Directed by Alan J. Pakula, with a screenplay by William Goldman, it is based on the 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the two journalists investigating the scandal for The Washington Post.

The film was nominated in multiple Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA categories; Jason Robards won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Ben Bradlee.

Woodward connects the burglars to E. Howard Hunt, an employee of President Richard Nixon's White House counsel Charles Colson, and formerly of the CIA.

Executive editor Benjamin Bradlee believes that their work lacks reliable sources and is not worthy of the Post's front page, but he encourages further investigation.

Woodward and Bernstein connect the five burglars to corrupt activities involving campaign contributions to Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP or CREEP).

However, Bradlee and others at the Post still doubt the investigation and its dependence on sources such as Deep Throat, wondering why the Nixon administration should break the law when the president is almost certain to defeat his opponent, Democratic nominee George McGovern.

They learn that CREEP was financing a "ratfucking" campaign to sabotage Democratic presidential candidates a year before the Watergate burglary, when Nixon was lagging behind Edmund Muskie in the polls.

While Bradlee's demand for thoroughness compels the reporters to obtain other sources to confirm the Haldeman connection, the White House issues a non-denial denial of the Post's above-the-fold story.

A montage of Watergate-related teletype headlines from the following years is shown, ending with the report of Nixon's resignation and the inauguration of Gerald Ford on August 9, 1974.

Redford first spoke with Woodward in November 1972, after the reporters' well-publicized mistake about Hugh Sloan implicating Haldeman in his testimony to the Watergate grand jury.

[8] Ben Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post, realized that the film was going to be produced regardless of his approval, and believed it made "more sense to try to influence it factually".

Principal photography began May 12, 1975, in Washington, D.C.[8] In the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) initially gave the film an R rating for having multiple uses of the word "fuck" and its derivatives.

The website's consensus reads: "A taut, solidly acted paean to the benefits of a free press and the dangers of unchecked power, made all the more effective by its origins in real-life events.

In his Chicago Tribune review, he wrote, "Director Alan J. Pakula duplicates the surprise and suspense of his Klute while avoiding the overstatement and pandering paranoia of his more recent political thriller, The Parallax View.

"[25] Rex Reed wrote, "Just to think about Watergate (and there are those, I'm told, who prefer not to) is to chatter the brain with a million details, telephone conversations, notebook jottings, investigations and technical problems that could be very dull indeed on film.

"[26] Kathleen Carroll of the New York Daily News gave the film a full four-star rating and wrote that it "offers a rousing argument for the preservation of freedom of the press that precious right that allows reporters like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to ferret out the truth.

"[27] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "quite beyond anything else, an engrossing mystery movie, with atmosphere, suspense, surprise, conflict, danger, secret messages, clandestine meetings, heroes, villains and a cast of leading and supporting characters that might have emerged from an unlikely collaboration of, let us say, Gore Vidal and Raymond Chandler.

"[28] Desmond Ryan of The Philadelphia Inquirer called it "not only a stunningly accurate account of the way big-city newspapers operate, down to the last paper clip and derisive curse, but it is also a superlative movie by any standard.

"[29] Stanley Eichelbaum of the San Francisco Examiner wrote, "People should enjoy it, since it has the knockout force of an American Z, without the heavy doses of manipulative melodrama.

It's eminently entertaining, providing much the same fascination and wry humor as The Front Page, a romantic treatment of the same aspects of competitive, relentlessly aggressive journalism.

The film's brilliance largely emanates from the lean, astringent, compellingly realistic, quasi-documentary style brought to it by director Alan J. Pakula (Klute, The Parallax View, etc.)

Like the book, the film has the hypnotic impact of a detective thriller in its sharp, subtle retelling of the involved story of the Watergate break-in and Woodward and Bernstein's role in unraveling the cover-up.

"[30] Susan Stark of the Detroit Free Press wrote, "The circuitous, sometimes perilous, nearly always frustrating adventure of the two newsmen who broke the conspiracy of silence about the Watergate scandals makes one terrific chunk of material for a movie, Wisely, Robert Redford, who acquired screen right to the book even before it was published, stuck to his gum, leaning hard on the dramatic, as opposed to the political elements in the material.

All the President's Men has turned these potential minuses into gigantic pluses, and comes through as a wonderful motion picture, one that explores the abuses of power and the work of the free press with a mighty magnifying glass.

"[33] Clyde Gilmour of the Toronto Star called it a "fascinating movie from Warner Bros. [that] vividly but scrupulously dramatizes the almost mythological exploits of the men who uncovered the Big Cover-Up.

"[37] Internationally, Patrick Gibbs of The Daily Telegraph wrote, "Mr Pakula planes implicit confidence in this story, tightly scripted by William Goldman, with only an occasional fictional touch and in his experienced actors led by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as the two reporters, though no great feats are called for in the way of interpretation.

As for the impressive skill of direction, the realistic, clear dialogue, or the fact that it relives, with mounting suspense, one of the most incredible scandals of this century not even these could have ensured this film's success away from America.

But it can't miss, because it also offers two hours in the company of those charismatic stars, Dustin Hoffmann and Robert Redford, as the dedicated newspaper reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, from the Washington Post, who were responsible for the whole shake-up.

It also anticipated our current WikiLeaks era, with Robert Redford (Woodward) and Dustin Hoffman (Bernstein) milking anonymous sources and burning shoe leather to speak truth to power.

"[41] In a rare dissenting review published in 1985, Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader was critical of the writing, calling the film "pedestrian" and "a study in missed opportunities".