Rosewater, Jon Stewart's directorial debut based on the best-selling memoir Then They Came For Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity and Survival by Maziar Bahari, hits theaters in the U.S today. Acclaimed by critics and featuring an accomplished lead performance from Gael Garcia Bernal, the movie is certainly one to consider for the major awards this season.

Jon StewartGael Garcia Bernal [L] and Jon Stewart [R] working on Rosewater

Rosewater tells the true story of Bahari, a broadcast journalist with Canadian citizenship who, in 2009, returned to Iran to interview Presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The candidate's supporters rose up in protest of his prematurely announced defeat to President Ahmadinejad and Bahari sent footage of street riots to the BBC. Later, he was arrested, tortured and interrogated for 118 days while his wife led an international campaign to have her husband freed.

More: Jon Stewart's Rosewater is good - but were we expecting more?

"Stewart lets the truth roll out, the best he can, believing in the sanitizing effect of sunlight and the inevitable fate that awaits all despots," said Peter Howell of the Toronto Star.

""Rosewater" doesn't hector, nor does it giggle about the issue of press freedom. It's an impressive and important piece of storytelling," said Michael O'Sullivan of the Washington Post.

RosewaterGael Garcia Bernal as Maziar Behari in Rosewater

"A finely wrought, powerful drama that tells the true story of an Iranian-born journalist's imprisonment and torture by the Islamic regime in Iran," said Soren Anderson of the Seattle Times.

"Mr. Stewart's interest in the material is obviously personal, but his movie transcends mere self-interest," said Manohla Dargis of the New York Times.

More: first look at Jon Stewart's movie, Rosewater

Rosewater remains a 20/1 outsider to win Best Picture at the Oscars, though give it a couple of months, and it could find itself on the ballot paper. 

Watch the Rosewater trailer: