📰 As journalists, news junkies, and people who live and breathe the inner workings of a newsroom, we love the New Yorker… and we loved this documentary. Narrated by actress Julianne Moore, the documentary is, in essence, a charming love letter to the iconic magazine and the city of New York. If you appreciate one or both, you’ll find yourself smiling throughout the 97-minute runtime.

The New Yorker at 100 takes viewers behind the scenes of the magazine’s newsroom, creative process, and editorial decisions as staff work toward the centennial issue. The story is told through the New Yorker’s 5th editor, David Remnick, and a roster of Hollywood celebrities and celebrity writers who launched their careers at the New Yorker. Actors like Sarah Jessica Parker and Jon Hamm, whose television and real-life personas are closely associated with the city of New York, make appearances. The documentary also includes archival footage of cultural figures like James Baldwin and Truman Capote, who are part of the New Yorker’s rich legacy.

Even if you’ve never read a word in the New Yorker, you know what its covers look like — they are a master class in establishing visual identity. Most interesting to us were the parts of the documentary that featured veteran New Yorker staff members like Françoise Mouly, who has been art editor for the past 32 years. “A cover needs to speak to the moment but also be a timeless piece of art that can be framed and put on a wall,” says Mouly about the intricate process that goes into creating and selecting a New Yorker cover. “For 100 years, we have never run a photo cover or a cover featuring a celebrity, and never will,” vows Remnick.

And let’s not forget the cartoons. The New Yorker was founded by Harold Ross in 1925 as a sophisticated humor magazine aimed at an elite audience, so cartoons as social commentary have been, and continue to be, an integral component of the editorial vision. Legendary staff cartoonist Roz Chast makes an appearance to talk about her creative process.

The fundamental message of the documentary is: as hundreds of magazines and newspapers struggle to survive, the New Yorker is doing just fine, and here’s why. Interestingly, the documentary shows us a 29-person fact-checking department making phone calls and marking up copy by hand, and doesn’t mention a word about the use of AI — it’s old school journalism on full display. Long live Eustace Tilley, the dapper, monocle‑wearing 20th-century gentleman who has been the New Yorker’s mascot for 100 years.

WHERE TO WATCH- You can stream The New Yorker at 100 on Netflix, or watch the trailer on YouTube (runtime: 2:13).

Tags: