Mjeteconer Just perfect...

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

gamay9 I looked up Sarah Shaw (Laura Linney character) and Sam Coulson (Anthony Mackie character) on Wikipedia and couldn't find them. They are supposed to be U.S. government bigwigs, the former being the under secretary of state under Hillary Clinton. They don't exist but have key roles in the film. Contrary to some reviewers, Laura Linney has a major role, but we never see Hillary. Yet, we have a film (W) which scours George Bush's life, along with his wife, parents and Jeb. Thus, I consider this film democratic party hypocrisy....a film that liberals like to make. Perhaps Hillary and Barack would do well in the film business, as long as the film tells lies about republicans and patriots such as Julian Assange.The film was good; I found it compelling because it came across as a type of spy film. It moved nicely. The confidence exuded by Assange in his go-to guy, Daniel Berg, was nice to see. The film was easy to follow and well acted. I still would like to know who Sarah Shaw and Sam Coulson really are. It was a letdown to see Assange raked over the coals without knowing who the key antagonists, in Shaw and Coulson, are supposed to be.....and where was Obama in all of this?

thomas more I'll just leave to Wikileaks's response the task of identifying all the gross factual mistakes done by the movie (just search for 'wikileaks internal memo fifth estate').This film is a joke, the objective of tarnishing Assange's image is obvious from beginning to end. It keeps portraying him as a paranoid, egoist, narcissist, sexual maniac, manipulative person, that has no principles whatsoever. Sometimes it even shows him as having some ideals, as a lapse, and then he comes back to his psychopath persona. Really, with so many factual blunders, there's nothing to comment except that it's a poorly written fairy tale.If you have any interest in this topic, I'd rather spend my time and money on the 'Mediastan' documentary.

