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Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon brings the history of the final years of the administration of Richard Nixon and its aftermath back to life. Here was a president who was so ensnared in scandal he was forced resign in August 1974. This story, scripted by playwright Peter Morgan from his stage play, recreates the 1977 interviews between Nixon and British journalist David Frost. The extraordinary achievement of this vivid cinematic history lesson is its ability to show Nixon’s extreme intelligence as well as his elements of menace and fraudulence.

This is Ron Howard’s 27th film as a director and his first adaptation of a play for the screen, and he gets the most from Morgan’s 2007 script, which is a series of scenes centered around the interviews. Here, Morgan really opens up the story with great success into a seamless series of events that culminate in the spring 1977 Frost-Nixon confrontations. Both Morgan’s superlative adaptation and the flawless film editing of Mike Hill and Dan Hanley put the many events and personalities of this story into a fascinating procession of the big media world of hotels, parties and deal-making that enrich the story. The work of the director, writer and film editors has been honored with five Oscar nominations and rightly so.

When the plot focuses on the principle adversaries and what they have to gain and lose, the film really picks up. Frost (Michael Sheen), was attempting to redirect a career in decline and establish his credentials as a serious journalist. Nixon (Frank Langella) wanted access to a world stage where he could reestablish his credentials as a statesman. This inevitably led to a series of interviews that evolved into a duel. Both of these splendid actors, who created these characters onstage, are superlative in their recreation of these very different cultural icons of the 1970s. But it is Langella who manages the near impossible as he captures Nixon’s dark side but preserves the man’s qualities as a statesman. More than that, he humanizes this complex former president who often appears more as an image overcome by various pathologies. This Oscar-nominated performance, which is one to last for ages, could be worth a gold-plated statue this year.

Fictitious elements are injected into the story by Morgan (as he did on the stage). He has his American research staff of James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell) and Bob Zelnick (Oliver Platt) unearth last-minute tape transcripts and even adds a drunken nighttime telephone call from Nixon to Frost’s hotel room — neither happened. But, as David Frost himself has remarked, it makes for good drama. Zelnick (with Frost) and Reston have written books about these events that can clarify any points of history you wish to research, but meanwhile, if you only catch the film Frost/Nixon, you will be taken back to one of broadcast journalism’s greatest moments. It was that moment when Richard M. Nixon almost gave the world an apology, and that is real drama.

Final note: Look for child star Patty McCormack (The Bad Seed) as Pat Nixon. She has acting credits dating to 1951.