Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (2015)

Original title

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

Directed by

Alex Gibney

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 59m

Rated

12

Rating

7.6 of 10 from 875 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary examines the Church of Scientology by tracing its history and founder L. Ron Hubbard. It features interviews with former members who describe abuse and exploitation within the organization. The film also looks at how celebrities interact with the church.

exposingdisturbinginformativeinvestigativeunsettlingsoberingrevealingcritical

What happens

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is a 2015 documentary film about Scientology. Directed by Alex Gibney and produced by HBO, it is based on Lawrence Wright's book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief (2013). The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It received widespread praise from critics and was nominated for seven Emmy Awards, winning three, including Best Documentary. It also received a 2015 Peabody Award and won the award for Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America. The film deconstructs Scientology's claims by presenting a condensed history of the group and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, examining how celebrities interact with Scientology, and highlighting the stories of a number of ex-members and of the abuse and exploitation that they described seeing and experiencing. The Church of Scientology responded vehemently to the film, complaining to film critics about their reviews and denouncing the filmmakers and their interviewees. Going Clear was released in a limited number of theaters on March 13, 2015, and aired on HBO on March 29, 2015. It was a major ratings success and by mid-April 2015 had attracted 5.5 million viewers, making it the second most-watched HBO documentary in the past decade. It was subsequently released internationally, showing in theaters and on television despite a sustained campaign by the Church of Scientology to block its release. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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