Lincoln
2012 · Steven Spielberg · 150 min · Biography / Drama / History
Lincoln succeeds because Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't play a monument. He plays a tired, funny, cunning politician who happened to change the course of American history during the worst month of his life. Spielberg surrounds him with an ensemble that brings the messy realities of democracy to vivid life, and Tony Kushner's screenplay finds genuine drama in parliamentary procedure. It's a film about how the sausage gets made, and it makes that process as gripping as any battlefield.