English author and filmmaker Alex Garland's hyped 2024 release "Civil War" is out in cinemas right now, and the film's main characters — played by Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny and Stephen McKinley Henderson — are a mix of photojournalists and reporters who're documenting the collapse of America.

Movies about journalists, and the media sphere in general, are not a popular phenomenon — but over the years, many writers, reporters, anchors, investigators and even good old-fashioned plagiarists have become the stars of excellent films.

From talking heads on TV to print news, here's a sampling of movies that immerse you in all the action that comes with being part of the media circus. Let us know in the comments if we forgot your favorite.

TV News

There aren't enough movies that tackle broadcast news anchors and what it takes to put on live show, day in and day out. You'd think there would be more drama to uncover, shining light on the steps that it takes to cover current events, but such scenes have been far and few. However, the ones we do have are all-timers. "Broadcast News" is one of the best rom-coms ever made, "Anchorman" ranks as one of the best comedies ever made and "Network" might have the best screenplay ever written. Not too shabby for movies with weathermen in them.

• "Broadcast News" (1987)
• "The Insider" (1999)
• "Bombshell" (2019)
• "Anchorman" (2004)
• "Network" (1976)
• "Groundhog Day" (1993)

Print journalism

Newspapers are still powering along, despite every attempt to replace them with websites and apps. Most of the films based on print media — from the most dramatic and high profile of stories (Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane") to ridiculous and zany goofs ("His Girl Friday") — center on individual characters, like a star reporter or print moguls. And if you're not into Pulitzer Prize-winning investigations like the one from "Spotlight," might we recommend the criminally underrated true story of writer Stephen Glass and his downfall from making up stories for The New Republic. It's Hayden Christensen's best performance.

• "Shattered Glass" (2003)
• "Spotlight" (2015)
• "She Said" (2022)
• "Ace in the Hole" (1951)
• "Citizen Kane" (1941)
• "His Girl Friday" (1940)
• "The French Dispatch" (2021)

Historical

Why bother coming up something unnecessarily dramatic when you can just take a look at history, and the people who covered it? When people think of journos, they still think of Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford smoking cigarettes in a newsroom, taking down Nixon in "All the President's Men." To a certain extent, that is still what reporters do (maybe minus smoking indoors), but there are a ton of great historical dramas that cover stuff from the '50s up till the '70s — an era with plenty of stories of wars and rock stars.

• "The Post" (2017)
• "All the President's Men" (1976)
• "Frost/Nixon" (2008)
• "Good Night, and Good Luck" (2005)
• "Almost Famous" (2000)
• "The Killing Fields" (1984)
• "Good Morning Vietnam" (1987)

Thrillers

My personal favorite subgenre of journalism movies are the paranoid and legal thrillers. Reporting on political cover-ups, gruesome serial killers and assassination attempts are extreme situations, and they often deserve extreme characters. These films are exceptionally tense, very well made, fun, scary and reveal how hard it is to cover sensitive and controversial (or super dangerous) subject matter.

• "The Parallax View" (1974)
• "The Pelican Brief" (1993)
• "The China Syndrome" (1979)
• "Nightcrawler" (2014)
• "Zodiac" (2007)
• "Civil War" (2024)

[Image: YouTube]