clerical thriller he would make. And yet, the coolheaded patience of Burns’ approach is precisely what makes “The Report”… more A bracing and unwaveringly journalistic dramatization of the largest investigative review in U.S. Senate history, “The Report” is so dry that it makes “Spotlight” feel like a Fellini movie by comparison. In isolated stretches, the rigor of Scott Z. Burns’ screenplay and the discipline of his direction can be enervating; if Robert Mueller were a filmmaker, this is the kind of clerical thriller he would make. And yet, the coolheaded patience of Burns’ approach is precisely what makes “The Report”… more
Matt Singer (3.5★) · 468 likes
The early scenes of this movie made me think about Zero Dark Thirty. Then a few minutes later, Adam Driver actually watches Zero Dark Thirty onscreen. And I suppose that is exactly how the people who made The Report would like it to rest in our minds in relation to ZDT.
Josh Lewis (3★) · 429 likes
we tortured some folks. glad a broad corrective on this history is finally out there in a digestible way but it really needed a fincher to take it to the next level. (the rousing speechifying near the end, for example, is a mistake i think.) as is though, it's a pretty solid bureaucratic and moral dilemma thriller that's not so much dramatic as it is concentrated and determined, much like—you get the idea. also adam driver watching footage of Zero Dark Thirty on tv straight up one of the funniest things i've seen in a movie this year.
matt lynch (3.5★) · 353 likes
Occasionally hamfisted, deliberately unsexy, absolutely didactic; the inevitable comparisons to SPOTLIGHT both pro and con won't be unfounded. Sure it lacks the formal elegance/aggression of, say, ZODIAC or ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, but of course Scott Z. Burns is no Alan Pakula or David Fincher. No matter what this is a solid bipartisan 24 / ZERO DARK THIRTY diss track.
A tense, process-driven political rescue story that turns planning, paperwork, and deception into suspense.
Topics
political drama, investigative thriller, bureaucracy, post-9/11, government corruption, legal procedure, moral outrage, journalistic realism, institutional cover-up, adult drama