Who says old-fashioned reporting is dead? It lives on film! It’s going to be a big fall for journalism movies.

Two of them just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. There’s Spotlight, about the Boston Globe reporters who revealed the full scope of the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal, and there’s Truth, about the story that brought down the career of venerated CBS journalist and anchor Dan Rather.

Rather, played in the film by Robert Redford, reported that President George W. Bush may have gone AWOL during the Vietnam War. But the evidence behind the reporting was quickly called into question, leading to a massive scandal. Here’s the official synopsis:

The film chronicles the story Mapes and Rather (played by Robert Redford) uncovered that a sitting US president may have been AWOL from the United States National Guard for over a year during the Vietnam War. When the story blew up in their face, the ensuing scandal ruined Dan Rather's career, nearly changed a U.S. Presidential election, and almost took down all of CBS News in the process.

And here’s the poster for the film:

Truth poster
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It’s hard to see and hear Robert Redford and see and hear Dan Rather; the two don’t look or sound a whole lot alike (although Redford does have lifetime journalism-movie cred, thanks to All the President’s Men). I missed Truth at TIFF but reviews for the film were generally pretty strong, and particularly positive for Cate Blanchett’s performance as Rather’s producer.

I’m particularly curious to see screenwriter James Vanderbilt make his directorial debut here. He’s the guy who wrote David Fincher’s Zodiac and Peter Berg’s The Rundown, and Roland Emmerich’s White House Down, all movies I really like. (I’m going to overlook his credits on both The Amazing Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man 2 for the purposes of my burgeoning optimism here). You’ve also got Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace, and Elisabeth Moss in the mix as well, so it’s a damn good creative team, and an interesting story that could certainly benefit from a smart, nuanced perspective.

Truth opens in theaters on October 16.

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