10 Films About Journalism That Every Foreign Correspondent Should Watch

Film is a powerful medium with the ability to amuse, enthrall, thrill, move, and inspire audiences. The overwhelming majority of us have films we consider our favorites for having left an indelible mark on us in some way. Journalists are no stranger to this and there are quite a few significant films out there that have captured the trials, tribulations, and even the humor of their profession.

I’ve always been a writer and my appreciation for journalism and the written word stemmed at least in part—aside from many trips to the library—from the influence of my uncle Jorge Herrera, a noted author and radio broadcaster whose long career in the medium endeared him to members of the Dominican Republic’s political elite. However, I have always been a film aficionado and voracious movie collector, devouring works of wildly different tastes and topics.

Naturally, I inevitably came across films that explored journalism to varying degrees. There were of course the laughs I enjoyed while watching Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934), a screwball comedy about a heiress on the run (Claudette Colbert) and the rogue reporter (Clark Gable) who falls in love with her. And who could forget the recent She Said (2022), about the two brave women journalists (played by Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan respectively) who exposed sexual abuse allegations against powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein? These films and more continue to inform my understanding of journalism as a career as well as a vocation.

At its most sobering, journalism holds the powerful to account. The following list contains films I consider essential viewing for any journalist but particularly the foreign ones the Association of Foreign Correspondents in the United States (AFPC-USA) represents.

The Parallax View (1974, Alan J. Pakula)

The recent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump will no doubt resound through your brain as you watch this masterfully unsettling piece about the assassination of a presidential candidate and the major corporation that might have orchestrated the event. Suspicions are high and associates keep turning up dead as reporter Joe (a stoic Warren Beatty) investigates a vast conspiracy. He becomes progressively more aware that he’s stumbled upon more danger than he’s ever dealt with in his life. Perhaps no other character holds as much sway over the narrative as Lee Carter (a riveting Paula Prentiss), a witness to the assassination who knows more than she should. The Parallax View is an engaging film that, much like The Conversation (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), and The China Syndrome (1979) captures the paranoia that flowed through the America of the 1970s.

Ace in the Hole (1951, Billy Wilder)

Ace in the Hole, starring Kirk Douglas and Jan Sterling, is noteworthy for being director Wilder’s first project as a writer, producer, and director. Having made his name in film noir (he is responsible for the 1944 classic Double Indemnity), Ace in the Hole, his first venture after 1950’s Sunset Boulevard, was both a critical and commercial failure. The story of a frustrated journalist who will do anything for a killer story, the film can best be described as a gathering of rats and snakes, each party eager to capitalize on the media circus after a prominent local man becomes trapped in a cave. It’s a biting, cynical affair elevated by the performances of Douglas, Sterling, and a supporting cast featuring Robert Arthur, Porter Hall, Frank Cady, and Richard Benedict.

All the President’s Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula)

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men (Warner Bros).

Director Pakula makes another appearance on this list, which should tell you where his storytelling interests lay. Although he would continue to enjoy success with the Oscar-nominated films Comes a Horseman (1978), Starting Over (1979), and particularly Sophie’s Choice (1982), All the President’s Men was his career zenith, a must-watch for any admirers of the impeccable work Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did to uncover the details behind the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. This is not much of a thriller; it’s a procedural that some viewers might find boring. But for journalists, there is a thrill in putting all the necessary puzzle pieces together to form a complete whole, one that here serves as a monument to the power of democracy and a free press. Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford are aces as the respective Woodward and Bernstein alongside an all-star supporting cast that includes Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook, Jane Alexander, and Jason Robards as Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee.

The Post (2017, Steven Spielberg)

Speaking of The Washington Post, this film is definitely worth watching for its exploration into the circumstances that contributed to political activist Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers, top-secret documentation of the U.S. government’s political and military involvement in Vietnam. The documents revealed that the U.S.—despite heavy condemnation and protests—had secretly expanded its operations in Vietnam and that even senior officials were skeptical of the war’s aims despite supporting it publicly. Matthew Rhys (The Americans) is marvelously envigorated as Ellsberg though what the film ultimately succeeds at is its clinical, even quiet examination of the decision-making between the newspaper’s publisher Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) and executive editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks). The Post demonstrates exactly why the media is despised by tyrants and despots and its release in 2017 served as a timely response to attacks on the free press by former President Trump, who has often referred to the press as “the enemy of the people.”

