This is a riveting drama that focuses on Lincoln's last tumultuous months in office. In a nation divided by war and facing the great racial question that his Emancipation Proclamation asked, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war and abolish slavery by supporting and passing the thirteenth amendment. It is a divine history lesson with Lincoln's role so deftly acted by Daniel Day-Lewis as to invite the viewer to envision that Lincoln himself emerged from the grave to deliver it.

The first and final scenes of the movie lessen the power of the film for me with their grandiosity and pathos, but the two hours in between are pure magic.

Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones; Director is Steven Spielberg