The ten best TV shows and films about journalists of the last 70 years
Last night saw the first episode of Lowdown, the ABC’s new comedy drama about journalists.
We didn’t love it. But it did create a debate about the best films and TV shows about journalists of all time.
This is Mumbrella’s list:
1. All The President’s Men – 1976
Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as The Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who helped bring down Nixon over the Watergate scandal back in the days when reports knew shorthand and phones still had rotary dials. Still the best case for the importance of journalism to democracy ever put on film
2. Press Gang – 1989-1993
Beloved by any journalist who worked in the early 1990s, and more recently enjoying a second life on Seven’s digital channel. It featured the charged relationship on a student paper between editor Linda Day (Julia Sawalha) and Spike Thompson (Dexter Fletcher). It was the first script from Steven Moffatt, who has just taken over producing Doctor Who.
3. The Paper – 1994
Michael Keaton starred as the driven metro editor of the New York Sun, Marisa Tomei as his story getting pregnant wife. This comedy could have been a repository of every tabloid cliche, but the 24-hours-in-the-life is a love letter to popular journalism. Just wait til the presses roll at the end
4. State of Play (BBC TV version) – 2003
The moment that gives this BBC mini-series its realistic touch is when you spot that hack Cal McCaffrey (John Simm) keeps his UK Press Gazette award in his desk drawer – far more realistic than on the wall. Also brilliant is Bill Nighy as a splendidly profane editor. A splendid feature of the film for fans of Life On Mars is the series of scenes involving Simm opposite Philip Glenister, who plays a police detective not unlike the 70s copper Gene Hunt he later played so well.
5. Broadcast News – 1987
Want to understand the difference between writing the news and reading the news? Salary, looks and brains are three factors. All are explained in this brilliant comedy with Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks and William Hurt (along with a brief cameo from Jack Nicholson).
6. State of Play (movie version) – 2009
Film remakes are rarely as good as the original, but this one came close. Russell Crowe – famous for his distaste for journalists – did a good job as crumpled Cal McCaffrey, and the story transplanted itself well to the US. It’s possibly the first movie to intelligently tackle the rise of online and its challenge for print, with McCaffrey taking a young blogger (Rachel McAdams) under his wing. Helen Mirren (“Fuck you very much” becomes the sweary editor. It’s also another movie where the presses rolling through the end credits will bring a lump to the throat of many hacks.
7. His Girl Friday – 1940
Cary Grant plays a wily editor opposite star reporter and ex-wife Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell). Based on a 1928 play The Front Page which was itself a movie, it was also something of an inspiration for The Paper. Underhand tabloid competition is nothing new.
8. Drop The Dead Donkey – 1990-1998
Cynical journos from a TV news network invent the news and behave in a generally blackhearted fashion. “And in the rubble, a child’s teddy bear…”
9. The Insider – 1999
Another appearance for Russell Crowe, this time as Al Pacino’s source in a based-on-a-true story tale of big tobacco’s lies over public health and attempt to expose them by CBS 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman.
10. Frontline – 1994-1997
One of the comedy series that still sets the standard for Australian television, in much the same way as Drop The Dead Donkey, the ABC’s Frontline satirised current affairs shows, showing the manipulative journalism that goes on. Many of the plotlines were based on real events.
- There are lots of films and TV series where journalism wasn’t the central element – everything from Superman to The Pelican Brief to The Day The Earth Caught Fire – and we haven’t included them in our list. But we’re bound to have missed some that should have made it. What would you have included? And what would be your number one?
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
Linkedin
I’d include the original 1931 Front Page, which I think is better than His Girl Friday.
User ID not verified.
Great list.
But how about Network?
User ID not verified.
Good suggestion, Grog. That was on our list of nearly-made-its.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Good list – but the top of my pops would be the Sweet Smell of Success and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Press Gang re-runs you say? Best reason to pack in gainful employment and watch Seven yet….
User ID not verified.
Great list, but missing my No. 1:
George Clooney’s Good Night And Good Luck is the most inspiring film about the meaning and power of journalism that I’ve ever seen.
User ID not verified.
Haha – the execrable “Up Close and Personal” failed to make the grade!
What about Scoop though? Not that I’ve seen it, but there is a TV version of it (1987). I haven’t seen it, but the original novel should be the training bible for every young journalist.
User ID not verified.
Phillip Noyce’s Newsfront is a good one for this list.
User ID not verified.
ROSEBUD!
User ID not verified.
The Russell Crowe remake of State of Play was woeful compared to the TV series. And Frontline should be up much higher. Apart from that, good list.
User ID not verified.
caught a surprise snippet of press gang the other morning… legendary. Can’t beat that American accent
User ID not verified.
Drop the Dead Donkey is #1 for me. Brilliant!
User ID not verified.
What? No ‘Fletch’?
User ID not verified.
Deadline USA with Humprey Bogart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgdE-qPv6kw
User ID not verified.
I know you’re all going to groan… but what about Murphy Brown????
User ID not verified.
Sydney Pollack’s “Absence of Malice has to be up there for me. Alonog with all the Superman and Spiderman movies.
User ID not verified.
@aj, yes it was the best bad American accent ever.
Press Gang was great when I was a kid and is terribly dated by today’s standards. But still well written.
State of Play (the movie) although good, felt too much at times like it wanted to be All the Presidents Men, the ultimate journalism movie.
User ID not verified.
TV’s “Just Shoot Me”, undoubtedly one of the sharpest and bitingly witty insight into the minds and of journalists and the spaces, both physical and metaphysical, that they enjoy. Plus that David Spade is just hil-arious!
User ID not verified.
Citizen Kane
User ID not verified.
Great list Tim, but I agree that Newsfront should be in there too – it seems especially poignant now in the way it captures journalism in a state of transition, and it’s one of Phil Noyce’s finest films. Lawrie
User ID not verified.
C’mon – Scoop, and Good Night, Good Luck…and what about the more recent Frost/Nixon!!!
User ID not verified.
The Hunting Party with Richard Gere.
More for entertainment than genuine journalistic insight though. Also shows what a farce the ‘search’ for international war criminals actually is!
Osama bin who?
User ID not verified.
Would have had Good Night And Good Luck for sure, and perhaps Frost/Nixon (so ditto # 20 essentially)
User ID not verified.
Shattered Glass is my pick despite the awful title.
User ID not verified.