The Post is a 2017 American political thriller film about The Washington Post and the publication of the Pentagon Papers. It was directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, and written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer. It stars Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post, and Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee, the longtime executive editor of The Washington Post, with Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, David Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Carrie Coon, Alison Brie, and Matthew Rhys in supporting roles.

Set in 1971, The Post depicts the true story of attempts by journalists at The Washington Post to publish the infamous Pentagon Papers, a set of classified documents regarding the 20-year involvement of the United States government in the Vietnam War and earlier in French Indochina back to the 1940s.

Principal photography began in New York City in May 2017 and wrapped in July 2017. The film premiered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on December 14, 2017, and went into limited release in the United States by 20th Century Fox on December 22, 2017. It entered wide release on January 12, 2018, and grossed $179 million worldwide.

The film received positive reviews; critics praised Spielberg's direction, the performances (particularly Streep, Hanks, and Odenkirk) and the film's references and allusions to the presidencies of Richard Nixon and then-incumbent Donald Trump. The Post was chosen by the National Board of Review as the best film of 2017 and was named as one of the top 10 films of the year by Time magazine and the American Film Institute. The Post was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress (for Streep) at the 90th Academy Awards, and received six nominations at the 75th Golden Globe Awards: Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Actress – Drama (for Streep), Best Actor – Drama (for Hanks), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score.

Plot

In 1966, U.S. State Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg is embedded with American soldiers in Vietnam. He documents the conflict's on-the-ground reality and soon realizes the Vietnam War is unwinnable. Upon returning to the U.S., Ellsberg delivers his report to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who agrees. However, Ellsberg is left disillusioned when McNamara publicly continues justifying deploying more American troops.

After his mission ends, Ellsberg works for the RAND Corporation, a think-tank with access to classified information. Over the following years he secretly copies thousands of classified pages documenting long-term U.S. interference in Vietnam, dating back to the Truman administration; once he finishes copying the full collection, he leaks it to journalist Neil Sheehan at The New York Times.

In 1971, Katharine Graham has been the owner and publisher of provincial newspaper The Washington Post for eight years since the suicide of her husband Phil Graham, the former publisher, and the death of her father Eugene Meyer, the former owner. Though lacking journalistic and business experience, Graham hopes to take the company public and secure investment for higher-quality national news. She appoints the bullish Ben Bradlee as the Post's executive editor. He aligns with her vision, but her male-dominated board view her as a widowed woman in over her head. Graham is also a prominent D.C. socialite, and Bradlee has to repeatedly assert his editorial independence whenever the paper runs a story critical of her friends.

McNamara, one of these friends, tells Graham that an "unflattering" story about him is being published the next day in The New York Times—the first of Sheehan's scoops from Ellsberg's documents. As the Post's editors discuss how they might further pursue the story, an anonymous woman leaves one hundred pages of the leaked documents on a reporter's desk. Bradlee sees it as a chance get ahead of the Times on a major story in the Post's own backyard, but a federal district court issues its injunction against the Times. Graham—concerned about both the Post's liability and her own social standing—orders Bradlee to respect the injunction.

Post assistant editor Ben Bagdikian tracks down Ellsberg, a former colleague at RAND, as the source. Ellsberg gives him the full 4,000-page report and Post reporters dig through the pages, but their attorneys advise against publishing lest Richard Nixon's administration file criminal charges. Agonizing over whether to publish, Graham confers with McNamara and her disapproving board. They warn that she will face social exile in D.C., retaliation from President Richard Nixon, and loss of investors. However, Bradlee argues that they have a strong public-interest defense, and it could transform the Post into the important journalistic institution that Graham aims for. The documents also revealed that his own circle of elite D.C. friends, including John F. Kennedy, lied to him to garner sympathetic coverage; he argues that Graham's friendships with figures like McNamara should not influence her decision.

Graham gives the go-ahead to print. However, Bagdikian then reveals he used the same source as Sheehan instead of independently verifying the documents. The Post's lawyers panic—it puts Graham and Bradlee in contempt of court under the original injunction and opens them to further criminal liability under the Espionage Act.

The Post and Times appear before the Supreme Court to plead their First Amendment rights. In solidarity, other newspapers across the U.S. publish information from Ellsberg's documents. On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court rules 6–3 in the newspapers' favor, vindicating Graham's decision. In response, Nixon permanently bars the Post from the White House.

One year later, Watergate complex security guard Frank Wills discovers a burglary-in-progress and calls the police, inadvertently kicking off the Watergate scandal.

