Film
Best of Enemies
A 2015 documentary about the 1968 televised debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr.—two brilliant, vicious intellectuals whose on-air collisions invented modern political theater. It's a love letter to language and argument, shot through with unease about what we lost when spectacle ate substance. For anyone who thinks debate used to mean something.
If you liked this
The Social Dilemma2020
A documentary about how technology platforms have hijacked human attention and fractured democratic discourse. It extends the thread Best of Enemies pulls—how media shapes what we argue about and how we argue.
But Heavy-handed at moments, with some overwrought dramatization that undercuts its own message about sensationalism.
Hackers1995
A stylish, kinetic film about smart people in the 1990s arguing fiercely about power, information, and who controls the narrative. It captures that same electric energy when intellect and theater collide on screen.
But The fashion and slang have dated hard, and the plot is less important than the vibe—which won't work for everyone.
The King's Speech2010
Two men with irreconcilable styles forced to work together, filmed with gorgeous attention to language and the terror of public speech. The intimacy is the opposite register from Vidal and Buckley, but the core conflict is similar.
But Emotionally manipulative and occasionally saccharine. It wants you to feel things in very obvious ways.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Best of Enemies
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Midnight in Paris2011
Both are celebrations of intellectual sparring as performance art; both suggest that the quality of an era can be measured by the caliber of argument happening in it.
A romantic fantasy where a protagonist travels back to the 1920s and finds himself in conversation with the writers and artists of that era—Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein. Like Best of Enemies, it luxuriates in language, wit, and the belief that great minds in conversation is the highest human pleasure.
But Precious and self-indulgent. If you find Woody Allen's nostalgia cloying, this film drowns in it.
More like this (6)
The West Wing1999
Aaron Sorkin's high-speed, dialogue-obsessed series about people who believe rhetoric and argument matter. It's what happens when you fall in love with the sound of intelligent people talking.
But Aggressively idealistic and self-satisfied. If you find Sorkin's voice grating, seven seasons is a long sentence.
All the President's Men1976
A procedural about two journalists uncovering truth through dogged work and argument. It's about institutions where ideas and evidence still seemed to carry weight—a useful contrast to the spectacle Vidal and Buckley pioneered.
But Slow and methodical; some find it more interesting as history than as cinema.
Singin' in the Rain1952
A masterpiece about the moment media (film) consumed and remade human ambition and truth-telling. Like Best of Enemies, it's a joyful, razor-sharp film about how spectacle becomes the thing itself.
But It's a musical. If that's not your pleasure, nothing here will change your mind.
Medium Cool1969
A fiction film shot in 1968 Chicago, about cameras and power and what happens when media watches the real world. It's a raw, strange companion to Best of Enemies about that exact moment and what television was becoming.
But Avant-garde and elliptical. It requires patience and will frustrate anyone wanting a conventional narrative.
La Haine1995
Both are dissections of how argument and rhetoric reveal the buried structures of power in a society; both use language as the primary dramatic tool.
A French film in black and white about three young men from the suburbs, cycling through arguments about race, power, and society in 1995 Paris. Visceral and urgent in ways Best of Enemies is reflective, but it shares that obsession with how people speak and what their speech reveals about the world they inhabit.
But Bleak and linguistically rapid-fire (subtitles move fast). It offers no comfort and no resolution.
The Sunset Limited2011
Both believe that argument itself is drama; both suggest that watching two people of genuine intellect genuinely disagree is worth your full attention.
A dialogue-only film (adapted from Cormac McCarthy) where two men—one Black, one white, one religious, one nihilist—sit in a room and argue about meaning, suicide, and God for ninety minutes. It's Best of Enemies stripped of spectacle: pure argument, no cameras, just two people trying to persuade each other of fundamentally different worldviews.
But Talking heads for an hour and a half. No plot, no music, no movement. If you need external action to stay engaged, this will feel like a lecture.
People
Cast
Gore VidalSelf
Kelsey GrammerVoice of William F. Buckley
John LithgowVoice of Gore Vidal
Dick CavettSelf
Noam ChomskySelf (archival)- Reid BuckleySelf
Andrew SullivanSelf- Todd GitlinSelf
- Brooke GladstoneSelf
Paul NewmanSelf (archival)
Directing
- Morgan NevilleDirector
- Robert GordonDirector
Writing
- Morgan NevilleWriter
- Robert GordonWriter
Production
- Julie GoldmanExecutive Producer
- Morgan NevilleProducer
- Robert GordonProducer