History Film / Spotlight

* BaitAndSwitchTyrant: When told that the Judge hearing Garbedian's motion is a woman named Constance Sweeney, Ben and Robbie tell Barron that she's a "good Catholic girl" unlikely to rule against the church. Later, Sweeney's only actual scene in the movie has her speaking a bit sternly to Garbedian in the courtroom. But in the end, Sweeney turns out to be a more impartial judge than they gave her credit for and rules in favor of allowing Garbedian to submit incriminating letters from Law.

* DaylightHorror: One day, Marty Baron comes into work and the camera depicts this with a long shot to show what a beautiful September morning it is, something that is even acknowledged is the script. Then he enters the office, and the staff are watching a news report indicating that a plane has hit the World Trade Center.

* BlatantLies: When a filing clerk at the Globe stops by the Spotlight office to deliver some newspaper clips, she asks Matt Caroll directly if they are doing a story on the church. Matt deadpans, "No, we are not doing a story on the church."

** A minor one for the Church. It is true that these events did occur and there was indeed a cover-up; however, the film does gloss over the fact that the Church was receiving advice from psychologists who believed (as did many at the time) that the "rehabilitated" priests were safe to return to service. However, it should be noted that the psychologists were often in-house psychologists for the Church.[[note]]Including Paul [=McHugh=], head of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins, which set up a lot of the "treatment centers". Co-founder of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, [=McHugh=] notoriously wrote off nearly ''all'' claims of child sexual abuse as fantasy or exaggeration until he was forced to confront the truth during a 2003-2004 investigation.[[/note]] Sometimes, the Church didn't even use psychologists or psychiatrists to treat offending priests, but rather general practitioners and the like. The fact is that the Church often failed to treat the molestation (including flat-out rape) of children as a big deal. So how much of a historical villain upgrade the film provides is at least open for debate.

* GuileHero: All of the protagonists are this to some extent, as their only weapon is their intelligence, but Garabedian stands out among them as one who has spent the most time engaged in the legal BattleOfWits with the Church. See LoopholeAbuse below for his standout moment.

* BasedOnATrueStory: With some elements condensed and one event added for dramatism. [[labelnote:Major Spoiler]] While Robby burrying the original Macleish lead is true, this wasn't picked up during the Spotlight investigation. It was picked by the script-writers of the film, almost 15 years after the fact.[[/labelnote]]

Marty Baron arrives in Boston as new editor of the ''Globe'', and assigns the Spotlight investigative team to follow a trail of lawsuits pertaining to a priest accused of sexual abuse some years in the past. As they dig deeper, meeting with traumatized victims, corrupt clergy, and complicit lawyers, they discover that the menace of child sexual abuse in Boston's Catholic parishes runs deeper than anyone suspected. Starring Creator/MichaelKeaton, Creator/MarkRuffalo, Creator/RachelMcAdams, Creator/JohnSlattery, Creator/LievSchreiber, and Creator/StanleyTucci.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/AllThePresidentsMen'', which was also about a group of investigative reporters who exposed one of the biggest scandals in American history. For bonus points, both involved someone by the name of Ben Bradlee (the sex abuse investigation actually involved his son, Ben Jr.). The only major difference, aside from subject matter, is that ''All the President's Men'' came out just two years after UsefulNotes/RichardNixon resigned from office, while ''Spotlight'' came out 13 years after the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal came to light.

* ItsPersonal: Carroll (the father of two young children who discovers a "treatment center" for paedophilic priests is ''[[AdultFear one block away from his house]]'') definitely gives off this vibe when the scandal is published and he personally goes to leave a first edition of the newspaper at the centre's front door. Downplayed, however, in that he doesn't try to actually confront the priests, nor have his own children been victims.

* AdultFear:
** The idea that your spiritual guide, someone you might look up to, could exploit your trust and sexually abuse you.
** Matt Carroll, who is a father of two young children, is clearly the most affected by reporting on the story. [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse]] when he finds out that a treatment center (or, a group home for priests who have been caught molesting children) is ''one block away'' from his house. He tapes a photo of the treatment center to his fridge with a note warning his kids to stay away. As the real Matt Carroll wrote, [[https://medium.com/3-to-read/spotlight-the-movie-a-personal-view-f0fa39900afc#.3u4wx5g1e that part was 100% true]] (the only difference being that he actually had four children at the time), and the scene was filmed in Carroll's real West Roxbury neighborhood.

* RaisedCatholic:
** All the Spotlight reporters describe themselves as lapsed Catholics when they interview Phil Saviano near the beginning of the movie. The investigation doesn't do much to strengthen their faith. [[spoiler: Sacha, the most practicing of the four, stops going to Mass with her grandmother after it becomes difficult to not picture the victims while at services]]
** Subverted with Marty Baron, who is Jewish, and Mitchell Garabedian, a non-Catholic Armenian. It's theorized by Garabedian that this is why they can take on the church: they don't have a personal connection.

** Phil Saviano is zealous about fighting pedophilia, and can get emotional to a point where it puts others off, which is why no one listened to him before. He seems like a TinfoilHat conspiracy nut -- until Sipe reveals that "thirteen priests" is inaccurate ''[[WhamLine because it's too low]]''.

* BasedOnATrueStory: With some elements condensed.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Mitch Garabedian is introduced screaming at his secretary and rudely turning Rezendes away from his office and generally seems to have a bad temper and poor people skills. Despite this, he is the ONLY lawyer in Boston willing to take a stand against the church and refuses to back down even when they've nearly disbarred them. This is best highlighted at the very end where he genuninely congratulates Rezendes on successfully revealing the scandal before putting on a cheerful face on to comfort a recent child rape victim.

** The Catholic Church in general has this. In the opening, which takes place in 1976, a bishop is reassuring a mother whose children were molested by Father Geoghan, and one of the things he is sure to mention is "how much good the Church does for the community."