Film and television review fact-check checklist

What to take away

• Verify the reviewed version before checking interpretation.
• Match every craft claim to the right credited professional.
• Rewatch quoted dialogue, decisive scenes, and the ending.
• Describe captions, subtitles, and audio description as separate features.
• Check headlines and promotional copy for claims stronger than the review.

Run this checklist after the draft has a clear argument. It covers factual and evidentiary checks without asking an editor to approve the critic's taste.

Work and version

• Confirm official title, release year, running time, and country or countries.
• Record theatrical, festival, broadcast, streaming, restored, extended, or screener version.
• Note any unfinished picture, sound, color, music, effects, captions, or credits.
• Check language track, subtitles, captions, audio description, and aspect ratio selected.
• Record venue or platform and viewing date.
• For television, confirm series, season, episode title, episode number, and release order.
• State how many supplied and available episodes the critic watched.

People and credits

• Check director and credited writers.
• Verify performers and character names.
• Confirm cinematography, editing, production design, costume, sound, music, makeup, visual effects, animation, casting, stunt, and choreography credits used in the story.
• Preserve distinctions among creator, showrunner, executive producer, producer, and episode director.
• Check source-material authors and adaptation credits.
• Do not infer responsibility from interviews or publicity billing alone.

The Library of Congress publishes personnel credits for National Film Registry titles while warning that its entries are informational rather than definitive or comprehensive. That warning applies broadly: an outside database can help locate a name, but on-screen credits, official records, and disputed-credit reporting may be needed before assigning responsibility.

Scene, plot, and language

• Rewatch every scene described in detail.
• Confirm event order, location, character knowledge, and cause.
• Check quoted dialogue word for word against the reviewed version.
• Verify timestamps after accounting for ads, logos, recaps, or platform changes.
• Distinguish voice-over, off-screen speech, memory, dream, fantasy, and objective event.
• Preserve ambiguity when the work leaves a point unresolved.
• Do not turn one interpretation into plot fact.

Formal analysis

• Describe framing before naming its effect.
• Check whether a claimed single take contains a hidden or visible cut.
• Distinguish camera movement from performer or object movement.
• Separate production design, location, set decoration, costume, lighting, and color grading where the distinction matters.
• Identify whether music is heard by characters or added for viewers.
• Connect editing claims to shot order, duration, transition, or juxtaposition.
• Avoid attributing every formal choice to the director.

Context and comparison

• Verify release, production, budget, box office, rating, and distribution claims.
• Check quotations from cast and crew in their original context.
• Name the relevant edition of source material.
• Compare like with like across genre, period, format, scale, and production context.
• Support claims such as "first," "only," "most," and "never" with adequate research.
• Distinguish award eligibility, nomination, and win.

Access and viewing conditions

• Separate dialogue subtitles from closed captions that also identify speakers and relevant sound.
• Note whether captions were supplied, automatic, incomplete, or unavailable in the reviewed version.
• Describe audio description by the version and platform tested.
• Avoid claiming translation errors outside the writer's competence.
• Record material projection, streaming, synchronization, or playback failures.
• Ask whether a fault was local, temporary, or embedded in the source.

The Federal Communications Commission's accessibility complaint categories distinguish closed captioning for television and internet-delivered programming, audio description, and ease of activating access features. A review should maintain those distinctions even when it is not making a regulatory claim.

Independence, spoilers, and final copy

• Disclose a material relationship, gift, travel benefit, or unusual access condition.
• Do not let an embargo prevent necessary factual reporting after it expires.
• Mark major spoilers where the publication's format requires it.
• Check headline, deck, caption, metadata, and social copy.
• Make sure a star rating matches the published review if the outlet uses one.
• Prepare a correction for false version, credit, quotation, or plot claims.
• Use an update for a later recut, release change, added episode, or repaired access file.

Common questions

Are end credits always final authority?

They are primary evidence, but disputed, omitted, pseudonymous, or jurisdiction-specific credits may require further reporting.

Must every timestamp appear in the article?

No. Timestamps are reporting locators. Include them only when they help the reader or document a version-specific issue.

Is an incorrect character name a serious error?

It damages trust and can distort analysis. Correct it even when the central judgment remains unchanged.

Should access features affect the verdict?

They can when the review assesses the delivered experience. State the exact version, platform, and feature tested.