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).

Going Clear is based closely on Lawrence Wright's book, covering much of the same ground with the aid of archival footage, dramatic reconstructions, and interviews with eight former Scientologists:[1][2] Paul Haggis, an Oscar-winning film director; Mark Rathbun, Scientology's former second-in-command; Mike Rinder, the former head of Scientology's Office of Special Affairs; actor Jason Beghe; Sylvia "Spanky" Taylor, former liaison to John Travolta; and former Scientologists Tom DeVocht, Sara Goldberg, and Hana Eltringham Whitfield.

The film depicts the role played by celebrity members, such as Travolta and Tom Cruise, through video clips contrasting their statements with the experiences of former Scientologists.

HBO announced in December 2014 that Alex Gibney, an Oscar-winning director who made Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), Taxi to the Dark Side, (2007) and The Armstrong Lie (2013), was directing a film based on the book, to be released at the 2015 Sundance Festival.

[2] Gibney saw Scientology as one of the toughest subjects he has had to tackle in his career as a documentarian, alongside government complicity in torture, corporate financial malfeasance, and clerical sexual abuse.

"[12] Scientology's reputation of harassing its critics made it necessary for Gibney to use burner phones to contact interviewees and film in secret: "Sometimes for the on-camera interviews we'd set up gear in somebody's house and I'd make sure I'd be there hours before.

[1] Gibney later called in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece for Scientology's tax exemption to be revoked in the light of the allegations of abuse documented in the film.

[1] The première was so popular that even those with tickets were unable to find seats, because so many VIP pass-holders chose to watch the film, displacing ordinary festival-goers.

[1] It attracted numerous celebrities and media figures, including Alec Baldwin, Tobey Maguire, Jason Sudeikis, and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

Due to continuing public demand, HBO announced in July 2015 that it would be releasing the film more widely from September 25 through the ArcLight Cinemas chain's theaters in California, Chicago, Washington D.C., New York City, Texas and a few other locations around the US.

[19] 5.5 million viewers were reported to have watched it within only two weeks of its TV première, making it the second most successful HBO documentary in the past decade after a 2013 film on the singer Beyoncé.

[22] The film was shown in Denmark on DR2 as Scientologys religiøse fængsel, on April 21, 2015,[23] in Sweden on SVT1 as Fångade av scientologin on May 19,[24] and by VPRO in the Netherlands on NPO 2 on May 19.

[28] By the start of October it had become Sky's most-watched documentary for three years, attracting a peak audience of 313,000 viewers and an average of 243,000 including catchup viewing.

The site's consensus states: "Thoroughly disquieting but impossible to ignore, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is a searing investigative work from a master documentarian.

[31] Variety's chief film critic, Scott Foundas, praised the level of detail in Going Clear and called it a "powder-keg" documentary that illustrates "the dangers of blind faith.

"[33] Screen Daily's Anthony Kaufman felt that some of the re-enactments in the film were "heavy-handed or sensationalistic," but commended it overall as "a serious, strange and unsettling account of brainwashing, greed and gross misuses of power.

"[35] The BBC's Owen Gleiberman praised it as "the most exciting – and disturbing – work of cinematic non-fiction in a long time" and awarded Going Clear five stars, describing it as having "the scary intensity of a thriller.

"[5] The head of HBO Documentary Films, Sheila Nevins, commented that when she saw the advertisements she knew that Going Clear would be a big success: "Docs don’t get full page ads, and when they do, they do really well.

[46] Additionally, Scientology posted a series of short films on its website attacking the filmmakers and their interviewees, with titles such as "Alex Gibney Documentary 'Going Clear' Propaganda," "Marty Rathbun: A Violent Psychopath," "Mike Rinder: The Wife Beater," "Sara Goldberg: The Home Wrecker" and "Paul Haggis: The Hypocrite of Hollywood.

[1] According to Gibney, the Scientology Church mounted an "organized" and "brutal" response to the appearance of its former members in the film: "Some of them have had physical threats, people threatening to take their homes away, private investigators following them.

He predicted that "their campaign against the film is going to be the best publicity that Alex Gibney and company could ever hope for, if also a hassle for critics and filmmakers and (this is no small thing) a nightmare for the ex-CoS members who dared to speak out against Scientology's practices.

"[46] Paul Haggis, who was labeled "doughy" and "pasty" by the church, likewise felt that the attacks were backfiring: "You don't think that makes you look really bad trying to slander me in that way?

Scientology's campaign included producing an anti-Gibney film and approaches to members of the Academy's documentary branch, responsible for selecting contenders for the awards.