Tom McCarthy's Spotlight (released in 2015) tells the story of eponymous "Spotlight" team from the Boston Globe, who were tasked with investigating the plague of child abuse cases in the Boston area - and more broadly, across the world - perpetrated by the Catholic church and at least 6% of its priests. Initially, the "Spotlight" team believed the Catholic church's defense that only "a few bad apples" were priests who molested little kids. That quickly changes, as they realize that Cardinal Law (effectively the leader of all of Boston's Catholic churches) and the Pope himself, have helped to cover up the child abuse.
McCarthy's film was very popular at that year's Academy Awards. It won the Oscar for Best Film and Best Original Screenplay. Mark Ruffalo was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Amy Adams was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, Tom McCarthy was nominated for the Oscar for Best Director, and Tom McArdle was nominated for the Oscar for Best Film Editing. It was also a hit with critics: Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, for example, loved the film. In his review, he wrote that "Ruffalo gets top billing in the movie, and he brings some wonderfully lived-in behavioral details to his performance -- the quick, terrier-like movements of the head and the bitten-off sentences." Tim Brennan of About Boulder thought similarly. In his glowing review for the film, he wrote that "Spotlight itself is a masterpiece of grounded filmmaking."
