4. The Subtleties
Parkland intersperses real-life footage taken of the assassination that day, such as that from the Zapruder film, capturing the moment JFK's head is blown to pieces, with cinematics. Fortunately, Parkland doesn't enter neanderthal territory of expressly showing you that devastation moment, with the fatal, head-shot depicting 'Frame 313' graciously omitted. Other real-life, harrowing footage lifted from that day's events include journalist Walter Cronkite receiving, and delivering the news, live on air, that President Kennedy had been assassinated. The moment he tenderly pulls the glasses off his face, blinking away silent tears, is captured in Parkland. And, though conspiracies aren't directly referenced, they are referred too - there's federal agents making mistakes, behaving oddly and even destroying evidence - a knowing nod to the several-hundred conspiracy theories that followed in the subsequent years. We like that Parkland doesn't take what it knows and hits you over the head with it, and that it instead allows you to fit together the pieces and form your own opinion.