YMMV / Spotlight

• Award Snub:
  • Neither Rachel McAdams or Mark Ruffalo winning Oscars for their work. While McAdams was a long shot, Ruffalo was pegged by some critics as the winner should Sylvester Stallone not prevail for Creed. He didn't, but the Oscar went to Mark Rylance of Bridge of Spies.
  • Given how much the film functions as an ensemble piece, this was inevitably going to be the case for whatever cast members were cited above the rest. For as many fans as Ruffalo had, there are a good number of viewers and critics who thought that Michael Keaton and Liev Schreiber were just as good (or better) and said that they would have been deserving nominees, either in Ruffalo's place or alongside him. Notably, even though everyone in the cast was being campaigned in the supporting categories, the New York Film Critics Circle gave Keaton their award for Best Actor of 2015. This film also had the misfortunate of coming out in 2015, the year where the Best Supporting Actor category was considered the strongest it's been in years, as there were tons of shut outs that year.
  • Averted with a stunning win for Best Picture, after most critics deemed The Revenant a lock. It also won for Best Original Screenplay.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • One of the victims portrayed in the movie, Patrick McSorely (the one with the needle marks on his arm), fatally overdosed on drugs in 2004. Garabedian comments "He's one of the lucky ones: he's still alive," likely an intentional foreshadowing. Joe Crowley, the gay man, eventually succumbed to complications caused by the drinking he did to cope with what he went through.
  • The real-life Eric Macleish recommends the film, but emphasizes that his character was also made out to be worse than reality — a lot worse. A few years after the Spotlight team wrote their reports on the abuse scandal, Macleish had a breakdown as cases he worked on brought back painful memories of his own sexual abuse as a child.
  • In real life, Father Geoghan, who had been defrocked five years earlier, was brutally murdered in prison in 2003. His death became karmic in two ways: the inmate who killed him had gotten into prison due to a similarly brutal murder of a man who thought he was gay and came on to him, and that inmate, like Geoghan during his priestly career, couldn't be punished in any meaningful way since he was already serving life without parole, the maximum sentence for murder in Massachusetts. It's also interesting to note that questions have been raised as to why the prison officials placed those two inmates in protective custody together, especially when they had been warned that said inmate was gunning for Geoghan, whom he considered a "prize."^note Inmates in jail/prison do not take kindly to child molesters, whom they refer to as "short eyes". It is not at all uncommon for a short-eyes to be murdered in prison soon after they get there.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Among the cast are Mark Ruffalo, John Slattery and Stanley Tucci, who had all previously appeared in movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk in The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 and Avengers: Age of Ultron, Slattery as Howard Stark in Iron Man 2 and Ant-Man, and Tucci as Abraham Erskine in Captain America: The First Avenger). A year or two later, both Rachel McAdams and Michael Keaton would join them there by starring in MCU movies of their own (McAdams as Christine Palmer in Doctor Strange (2016) and Keaton as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming).
• Moral Event Horizon: The realization that Law and others covered up the abuse of children for decades.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The movie is about priests raping children. It goes without saying.
  • The sheer depth of the cover-up and the willingness of people in power to look the other way for the sake of covering their asses is pretty disturbing too.
  • The list of places—204—where sex abuse took place that is shown over the end credits. For many audience members, seeing the name of the city where they themselves live or grew up feels like a nightmarish punch to the gut.
  • The scene where Matt Carroll is going through one of the Catholic directories, and discovers that one of their "treatment centers" is right around the corner from his house.
• One-Scene Wonder: Quite a few of the victims and other people involved in the scandal that the team talks to. Father Paquin, one of the few molesters to actually appear on-screen, might be the biggest example, politely greeting Sasha in a very uncomfortable scene, answering her questions without any sign of guilt or fear, and coming across as an Obliviously Evil follower of Insane Troll Logic. The montage that features him also includes characters with less than ten seconds of screen-time who manage to leave a real impression (such as one victim who mentions that his mother baked cookies for the priest who came to their house to ask the family not to press charges).
• Paranoia Fuel: The film makes no bones about how big an issue sexual abuse was and how priests often got away with it and were simply moved around to different parishes, letting them go after new targets.
• Periphery Demographic: The film is now required viewing within the Roman Catholic Church, especially among the younger generation of priests. As the film pretty clearly lays just how heavy the Sword of Damocles hanging above their heads is (and how frayed is the hair holding it aloft).
• Realism-Induced Horror: The film's horror comes from the fact that a respected religious institution used its power and reputation to cover up the abuse of its congregants.
• Shocking Moments:
  • As the issue escalates and it appears that the problem goes further than just a few priests, the audience is left reeling from the revelations, even if they had previously known of the issue. This is especially true in the end when they list all the places in the US and around the world where the sexual abuse has been exposed.
  • The Spotlight team's phone conference with an expert on deviant priests leaves them (and the audience) speechless. The Spotlight team have uncovered 13 abusive priests in Boston, and would consider that a major story their readers would be interested in. So they check with the expert if that number sounds too high, The expert says that the number sounds way off, and that the actual figure is more likely 90.
• Spiritual Successor: To All the President's Men, 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 Richard Nixon resigned from office, while Spotlight came out 13 years after the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal came to light.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The very end of the film, showing a list of places where major abuse scandals involving the clergy took place. It's not even a complete list. Seeing all those places listed, thinking of all the abuse victims, many of whom weren't believed, or were never able to tell... and this all really happened.
  • Many of the survivors are deeply broken individuals. Joe Crowley breaks down in tears over the trauma he endured.
  • The tragedy of the whole situation can be summed up by the simple truth of the line "They knew and they let it happen! TO KIDS!
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The opening scene has a young cop in the precinct when Geoghan is arrested who seems a bit troubled watching him be released and hearing a colleague say this kind of thing happens often. It feels like he's being set up as a future interview subject for the team but the man is never seen or mentioned again.
• The Woobie: Phil Saviano for sure, and just about all of the victims.

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