10 films about journalists worth watching

1. Hunt hunting

The Hunting Party

• USA, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mexico, 2007.
• Thriller, drama, melodrama, comedy, adventure, military.
• Duration: 100 minutes.
• IMDb: 6.2.

After an on-air breakdown, military journalist Simon Hunt disappears from radar for a long time. Five years later, his former cameraman Dak arrives in Sarajevo with a young reporter, Benjamin, to shoot a report on the peaceful everyday life of Bosnia.

Suddenly, Simon shows up and promises them sensational material. He convinces Duck that he knows where to find a Serbian war criminal nicknamed Lis, who is wanted by all the intelligence agencies of the world. A trio of journalists are sent deep into hostile territory, where they are mistaken for a CIA special squad.

Richard Shepard's screenplay originated from a real-life report by Scott Andersen for Esquire magazine. The article “How I Spent My Summer” told how several journalists arranged a safari in post-war Sarajevo on the former leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Karadzic. By pure chance, they managed to succeed in this business, due to the fact that they were mistaken for American

spies.

2. Newspaper

The Paper

• USA, 1994.
• Drama, comedy.
• Duration: 107 minutes.
• IMDb: 6.7.

Things are not going well at the New York Sun office. Unexpectedly, Editor-in-Chief Alicia Clark gets her hands on a sensational front-page story. It is about a murder in which two young guys are accused. Torn between work and family, editor Henry Hackett must double-check before the text becomes editorial.

The Newspaper occupies a modest place in the filmography of Ron Howard, director of A Beautiful Mind and The Grinch Stole Christmas. But the tape is worth watching for everyone who intends to connect their lives with journalism, - all the difficulties of this work are perfectly shown here.

3. private war

A Private War

• UK, USA, 2018.
• Drama, military, biography.
• Duration: 110 minutes.
• IMDb: 6.8.

Military journalist Mary Colvin travels to Sri Lanka, where the Tamil Tigers are blocking humanitarian aid. There, she is almost killed, and she also loses an eye. The woman has to return home, where she notices that she has become limited in her movements. Now the heroine will have to re-learn many simple things.

The film is based on the biography of the fearless American journalist Mary Colvin, who covered almost all major military conflicts around the world. The image of this extraordinary woman was perfectly embodied by Rosamund Pike. She showed her heroine at first glance as a cynical, but in fact - a vulnerable person who has not lost the ability to sympathize.

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4. Give me a complaint book

• USSR, 1965.
• Comedy.
• Duration: 91 minutes.
• IMDb: 7.1.

In the Moscow restaurant "Dandelion" everything is bad, from food to service. The situation would not have moved from a dead point if the smiling journalist Yura Nikitin had not been among the clients, who ended up in the police through the fault of the workers. The hero writes a caustic feuilleton about the institution, which causes a serious public outcry.

Subsequently, Nikitin falls in love with the director of this restaurant, a young and inexperienced Tatyana Shumova. Together, the couple decides to turn Dandelion into a model institution. But there are many bureaucratic obstacles in their way.

One of the early works Eldara Ryazanova, created in the spirit of the cartoons of the Crocodile magazine, is usually remembered less often than his other tapes. But the film pleases with a galaxy of favorite Soviet actors. There is even a trio of characters invented by Gaidai - Coward, Dunce and Experienced, played by Georgy Vitsin, Yuri Nikulin and Evgeny Morgunov. And in the plot they have small but funny roles.

5. Stephen Glass Affair

Shattered Glass

• USA, Canada, 2003.
• Drama, biography, history.
• Duration: 99 minutes.
• IMDb: 7.1.

Aspiring journalist Stephen Glass joins the prestigious The New Republic magazine. He quickly becomes one of the leading authors due to the ability not only to write smartly and interestingly, but also to get incredible stories.

But one day, a new employee of the magazine notices in Glass's article about the young hackerwho brought a large corporation to its knees, something is wrong. He decides to check the text for accuracy and finds out that the situation is fictitious, and the characters are not real.

Let's dilute the string of honest journalists who meticulously and carefully get to the bottom of the truth with a picture about a scoundrel reporter. The hero of Hayden Christensen is as far as possible from Woodward and Bernstein from All the President's Men. His image is a reflection of the new journalistic reality, in which being able to make a sensation out of everything is much more important than creating good material.

By the way, the real Steven Glass, after the shameful exposure, corrected himself and vowed never to lie again in his life. He broke this rule only once, when he had to hide from friends disease his wife.

