# Great Journalism Movies
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 24, 2005, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174 "2005-09-24T04:02:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/1 "2005-09-24T04:02:05Z")
One great thing about journalism in film is that it’s equally possible to make a movie about the exciting nature of journalism and to make a great movie parodying the ridiculous nature of journalism.
The New York Times gave a very good review to _Good Night and Good Luck_, George Clooney’s new movie about the struggle between Edward R. Murrow and Joseph McCarthy. I need to see that. **What other movies about journalism or featuring journalists - print, broadcast, whatever - do I need to see?** I know _All the President’s Men_ probably belongs on this list, as does _Network_, which I’ve seen, but not recently. I suppose _Citizen Kane_ might belong as well.
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### Author:  [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/2 "2005-09-24T04:11:48Z")
The Hudsucker Proxy.
His Girl Friday. (Not the godawful remake)
The Paper.
Live From Bagdad.
Almost Famous.
Anchorman.
Broadcast News.
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### Author:  [@Vintage\_1957](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vintage_1957)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/3 "2005-09-24T04:25:17Z")
Absence Of Malice
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/4 "2005-09-24T05:20:16Z")
Can’t believe I left out _Almost Famous_. Friends and acquintances have compared my life to that movie a number of times. I’ve also seen _Anchorman_ and _His Girl Friday_.
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### Author:  [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/5 "2005-09-24T06:13:41Z")
How wide a net do you want to cast?
_All About Eve_ (drama critic)
_All the King’s Men_ (journalists)
_Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte_ (British tabloid writer)
All the _Superman_ movies (reporters)
_The Year of Living Dangerously_ (reporter and photographer, and Mel Gibson wasn’t insane yet)
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/6 "2005-09-24T06:32:24Z")
I was thinking more ‘movies about journalism’ than ‘movies with characters who happen to be journalists,’ but there are fine examples of both, so I won’t be too picky.
I’ve already seen the _Spider-Man_ movies, since I like to go on and on about how much I like J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. Never had an editor like that, myself…
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### Author:  [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/7 "2005-09-24T07:20:13Z")
I think all the major ones have been hit, so I’ll just second the nomination of “Broadcast News.” Saw it recently – great movie.
A not-so-great but still enjoyable movie is “I Love Trouble” with Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte as two competing reporters.
“It Happened One Night” has Clark Gable as a reporter following around runaway heiress Claudette Colbert. Not _particularly_ about journalism, but a great movie anyways that deserves to be seen. It was also the first movie that won all top five categories at the Oscars.
“The Insider” with Russell Crowe and Al Pacino – another great one that’s as much about modern journalism as it is about the tobacco industry.
This might be pushing it, but “The People vs Larry Flint” deals with censorship in journalism…if you count “Hustler” as journalism…
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### Author:  [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/8 "2005-09-24T17:28:10Z")
_Shattered Glass_ about famed fabricator Stephen Glass. Was there a Jayson Blair movie?
_Where the Buffalo Roam_ and _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_, both about gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
If you really wnted to stretch the point, there’s _Wilde_. He wrote essays for publication and also edited a womens’ magazine (although admittedly neither topic is touched upon in the film; still a good movie though).
_The Fountainhead_ has a good chunk of it about the power of the press to influence the masses, and major characters include a newspaper publisher, a columnist and a former columnist.
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### Author:  [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/9 "2005-09-24T23:31:06Z")
A few about foreign correspondents:
\*\*Foreign Correspondent \*\* – the classic pre-WWII Hitchcock thriller, with an average-Joe American newsman (Joel McCrae) sniffing out a [Nazi] diplomatic assassination conspiracy in Europe. At the end, he’s alerting the American public to the danger posed by Germany and eliciting identification with embattled Londoners. Granted, it’s more about the espionage plot than the journalism trappings, and you won’t learn much about journalism by watching it, but it’s a classic.
