After three rounds and thousands of votes, the final contest for the movie that best embodies the hub of the universe is set: ‘Good Will Hunting’ goes up against ‘Spotlight’ in the final match.
“Even rarer than a breath of fresh air is a breath of fresh Hollywood film. Brainy and heartfelt and right on target,” Globe critic Jay Carr wrote back in 1997 when the Matt Daemon-Ben Affleck pic about a working-class Boston genius hit theaters. “[I]t has Boston written all over it.”
Nearly a decade later, Globe critic Ty Burr observed in his four-star review of ‘Spotlight,’ which follows the Globe’s investigative Spotlight team reporting out the Roman Catholic Church’s coverup of pedophile priests: “Maybe it’s too early to decide whether ‘Spotlight’ is among the best Boston movies ever made — the accents are fine, the filmmakers seem to have the lay of the land — but in certain awful aspects it’s the most truthful.”
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Now it’s your turn to decide which of these beloved films captures Boston best.
And also, dear reader, if you’ve enjoyed this bracket (we certainly have), drop us a line in the comments or on social, and share ideas of other brackets you’d like to see the Globe do — whether other movie genres or something else.
The 1990s are so hot right now, and that apparently carried through to this movie bracket, as ‘Good Will Hunting’ dominated ‘Friends of Eddie Coyle’ by about 1,500 votes. The final tally was 1,906 to 404.
‘Spotlight’ beat out ‘Fever Pitch’ 1,644 to 639, sending the journalistic drama to the championship round. That will be good news to reader Temp47 who said in the comments, “Anyone who votes for Fever Pitch should be drummed out of the City.”
Victoria McGrane can be reached at victoria.mcgrane@globe.com. Follow her @vgmac.