A long staple of Hollywood, since the days of the silent film, movies about journalism have always been an important function of storytelling. The journalist plays a great posit in moral and ethical storytelling, digging deep into what drives America. What entertains us, what informs us, and most importantly, who do we go to for truth. Journalism is now often the vehicle for telling real-life stories, especially revolving around true crime.
Before that, however, they were also great films about how journalists would use the newspaper as an engine for fame. Films like His Girl Friday, Ace In The Hole, and more recently, Shattered Glass. At times, the old style of newspaper journalism is now a dying modicum of the corporatized media machine. That said, these films set the bar high for why they’re essential to society and film itself.
10 Spotlight
An immense work that shows the nuts and bolts of investigative journalism, from the editors to the reporters, and what it takes to publish a story. Not only how painstaking the work is, but the length journalists go to abide by an ethical code while balancing the morals of doing what’s right. The film stars Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, and Liev Schrieber as a team of Boston Globe journalists who uncover the horrific child abuse scandal that had been ongoing for decades at the Catholic Church across multiple dioceses. A landmark case highlighting institutional violence and the framework it takes to cover the trauma imposed upon young kids, Spotlight is a riveting true story.
9 The Insider
What’s essential to Michael Mann’s films is essential to how he goes about business: a dedicated craftsman who loves to show men at work, doing what they do best. Naturally, his uncanny ability to bring an aesthetic to blue-collar heroism made him a perfect fit to tackle the realm of journalism. The Insider is the true story about the tobacco industry's stranglehold on the public conscious. It stars Al Pacino as journalist Lowell Bergman who worked with Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) to expose the capitalist greed running amok inside a popular industry, and how the tobacco executives have been long overdue to be ousted on all the lies they sold about cigarettes. The film is an epic sprawl of how America has corporatized nearly everything and the dangers it poses to the public.
8 Almost Famous
Cameron Crowe’s loving opus Almost Famous is an autobiographical tale of journalism and the obscure path to rock and roll stardom colliding. Based loosely on his life as a young teen covering music for Rolling Stone, Patrick Fugit plays the surrogate Crowe as a wide-eyed kid taken under the guise of a rising band. Billy Crudup and Jason Lee lead the way as they embody — or so they think — the music dream and attempt to win the kid over so that they can be painted as rock gods. As Crowe uses the prism of journalism to show how he came of age, getting his heart broken and his illusions about rock stars shattered, on his way to becoming a successful writer.
7 Ace in the Hole
There are so many great films about the pivotal role investigative journalists play in molding public perception, but there’s also a flip side to having the ability to reach so many people. Ace in the Hole shows Kirk Douglas in all his smarmy, muscular charm as journalist Chuck Tatum chasing fame in the big city. After getting sent to a small town, he creates a story about a man getting trapped in a cave. Creating a literal carnival out of one man's tragic situation, Tatum fights for his soul as the lies he begins to spin crumble around him. The film shows how the media can feed on spectacle as do the people, where the inherent truth of a story does not matter. One of the finest films the immaculate Billy Wilder has made and ends the story on a chaotic, cynical note as only Wilder could.
6 Sweet Smell of Success
Taking the world of journalism and giving it a criminal atmosphere to show how the game is played by dirty, seedy men without morals was a fascinating ride. With a towering Burt Lancaster performance as the man behind the curtain, calling the shots, and a desperate Tony Curtis battling it out to move up in the world. The film has a quick-witted, sharp script, loaded with quotable dialogue directed with a wry, cynic edge from Alexander McKendrick that elevates the material to an indelible piece of pulp. Sweet Smell of Success is a layered depiction of how money turns information into a valuable currency.
5 Broadcast News
James L. Brooks manufactured some of the greatest romance stories of the 80s and 90s, a Hollywood machine that would produce easily digestible stories, crafted with artistic merit. Likely his best film, Broadcast News took the hilarious chaotic nature of the TV newsroom while underscoring how essential it is to have people who can report on the news within the current and historical-political context. It’s a rich text showing the unfortunate degradation within current corporate structures. Within all of that are three incredible lead performances from Albert Brooks, William Hurt, and the scene-stealing Holly Hunter as the three emerge as central figures in their news station. Brooks perfectly contextualizes the different kinds of news anchors necessary to share the news, but creates a heartfelt romance that derails because love makes a mess of everything.
4 Network
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One of the great scripts ever written by three-time Academy Award-winning Paddy Chayefsky, Network explores the heart of darkness that is capitalism and how it started to poison broadcast news journalism. Capitalism infiltrated the news sectors and corporations as Sidney Lumet shows the men in suits, like Robert Duvall, acting as men only interested in numbers. Every interaction is a transaction and every person is a number. With an off-the-rails, “I’m mad as hell!” performance from the late Peter Finch. Finch sees into the void when he finds out he's lost his job and becomes the mad prophet. He starts speaking hard truths about the shallow nature of media affecting our modern society, but then, later gets turned into a product as well. It's a sophisticated drama and hilarious satire, showing an industry losing its core values for the sake of the dollar.
3 Zodiac
An epic sprawl into the heart of San Francisco, David Fincher’s Zodiac is one of the greatest films made about real-life terror. Working from the diligent script of James Vanderbilt, adapted from Robert Graysmuith’s nonfiction work, the film delved deep into the processes of the serial killer and the journalists and detectives that did the work to find him. There’s a supreme ASMR component as the many scenes depict the hard work of the journalists obsessively typing away as phones buzz and cigarette smoke engulfs the air. But also, what it means to work so close to evil manifest and how that can ruin your life. The film is terrifyingly cold in the way it depicts the murders of the Zodiac killer, but epic in scope and execution of the bureaucratic detective processes it takes to bring a monster like the Zodiac killer to justice.
2 All The President's Men
All The President's Men is about the two names that would become synonymous with journalistic integrity: Woodward and Bernstein. Directed by 1970s paranoid-conspiracy auteur Alan Pakula and the lens of legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis, the two created a sophisticated visual language to enamor and compliment the material already rife with institutional suspicion. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman play the two journalists who become entangled in one of the biggest corruption scandals in political history. The pair slowly realize the immensity of the Watergate Hotel robbery as it pertains to President Richard Nixon and his corruptible cabinet as they've engaged in highly illegal activity. They gain information from the mysterious "Deep Throat" and uncover what it means for the country. It’s an exhilarating piece of procedural but also highlights how important the work of journalists is.
1 Citizen Kane
The mythic, other worldly biopic that showed the epic scope of a rise and fall empire being born out of the American consciousness, Orson Welles' legendary filmmaking feat, Citizen Kane, is an indelible piece of art only the best of Hollywood can promise. Based somewhat on the life of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, Welles created a vision of the world through the eyes of someone who manufactured consent and created a journalistic empire. Not only told through a fragmented lens, but Welles actively deconstructs the myth he’s creating. From the opening "Rosebud." scene, the film promises a tragedy while also experiencing an epic downfall in a truly American way.