Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

classicalsteve Towards the end of the film, Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston in an Academy Award-nominated performance) makes a profound statement during his acceptance speech for the Laurel Award for Screen Writing Achievement during a Writer's Guild of America ceremony (1970). He says (paraphrase) "It will do no good to search for villains or heroes or saints or devils because there were none; there were only victims (during the communist blacklist years of the 1940's and 1950's)." This part of his speech sums up well the point of this film which chronicles one of the few survivors of the communist blacklist scare during the two decades after the Second World War. Not only teachers, doctors, academics, factory workers, social workers and many others were targeted resulting in the devastation of careers and lives, but also people working in the entertainment industry in Hollywood, CA. Few congressional committees in Post-World War Two United States were more un-American than the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security. The latter saw the rise of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's witch-hunts in which he accused people both within the US government and without but among the US citizenry as being communists in collusion with the then Soviet Union (USSR). As a result of these witch-hunts, friends turned on friends, usually fearing the wrath of the committee. If you didn't cooperate, the "scarlet letter" of communist or communist sympathizer was forever plastered onto you like a badge of shame. In addition, you might spend time in prison for being in contempt of congress. In the case of Dalton Trumbo, he experienced both indignities. Dalton Trumbo was one of the most brilliant screenwriters of his era. He wrote such classics as "A Guy Name Joe", "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo", "Roman Holiday", and even the b-film noire "Gun Crazy". He also wrote the screenplays to two great Hollywood epics: "Spartacus" and "Exodus". Despite his credentials, he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee to testify about whether he was or had been a member of the Communist Party. Many of his Hollywood friends were also subpoenaed, some were sympathetic to the cause of rooting out "communists" while others who were appalled at the committees' actions but terrified of being blacklisted reluctantly cooperated. Prominent members of the entertainment community including Edward G. Robinson, John Wayne, and Ronald Reagan were brought before the committee. Trumbo was no exception. Will he cooperate or risk losing his career?A brilliant film with a tour-de-force performance by Cranston as Trumbo. Trumbo is not always the easiest of characters to like. He sometimes sacrifices the needs of his family to maintain his career. Cranston finds the difficult balance of finding the humanity of Trumbo while also exposing his many shortcomings, including writing in the bathtub! Trumbo was a brilliant writer who didn't deserve his treatment at the hands of the US government. At the same time, his family didn't deserve what they suffered either. As stated earlier, there were no victors but only victims.

ciprianb80 One of the best movies that I had the chance to see lately. It's about a man, a writer, a very successful one that had his life destroyed by stupid people with stupid and limited political ideas. But he manages to defy them and against all odds he is rehabilitated, working hard and finding the best ways to fight those who were trying to impose a ban on his work, on the grounds that he was a supporter of communism.

nikobit-63000 What shocked me most is the mirror reflection of today's Russia (or "Russia Today":) - that's the place where I live. This whole story and characters are literally taken from the Moscow streets. Especially streets that are filled with crowds today. You can't stay quiet. You are not allowed to express yourself either. You just have to pick up which side you are on. Seriously, this Movie should be banned from modern Russia screens! Yet I've seen it there only! And that means not everything is so tragically late as it seems. Neither here nor somewhere else until characters like Hero will appear from time to time. Love this Movie! The idea behind it is just fabulous! 10 out of 10!

guylyons I love cinema, and time after time failed to appreciate the importance of a good script. Take the classic film Spartacus, and listen to the lines of Olivier, Laughton, Ustinov, Douglas. Yet i always leaned towards Spartacus as the finest epic ever made. Trumbo was an education, as Cranston rattled off his lines in his bath, and it hit me, we cinema goers, who are not acting students, just might underestimate the importance of script writing. As a film Trumbo does a fine job as telling us this, and it is far more important than the commie witch hunting business. Senator mccarthy died out as the cold war cooled, and common sense prevailed. I loved the film, and now i am far more critical of cinema than ever before, as i see so many movies with dreadful lines , no story and overrated CGI effects.