Citizenfour (2014) on Netflix

R20141h 54mBiography Documentary History

Filmmaker Laura Poitras receives e-mail from a stranger called Citizen Four, who claims to have evidence of illegal NSA surveillance. In Hong Kong, she and Glenn Greenwald meet Edward Snowden.

Netflix3.7/5
IMDb8.0/1060,375 votes
Rotten Tomatoes96%

Trailer

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Plot summary

In January 2013, Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who had spent years filming surveillance programs that followed the September 11 attacks, began receiving encrypted e-mail from a stranger calling himself Citizen Four, who said he held inside information about illegal wiretapping by the National Security Agency and other intelligence services. He had approached her after failing to reach Glenn Greenwald. In June, with Greenwald and Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill, she flew to Hong Kong carrying her camera. In a hotel room at the Mira, over eight days, the stranger identified himself as Edward Snowden and answered their questions while guarding his privacy.

Cast

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Citizenfour (2014)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

Edward Snowden chose the codename Citizen Four as a nod to three NSA whistleblowers who came before him: Bill Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe and Thomas Drake, according to a 2014 Vice article featuring director Laura Poitras.
The ending credits unusually name the free software projects and security tools without which "this film would not be possible", among them Tor, Tails, Debian GNU/Linux, Off-the-Record Messaging, the GNU Privacy Guard, Truecrypt and SecureDrop.
In December 2014 a retired naval officer and oil executive from Kansas filed suit against the film's producers "on behalf of the American people", accusing them of aiding and abetting Snowden's leaks.