10) Kill the Messenger

A top-notch thriller that hits you like a runaway train, Kill the Messenger tells the depressing true story of Gary Webb, an American reporter who, in the ’90s, uncovered a massive story about ties between the CIA and cocaine smugglers. After publishing the story, however, Webb found himself in the line of fire, the target of a brutal smear campaign designed to discredit and destroy him. Audiences who want a happy ending should look elsewhere – what happened to this brave journalist was a real American horror story.

Kill the Messenger is the incensed, intense account of events that his story deserves. Jeremy Renner brings Webb to life, flaws and all, and through his incredible performance, we can see the atrocity of an idealistic man bent then broken by the media he swore to serve. Webb was no white knight, but he was also not the fraud that his enemies set him up to be. Kill the Messenger makes the distinction masterfully, and it cuts to the dismaying core of Webb’s fall from grace; a fervent believer in the idea that the truth will set you free, he was utterly betrayed by a media and a government that did not share his valor or integrity.

Few films this year left me as shell-shocked, bleary-eyed and fired up. Renner, director Michael Cuesta and screenwriter Peter Landesman have performed an invaluable service for the journalistic community – they have unearthed one of its most shameful sagas; leveled blame at those who side-stepped it even as they buried Webb deep; and let out a deafening cry for a closer examination of the government’s relationship with the press. In the age of whistleblowers like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, a movie like Kill the Messenger shines a light on a tragedy we can’t afford to lose in the shadows of the past.