Newspapers on The Big Screen: Media's potrayal of newspapers over time
Granted, this longtime newspaper employee is a little biased about this topic, but newspapers have rarely gotten the credit they deserved in pop culture.
Newspapers were the vehicles that drove daily water cooler discussions about current events and politics. Newspapers kept our politicians honest, made sure the giants of capitalism were looking out for the little guy and heaped credit where credit was due.
Occasionally, Hollywood would glorify the hardworking newspaper journalists of the world with works of fiction or biographical nonfiction. Here are a few examples:
The Front Page, 1931, 1974
The Caddo Company
Starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O’Brien and pro-duced by Howard Hughes. Based on a Broadway play.
The star reporter of a large daily newspaper intends to retire, but he’s too valuable to the editor in charge. The editor tricks him into covering one final big story about an escaped convict. The film earned three Academy Award nominations.
This film was reworked into “His Girl Friday” in 1940, remade into a comedy under its original title in 1974 starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and remade again in 1988 as “Switching Channels,” set in a cable TV newsroom and starring Burt Reynolds, Kathleen Turner and Christopher Reeve.
His Girl Friday, 1940
Columbia Picture
A “screwball comedy” starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell and directed by Howard Hawks.
This remake of “The Front Page” changes the gender of the star reporter and shows her as the ex-wife of her editor. Not only does her editor want her to stay on staff, he also wants to win her back into marriage.
But she plans to marry another guy, played by Ralph Bellamy. At one point, Grant is describing his reporter’s suitor and says: “He looks like that fellow in the movies. You know: Ralph Bellamy.”
When Russell and Grant’s characters remarry, they change their Niagara Falls honeymoon plans so they can cover a labor dispute in Albany, New York.
Deadline U.S.A, 1952
20th Century Fox
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore, Kim Hunter and Ed Begley.
A tough-as-nails editor races to publish constantly changing stories about a crime conspiracy in the three issues his paper will publish before the owners shut the place down.
The story was based on the real-life closure of the New York Sun in 1950.
“Deadline USA” was filmed in the newsroom and printing plant of the New York Daily News, with real journalists and pressmen playing themselves. Twenty-six years later, another film set in a newspaper was filmed in that same building: the 1978 version of “Superman.”
Park Row, 1952
United Artists
Starring Gene Evans, Mary Welch and Bela Kovacs and written and directed by Samuel Fuller.
Two newspaper publishers — one well-established and a brash, new but innovative publisher — battle in 1886 for readers. But gangsters get involved in the competition, beating up employees and destroying printing presses.
Movie studios suggested Fuller turn his story into a musical or set it in the present. Rather than compromise his vision, Fuller funded the movie out of his own pocket. The movie was a critical success, but financially, not so much.
The title refers to a Manhattan street that major New York newspapers called home.
All The President's Men, 1976
Warner Bros.
Starring Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Jack Warden and Hal Holbrook.
The first nonfiction film on our list tells the story of Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they investigate and report on the events that kicked off the Watergate scandal.
Woodward held secret meetings in a parking deck with “Deep Throat,” their insider source (that turned out to be deputy director of the FBI).
Post editor Ben Bradlee wanted George C. Scott to play him, but Robards was hired instead. Robards won an Academy Award for his performance — one of three Oscars the film earned.
The Paper, 1994
Imagine Entertainment
Starring Michael Keaton, Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei and Randy Quaid and directed by Ron Howard.
Twenty four hours in the life of the editor of a New York City tabloid editor who juggles tight deadlines, a huge scandal of a story, his reporter wife having a baby and a nice job offer from a larger paper.
Howard strived to work in as many details as he could. He said he studied newspaper movies from the 1930s and 1940s to make this film. “Every studio made them, and then they kind of vanished,” Howard told the New York Times. “One of the reasons I thought it would make a good movie today is that it feels fresh and different.”
Spotlight, 2015
Participant Media
Starring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber and John Slattery.
The true story of how a team from the Boston Globe uncovered a child molestation scandal within the area Catholic Archdiocese.
Excuse me, please, as I lapse into the first person for this one: Twice, I interviewed for jobs at the Boston Globe and I have friends who worked there. This film is the closest you’ll ever see portraying a real newsroom. Schreiber was downright scary in how accurately he portrayed Globe editor Marty Baron.
The Post, 2017
20th Century Fox
Starring Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and Sarah Paulson and directed by Stephen Spielberg.
The true story of how the Washington Post, publisher Katherine Graham, and editor Ben Bradlee joined in the 1971 effort to publish findings from a set of leaked classified documents that became known as the Pentagon Papers.
The Pentagon Papers were first published in the New York Times, which won a Pulitzer Prize for its series of stories. Times staffers and former staffers criticized this film for not emphasizing that.
“The Post” was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Comma Connects, 2026
Kathy Plonka - The Spokesman-Review
Rob Curley plays a sharp-thinking editor of a news-paper that’s morphing into a nonprofit organization.
Oh, wait. That’s not a movie! That’s really happening!
Curley is hosting “Newspapers in Movies Night” at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Bing Crosby Theater.
Tickets are free but you’ll need a ticket to enter the theater. The suggested donation of $10 per ticket will directly benefit the Comma Community Journalism Lab: You can find it here