The commitment of the performers involved obviously speaks to their concerns about present-day events.

| Feb 13, 2021

The silver lining to 13 years of being blacklisted are all those incredible letters that we can now enjoy for their deft but basic truths.

| Original Score: B+ | May 26, 2013

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 7, 2011

Like the great artist he is Trumbo's work speaks as loudly today as it did 50 years ago. Perhaps we should all listen.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 13, 2009

A portrait of Dalton Trumbo, the writer who defied HUAC. Joan Allen, Paul Giamatti, Liam Neeson, David Strathairn and Donald Sutherland, among others, read excerpts from Trumbo's letters. Moving and compelling. Must see.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 27, 2009

Does a fine job of showing the emotional and financial toll the decadelong blacklist (plus a year's imprisonment for contempt of Congress) took on Trumbo and his family as he tried to scrape by writing anonymously.

| Jan 9, 2009

The transporting power of this experience is in the passionate and almost outlandishly eloquent verbal expression Trumbo poured into his correspondence, and the vividly American principles he defends.

| Nov 10, 2008

The film is an enlightening recap of '50s Red Scare politics, and a parade of actors giving meaningful, earnest readings of Trumbo's speeches and letters.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 18, 2008

Trumbo is hurt by an unwillingness to actually explore Trumbo's own politics and delve into his actual beliefs about communism, Stalin or Marxist ideology.

| Oct 18, 2008

It will serve as a fine entry point for younger auds interested in learning about theprice paid by moviemakers and their families swept up in the 1950s anti-Communist net.

Full Review | Oct 18, 2008

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 18, 2008

It's a pleasure to meet a truly moral man in a documentary that rightly heralds his name.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2008

An amazing primer on how to stand by your principles even as the unprincipled knock you around.

| Oct 18, 2008

A ousing documentary as ornery, orotund and captivating as its subject.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2008

As the story of a fierce, beleaguered individualist, 'Trumbo' is stirring and informative, though perhaps not as thorough as it could be.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 28, 2008

Dalton Trumbo showed that it was possible, even within the Hollywood system, to deal seriously with issues like freedom and personal responsibility.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 19, 2008

Although it glosses over a few relevant details, Trumbo also functions as a passionate defense of truth from a writer who embodied all of the virtues that America claims to value.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 12, 2008

Of all the many narrative films and documentaries that have been made about the Hollywood blacklist, none has more intimately captured what it must have been like to live through that sordid time.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 11, 2008

Trumbo was initiated by two of Trumbo's children, but their attempt to personalize the film isn't quite personal enough.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 22, 2008

... a beautifully directed and passionate homage to the dignity of one man against the indignity of the times.

| Aug 19, 2008