BOSTON has a large Catholic population. “Spotlight” tells how the “Boston Globe” newspaper investigated the Catholic church’s concealment of its failure to deal effectively with priests who abused children.

Priests, laity and lawyers did not want the story told. Even some parishioners believed it should not be. A small team of reporters toiled hard to overcome powerful pressures to drop it.

New editor-in-chief Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) arrives to give a fresh focus to Spotlight, the “Globe’s” small unit that, under Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), investigates and publishes confronting stories about concealed public malfeasances.

It’s a dramatically powerful thriller, uncluttered by chases, fights, romantic diversions or intrusions into team-members’ private lives. Its tensions build as the team encounters myriad obstacles. Its close shaves aren’t the contrivances of writers’ overheated imaginations. Its heroes and villains are not exaggeration. Writer/director Tom McCarthy has staged many of his film’s events in their actual exterior locations.

Spotlight journalists Mike (Mark Ruffalo) and Sacha (Rachel McAdams) are footsoldiers pounding pavements, ringing doorbells, scanning court records and press cuttings, confronting lawyers unwilling or scared to co-operate, treading warily among victims and abusers. The process makes for absorbing cinema.

Two films recently screened here have been about journalists investigating real-life public issues. In “Truth”, shown here from December 3, TV journalists ultimately were losers. In “Spotlight”, print journalists are winners on a grand scale.

At Palace Electric