Spotlight (2015, Tom McCarthy)

Spotlight chronicles the exhaustive investigation conducted by Boston Globe reporters into the coverup of widespread and systemic child sex abuse by priests of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. Despite featuring an all-star cast of performers including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, and John Slattery—to say nothing of the other talents who populate this production—the film is notably slow and deliberate in its pacing, eschewing glitz and glamour in favor of quieter moments. Spotlight is a film that employs great sensitivity for the subject matter and survivors’ stories. The winner of two Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay respectively, it is a must-see for any journalist.

She Said (2022, Maria Schrader)

Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan in She Said (Universal Pictures).

No story propelled the #MeToo Movement more than the exposure of numerous sexual abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein’s campaign of terror ultimately created the Weinstein Effect, a phenomenon that Refinery29 described as "the culture of silence that protects powerful men being rapidly eroded.” But that tipping point—which included responses from such performers as Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Uma Thurman—would not have been reached without the efforts of journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, played in the film by Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan respectively. But in order to write the New York Times exposé that ultimately ended Weinstein’s career, the women had to delve into Hollywood’s sinister underbelly. The film offers a lot of insight into secondary trauma and conducts itself with grace that honors the fourth estate.

Absence of Malice (1981, Sydney Pollack)

Absence of Malice is a film about the principles journalists live by, principles that are challenged by ethically-challenged reporters such as Megan Carter, played here by two-time Academy Award-winner Sally Field. After a corrupt prosecutor (Bob Balaban) provides information that implicates liquor wholesaler Michael Gallagher (Paul Newman) in the murder and disappearance of a local longshoreman union president, Gallagher’s life falls apart. The film is notable for its statements about journalistic responsibility, spotlighting an unscrupulous reporter whose failure to abide by this responsibility has terrible consequences. Absence of Malice ultimately asks viewers—and the press—to consider all that must be considered when handed a big scoop. The film features an Academy Award-nominated performance by Melinda Dillion as the film’s moral compass.

His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks)

This is one of the greatest screwball comedies ever made and it’s anchored by tour-de-force performances from Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. The story follows a newspaper editor who employs every measure he can to keep his ex-wife and star reporter from marrying another man. Is it unethical? Yes. Is it funny? Absolutely. The screenplay, adapted from the 1928 play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, is deliciously witty and makes great use of its two leads, who display remarkable chemistry. Just don’t do anything the characters in this film do in your own newsroom—chances are you won’t be as fortunate as these two, who encompass all the joys of the comedies of the 1940s.

His Girl Friday had a profound influence on the Coen Brothers’ The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), which, while not on this list for the sake of brevity, is well worth viewing.

The Killing Fields (1984, Roland Joffe)

Haing S. Ngor and Sam Waterston in The Killing Fields (Columbia-EMI-Warner Distributors).

The Killing Fields was one of the stars of the 57th Academy Awards, winning prizes for Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Supporting Actor for Haing S. Ngor, who had no previous acting experience at the time. The film, based on the experiences of two journalists trapped in Cambodia who must navigate a deadly environment during Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s cleansing campaign, is striking in its honesty and limited sentimentality. Drama and horror go hand in hand in this story that is in part about the human price of American involvement that ultimately destabilized Cambodia.

The making of the film was a deeply personal experience for Ngor, who survived several terms in a concentration camp after the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh and expelled millions of its inhabitants. Ngor dedicated his life to humanitarian work after winning his Academy Award though he continued to make appearances in multiple projects. Tragically, Ngor was shot dead outside his home in 1996 by members of a street gang after refusing to part with a locket that contained a photo of his late wife, who died with the couple’s unborn child after going into labor during their internment.

The Year of Living Dangerously (1982, Peter Weir)

Weir, best known for directing such classics as Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Truman Show (1998), handles this engrossing story, about a young foreign correspondent named Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) who finds himself in over his head at the onset of Indonesia’s notorious mass killings, with considerable aplomb. Political intrigue is the name of the game here, characterized by Hamilton’s affair with the British diplomat Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver). The film is a riveting experience that balances tension and cynicism, providing a window into the lives of Indonesians impacted by the killings of supposed sympathizers of the Communist Party (PKI) in its first half. The second half navigates the complicated emotions of foreign correspondents and Western diplomats who self-medicate amid horror and chaos.

The Year of Living Dangerously features an Academy Award-winning performance by Linda Hunt as journalist Billy Kwan. Hunt is the first person to win an Academy Award for portraying a character of the opposite sex.