This classic film, released only 18 months after Richard Nixon had resigned from office, tells the true story of Bob Woodward's and Carl Bernstein's investigations of Watergate which ultimately brought down the 37th President of the United States. Just before this final sequence, Woodward and Bernstein have found out one last piece of information from Deep Throat that the cover-up didn't have much to do with Watergate -- instead it was to protect covert operations, and involved everybody. They tell this to Ben Bradlee who agrees to stick with them, telling them "Don't worry guys, it's only the First Amendment to the Constitution, and perhaps the future of the country riding on this" -- "Don't fuck up again, or I could get mad" -- which leads to this final scene, brilliantly filmed by director Alan J. Pakula.

Instead of showing more of the investigation and what happened afterward, Pakula films the final scene in a much more interesting and somber way. We see Woodward and Bernstein, played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, way in the background of the shot typing away, and in the foreground we see and hear Richard Nixon being given the oath of office for having won the 1972 election in a landslide. The scene shows Nixon at the height of his success on the TV, while the furious typing of these two reporters will spell his downfall in just a matter of months. The typing continues into the final scenes which type out what happened in the following months, with the last item typed "Nixon resigns -- Gerald Ford becomes the 38th President of the United States." It was a wonderful choice to end the film this way. The other part of the sequence which makes it memorable is the sound of the cannon firing salute at Nixon's inauguration -- the sounds of the cannons slowly fade out as each new item is typed about the downfall of Nixon and the aftermath of the Watergate investigation.