6. Secret dossier

The Post

• USA, UK, 2017.
• Drama, history.
• Duration: 116 minutes.
• IMDb: 7.2.

At the height of the Vietnam War, analyst Daniel Ellsberg, frustrated that the state was cheating own citizens, illegally copies secret Pentagon documents and leaks them to The New York newspaper times. And their colleagues from The Washington Post can only bite their elbows.

But after editor Ben Bradley and publisher Katherine Graham get their own access to the Ellsberg dossier, they are faced with a dilemma, because the government can simply destroy their newspaper. The matter is further complicated by the fact that for Katherine, some of the defendants in the case are not faceless officials, but old friends.

In 2017-2018, Steven Spielberg two very different films were released with a minimal break: the bright science fiction film Ready Player One and the drama Secret File about the leak of important information during the years of the Vietnam War. And the latter touched on many topical issues.

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7. French Herald. Supplement to the newspaper "Liberty. Kansas Evening Sun"

The French Dispatch

• USA, Germany, 2021.
• Drama, melodrama, comedy.
• Duration: 107 minutes.
• IMDb: 7.3.

In his incredibly beautiful film, Wes Anderson confesses his love for France and the legendary magazine The New Yorker, which published such great authors as Truman Capote and Vladimir Nabokov. And also - high-quality journalism of the old school.

The plot is built around the French branch of the newspaper Liberty. Kansas Evening Sun." After the death of its editor-in-chief, the publication, according to the will of the deceased, is closed. And the latest issue contains articles from past years: about the artist-prisoner and his muse-guard, student a riot on the streets of the town of Annouy-sur-Blaise and a chef whose son is kidnapped by bandits.

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8. All the presidential army

All the President's Men

• USA, 1976
• Thriller, drama, history.
• Duration: 138 minutes.
• IMDb: 8.0.

The Washington Post correspondents Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are assigned to write material about the arrest of five people who broke into the headquarters of the US Democratic Party in a hotel "Watergate". It turns out that the attackers have a connection with the CIA, and their goal was to wiretap competitors.

"All the President's Men" received four Oscars, including for the screenplay. And since then, it has been regularly included in the lists of the best films about journalism. Based on a book written by Woodward and Bernstein as a result of their investigation. At one time, it was this that led to the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation in 1974 president US Richard Nixon.

By the way, initially the studio bosses did not believe in the success of the tape. But the authors managed to revive the dry historical plot and showed the routine journalistic work as an exciting thriller.

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9. In the spotlight

Spotlight

• USA, 2015.
• Drama, crime, biography.
• Duration: 129 minutes.
• IMDb: 8.1.

One of America's most respected newspapers, The Boston Globe, has a new editor, Marty Baron. First of all, he throws his best forces - a special investigation department called Spotlight - into clearing up the story of a pedophile priest. Pulling a string, reporters discover that the Boston diocese of the Catholic Church is literally teeming with child molesters.

The Oscar-winning drama "Spotlight" is based on real events, with the active participation of the journalists themselves, now laureates Pulitzer Prize. Unlike The President's Men, Tom McCarthy's film does not turn into a thriller and does not go beyond the production drama. On the contrary, the director tries to emphasize the everyday work of reporters.

Most of the running time is occupied by telephone conversations, interviews with victims, and attempts to get the necessary materials. It sounds boring, but the picture 100% copes with the task of captivating the viewer.

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10. Ace up the sleeve

Ace in the Hole

• USA, 1951.
• Film noir, drama.
• Duration: 111 minutes.
• IMDb: 8.1.

Ambitious journalist Chuck Tatum, fired from all decent publishing houses, is ready to make a sensational story out of anything. When he comes up with a story about entrepreneur Leo Minos stuck in a cave, Tatum convinces rescuers to act as slowly as possible so that he has time to write more articles and how to inflate this topic.

"Ace in the Hole" became the first personal project Billy Wilder, where he himself acted as a screenwriter, director and producer. The plot was inspired by two real sensational tragedies. In the first case, amateur speleologist Floyd Collins was trapped in a cave in 1925, and his rescue turned from a terrifying situation into a real farce.

In the second, which took place shortly before the film's release, in 1949, three-year-old Katie Fiscus fell into an abandoned well and live television broadcasts were made from the scene of the rescue operation. In both cases, the victims died before they were rescued.

Billy Wilder masterfully recreated the atmosphere of general insanity, inflated by the press. Moreover, the film is relevant to this day: let the words "hype” did not exist then, but it is it that is best suited to describe the activities of the hero Kirk Douglas.