David Allen "THE FIFTH ESTATE" (2103) IS WONDERFUL! 10 STARS FOR THIS GENIUS MOVIE! HERE'S WHY......! ------------This movie is good for two reasons....It depicts unusual people working as computer experts using their skills for political and social purposes, and also it shows the strange and exotic world and lifestyle these computer expert revolutionaries live in....mostly a world of night, fog, and "film noir" personality. Both of these are worth learning more about.A 2013 feature length documentary titled WE STEAL SECRETS was made about the same subject area covered by THE FIFTH ESTATE (2013), and that documentary is a good companion video to screen back to back along with THE FIFTH ESTATE. Actual persons part of the story covered are shown and some are interviewed in WE STEAL SECRETS, and parts of the overall complicated story are covered not covered in THE FIFTH ESTATE, but useful in understanding the larger, complex story. Both movies are worth seeing. This movie was made to be watched AT HOME while the viewer sits alone on a comfortable couch, paying attention to the many important details of the movie and enjoying it's brilliant cinematic presentation, including it's good direction and screenplay, along with the actor work so widely praised, deservedly.It is a movie made by genius filmmakers about genius characters (I pass no judgment here on whether the genius depicted is used for good or evil.....the characters portrayed are clearly possessed of genius worth studying...and enjoying!).First, it depicts the strange and exciting night time, film-noir (in color, since it was made in 2013) world of computer hacker criminals who are do-gooder, revolutionary types always praised by poets, always written about by novelists, and ALWAYS subjects of thriller movies made by Hollywood studios which want to make profitable pictures. Our lives in present days (2015) are influenced by computers, the Internet, and the World Wide Web and its many websites, including "news leak/ whistle blower" websites like WikiLeaks.Com and OpenLeaks.Com.Political and criminal revolutionaries of the present and future will do their work using computers, hacking, and the Internet, and most people have no idea what this is all about, no expertise or understanding of what it takes to use computers, hacking, the Internet to impact the world.THE FIFTH ESTATE (2013) shows what that world is like (mostly a night-time world where "the action" takes place indoors while perpetrators face computer screens which cast eerie blue/green upward lights onto the faces of the down looking hero/villain computer users.)Normal people, average people never see this world....but they CAN if they watch this movie. A good two hour education in what the world of computer geeks/ revolutionaries looks like. Worth the price of the video for that alone.In addition, we see a portrait of a driven, genius (for good or ill...I pass no judgment about that here, I repeat) computer expert who is also a politician, excellent communicator, and intellectual to an advanced level.....well read, well experienced at dealing with a broad variety of important people from the top to the bottom of society (all societies).The Julian Assange character portrayed in this movie is the result of 60's/70's era counter-culture hippie types.....a second generation hippie/revolutionary, but with up to date skills and ambitions.Similar, if you will, to the TERMINATOR TWO hero child (aged 12 in the TERMINATOR movie) played by Edward Furlong.This movie cannot be understood (or enjoyed) unless the viewer does his/her homework FIRST. Read the Wikipedia biog profile article about Julian Assange, and the Wikipedia article about WIKILEAKS first (read it away from the computer so you can think about it, go back to it later....print out goes to 62 pages if you enlarge the typeface so it's easy to read. Worth the money spent in paper and computer ink!).The population of the world is now 7 billion people (it was 2 billion plus as recently as World War II years....70 years ago). That is incredible.The world is now (predictably and logically) CROWDED. Nobody has privacy in crowds. Good things have happened due to the population increase and changes to accommodate it, but privacy has gone and will keep going.Privacy of the sort people commonly experienced in the past and expected is simply no longer possible, and people better get used to that.This movie is all about privacy, and the fact it is disappearing (I pass no judgment on whether this is a good or a bad thing).The world is now filled with many more smart, educated people than ever lived on the world before (just as it filled with more rich people than ever before, more doctors, more plumbers, etc. etc.......seven billion people worldwide means more of every category of people).This movie is FOR smart educated people (who must do their homework before seeing the movie, and know how due to their advanced formal education), and ABOUT smart educated people (who run everything in the present day world, and are the only ones who can). The heroes, the villains, the cops, the robbers, the government types, the revolutionary types are ALL smart, educated people.The movie is filled with the faces of intelligent people saying intelligent things (and making references nobody who fails to do advanced research about the subject and people depicted in the movie will or can understand).Do your homework FIRST, before seeing the movie.Bad reviews this movie got were not written by people who did their homework first. Ignore those reviews! This is a 10 star movie for sure.

herbqedi I enjoyed it quite a bit. Cumberbatch was PERFECT as Assange, nailed him - and so piercing. Excellent supporting performances by Laura Linney, Stanley Tucci, Alexander Seddig (Dr. Bashir from DS9), Anthony Mackie, and Michael Culkin. Yes, I said Laura Linney - who I consider the most overrated actress ever and whose performances I always despise. Here she was beyond perfect in her timing, dialog, expressions, and nuances as a State Department Official who has some conscience, thinks she is a pragmatist but needs periodic reality checks from Stanley Tucci, and certainly won't sacrifice her own neck for principle when it comes down to it. Tucci underplays his part to great effect. Culkin and Seddig are both very interesting in their two scenes. The direction was fast and well-paced with amazing sets and a most appropriate score.I haven't mentioned Cumberbatch's co-star, Daniel Bruhl, who gets just as much if not more screen time, as co-Wiki-leaks Founder Daniel Berg. Nor did I mention the female lead, Alicia Vikander, who played Amke, Berg's girlfriend. Berg provided the source material use for the film and he is the voice of conscience with which we are supposed to sympathize - especially when Assange fires (expels actually,since no one at WIki Leaks got paid) both of them for insubordination and brands them as delusional traitors. I say we're supposed to sympathize with them but I came away feeling them more self-pitying and whiny than heroic and I'm not sure whether it was the writing, the acting, or a combination of the two. I'm not saying that I could pinpoint anything wrong with the performances; and I'd have to see other work to see whether my reaction to the two came from he script. Those two characterizations/performances make this a 3.5-/4 instead of 4/4 (8/10 if you prefer). I thought it was very good - especially if you have an interest in the media's role in politics and intelligence agencies.