“Spotlight” is the journalism feature that’s been long overdue.

At the dawn of 2002, the Boston Globe rocked the nation as its investigative team Spotlight finally released its year-long project — an expose on sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

Starting with one priest, John J. Geoghan, a priest who went on a three-decade spree, Spotlight expanded their coverage as far as revealing that Cardinal Bernard F. Law knew about Geoghan’s actions decades before.

Director and co-writer Tom McCarthy’s beautifully arranged “Spotlight” is the grim retelling of the team’s foray into the dark.

It’s a dialogue-driven tale that impeccably exhibits journalism at its best and the Church at its worst.

The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning team consists of its editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton) and his three reporters: Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matty Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James).

Each of them are all played to perfection, but it’s Mark Ruffalo who completely disappears into his role as a journalist who becomes deeply affected by the work he does.

Akin to Jake Gyllenhaal’s role in “Zodiac,” David Fincher’s investigative crime thriller — which Ruffalo also stars in — Ruffalo races from interview to interview, courtroom to courtroom, trying to gather the evidence necessary to unmask the Church.

Without completely idolizing its characters, and without completely condemning the Catholic Church, “Spotlight” intensely retraces the steps of those who helped unveil the “bad apples” of the clergy and the master puppeteers shielding them.

Update: Nov. 8, 2015 — Hyperlinks were added to the review.