Claim: Snowden stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as its title character.

Snowden is a 2016 American-German biographical political thriller film directed by Oliver Stone and written by Stone and Kieran Fitzgerald , based on the books The Snowden Files by Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena . The cast includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the title character , Edward Snowden , with Shailene Woodley , Melissa Leo , Zachary Quinto , Tom Wilkinson , Scott Eastwood , Logan Marshall-Green , Timothy Olyphant , Ben Schnetzer , LaKeith Lee Stanfield , Rhys Ifans and Nicolas Cage also starring . Filming began on February 16 , 2015 in Munich , Germany .   Snowden screened at Comic-Con on July 21 , 2016 , before premiering at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9 , 2016 . The film was theatrically released in the United States on September 16 , 2016 , by Open Road Films and on September 22 in Germany . It received mixed reviews and was a box office disappointment , grossing $ 37.3 million worldwide against its $ 40 million budget .