**The Killing Fields** – a New York Times foreign correspondent Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterson) manages to get out of Cambodia as Pol Pot overruns Phnom Pehn dials his country back to zero, but his buddy Dith Pran (Dr. Haing S. Ngor) is left behind to the death and “reeducation” camps… at least for a few years. Devastating.
**Salvador** – an American freelance[?] print journalist (James Woods) observes a civil war (and human rights train wreck) following the 1980 rise of a military dictatorship in El Salvador. Written & dir. by Oliver Stone.
Back at the office:
[Between the Lines](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075744/) ('77) – the embattled staffers of a Boston alternative weekly paper try to fend off a corporate takeover. Good, young cast enliven this little-seen film, which to its credit strove for a realistic ambiance.
**Network** – the rise and fall of the ratings of the “Evening News – With Howard Beale” – at the 4th-ranked and 4th-rate “whorehouse network,” UBS, after a new executive producer (Fay Dunaway) shakes things up in the old boys’ club. Classic.
\*\*The Mean Season \*\* – crime thriller set in mid-80’s Miami, with a serial killer cultivating a special relationship of sorts with a Miami Herald journalist (Kurt Russell), who is quite aware of the ethical complications of the arrangement. Too bad the gritty journalism nevertheless gets grounded down by the perfunctory workings of the crime-thriller plot mechanics.
\*\*Switching Channels \*\* – remake of the Ben Hecht screwball “The Front Page,” updated from a tabloid to a local TV news production staff; with Kathleen Turner and Christopher Reeve gamely doing their best with some gamey material.
**Adaptation** – another Charley Kauffman-penned postmodern comedy, which is grounded loosely on an old-fashioned kernel of truth, with freelance writer Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) on the orchid-thief beat, for The New Yorker.
And two movies touching upon dubious forms of journalism, both featuring Andie McDowall:
\*\*Groundhog Day \*\* – local TV news crew does the same silly human-interest story, _ad infinitum_.
**Michael** – tabloid writers interview a guy (John Travolta) who’s said to be an angel. (I’ve never actually stuck with this one to see how it ends, so no review – but let’s just say it hasn’t exactly taken wing for me.)
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### Author:  [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/10 "2005-09-24T23:34:16Z")
> [@me](#):
>
> \*\*Charley Kauffman
:smack:
Charlie Kaufman. I meant to look it up. _Charley_, indeed. [snort]
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/11 "2005-09-24T23:36:09Z")
> [@The Scrivener](#):
>
> \*\*Switching Channels \*\* – remake of the Ben Hecht screwball “The Front Page,” updated from a tabloid to a local TV news production staff; with Kathleen Turner and Christopher Reeve gamely doing their best with some gamey material.
Ben Hecht was an interesting guy himself. He started out as a journalist, but had problems of the Glass/Blair variety and moved into short story and screenwriting.
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### Author:  [@priapus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/priapus)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/12 "2005-09-24T23:43:11Z")
Night Stalker…just kidding
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### Author:  [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/13 "2005-09-24T23:54:41Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Ben Hecht was an interesting guy himself. He started out as a journalist, but had problems of the Glass/Blair variety and moved into short story and screenwriting.
I didn’t know that. Considering the “anything goes” j-standards he depicted in his screenplays, that’s saying something!
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### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/14 "2005-09-24T23:58:10Z")
A Dispatch from Reuters An oldtime movie starring Edward G. Robinson
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/15 "2005-09-24T23:58:59Z")
> [@The Scrivener](#):
>
> I didn’t know that. Considering the “anything goes” j-standards he depicted in his screenplays, that’s saying something!
Yeah. I know several other famous writers went through the same thing - I guess reporting was too dull for them. I can’t think of any names right now, though.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2005, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-journalism-movies/323174/16 "2005-09-25T02:06:08Z")
> [@priapus](#):
>
> Night Stalker…just kidding
Hey, Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak could have stepped out of _The Front Page_.
😉