← Good Night, and Good Luck.
Good Night, and Good Luck. poster

Good Night, and Good Luck. · reception & legacy

2005 · George Clooney

How Good Night, and Good Luck. has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A critical darling in 2005 — six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Director — that famously went home empty-handed, it has only grown in stature since, routinely dusted off as 'more relevant than ever' with each new press-freedom crisis and widely held up as the film Clooney the director never topped.

What's debated

The perennial split: is it a vital, razor-sharp parable about journalism speaking truth to power, or a smug, airless civics lesson that preaches to the choir?

Its footprint

Murrow's sign-off — 'Good night, and good luck' — has become shorthand for principled journalism far beyond the film, and the story got a second cultural life in 2025 when Clooney played Murrow in a record-breaking Broadway adaptation that CNN broadcast live.

Where it stands

A quiet canon-climber: the consensus peak of Clooney's directing career and a fixture of 'best films about journalism' lists alongside All the President's Men and Spotlight.

★ Did you know? Senator Joseph McCarthy is 'played' entirely by archival footage of the real McCarthy — and Clooney loves telling the story that test-audience viewers complained the 'actor' playing McCarthy was too over-the-top.