Cast

Production

In October 2016, Amy Pascal won a bid for the rights to the screenplay The Post, written by Liz Hannah. In February 2017, Steven Spielberg cancelled The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara with The Weinstein Company after a casting setback, and consequently opened his schedule to other potential films to direct. The following month, it was announced that Spielberg was in negotiations to direct and produce the film, with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in talks for the roles of Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee, respectively. The Post is the first time that Spielberg, Streep, and Hanks had all worked together on a film.

Spielberg read the screenplay and decided to direct the film as soon as possible, saying that "when I read the first draft of the script, this wasn't something that could wait three years or two years — this was a story I felt we needed to tell today." Spielberg worked on The Post while post-production work continued on the visual-effects-heavy Ready Player One, a situation familiar to him from concurrently producing, in the early 1990s, Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. Josh Singer was hired to re-write the screenplay ten weeks before filming.

As filming commenced, a number of New York Times figures who were associated with the Pentagon Papers case—among them James Greenfield, James Goodale, Allan M. Siegal, and Max Frankel—objected to the film's production due to the script's lack of emphasis on the Times role in breaking the story. Goodale, who was at the time the Timess in-house counsel, later called the film "a good movie but bad history."

Spielberg used the real audio tapes of Nixon in the White House: no voice actor was used for the role, who appears only silhouetted.

Filming The film began principal photography in New York on May 30, 2017. On June 6, 2017, it was announced that the project, retitled The Papers, would also star Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, David Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, Jesse Plemons, Matthew Rhys, Michael Stuhlbarg, Bradley Whitford, and Zach Woods. On August 25, 2017, the film's title reverted to The Post. Spielberg finished the final cut of the film on November 6, 2017, with the final sound mix also completed along with the musical score a week later, on November 13.

Costume design Writing for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis indicated some high points in the costume design used in the film stating, "The costume designer Ann Roth subtly brightens Katharine, taking her from leaden gray to free-flowing gold."

Soundtrack

The score for the film was written by John Williams; it is his 28th collaboration with Spielberg. The music is a combination of traditional orchestral instrumentation and what Williams has called "very light, computerised electronic effects." Williams was originally attached to write the music for Spielberg's 2018 film Ready Player One, but, because both films had similar post-production schedules, Williams chose to work on The Post, while Alan Silvestri composed for Ready Player One. Spielberg has said that The Post was a rare instance in which he went to the recording sessions "having not heard a note" in advance.

Recording began on October 30, 2017, in Los Angeles. The soundtrack was released digitally by Sony Classical Records on December 22, 2017, and in physical form on January 12, 2018.

Release The Post premiered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on December 14, 2017. It began a limited theatrical release in the United States on December 22, 2017, and a wide release on January 12, 2018. The film is distributed internationally through Amblin Partners' distribution agreements with Universal Pictures, Reliance Entertainment, and Entertainment One. The film was released by Reliance in India. Tom Hanks said he would not be interested in appearing at a potential White House screening for President Donald Trump.

Marketing The first official image from The Post was released on October 31, 2017. The trailer for The Post premiered exclusively on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, on November 7, 2017, and the film's poster, designed by BLT Communications, was released the next day. The first TV spot, titled "Uncover the Truth", was released on November 21, 2017. Music for the trailer featured the Boston Typewriter Orchestra.

Home media The Post was released on Digital HD on April 3 and on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD on April 17, 2018, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in North America and in the United Kingdom and Australia via Entertainment One.

Reception Box office The Post grossed $81.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $97.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $179.8 million, against a production budget of $50 million.

During The Posts limited opening weekend, December 22 to 24, it grossed $526,011 (and a total of $762,057 over the four-day Christmas weekend) from nine theaters. The following weekend, the film grossed $561,080 for a per-theater average of $62,342, one of the highest of 2017. The film had its wide release alongside the openings of The Commuter, Paddington 2 and Proud Mary, and was projected to gross around $20 million from 2,819 theaters over the weekend. It made $5.9 million on its first day and $18.6 million over the weekend (and a four-day MLK weekend total of $23.4 million), finishing second at the box office behind holdover Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. 66% of its opening weekend audience was over the age of 35. It dropped 37% the following weekend to $12.2 million, finishing 4th behind Jumanji and newcomers 12 Strong and Den of Thieves. It dropped to 5th in its third week of wide release, grossing $8.9 million.

Critical response