Film

Get Me Roger Stone

A gleeful, unapologetic portrait of the self-declared 'agent provocateur' who's been rigging elections and burning bridges since Nixon. Stone talks himself up so hard the film barely needs a narrator — it just gets out of his way and lets the tattoos, the ego, and the dirty tricks speak. Equal parts horror show and character study, it's less biography than confession delivered with a wink.

TMDb rating7.0

If you liked this

Weiner2016

Anthony Weiner let cameras inside his own implosion, and the result is the same queasy thrill as watching Stone talk — a man convinced his own charisma can outrun his mistakes.

But The secondhand embarrassment is relentless; if you find political self-destruction exhausting rather than fascinating, this will wear you down fast.

Weiner poster

The War Room1993

The gold standard of campaign documentaries, all adrenaline and cigarette smoke, following Clinton's 1992 war room — the earnest, idealistic mirror image of everything Stone represents.

But It's a period piece now, and its optimism about political machinery might feel almost naive after everything since.

The War Room poster

Vice2018

Christian Bale disappears into Dick Cheney in this gleefully stylised biopic about a man who spent decades pulling levers from the shadows and never once apologised.

But The fourth-wall-breaking cleverness can feel smug, and its politics are worn firmly on its sleeve.

Vice poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Act of Killing2012

Stone brags about dirty tricks with a grin; this film pushes that same instinct — a man narrating his own worst acts as heroism — to its full, horrifying conclusion.

Indonesian death squad leaders re-enact their own killings for the camera, performing their legend with the same eerie showmanship — this is what happens when a self-mythologiser has nothing left to lose.

But It is genuinely disturbing and morally exhausting; this is not a film to watch for entertainment, and it will sit with you.

The Act of Killing poster
More like this (8)

American Dharma2019no page yet

Errol Morris sits Steve Bannon down and just lets him talk, producing the same uncomfortable spectacle of a provocateur controlling his own myth in real time.

But Critics accused Morris of going soft on his subject; you may finish it wanting more pushback than you get.

The Fog of War2003

Robert McNamara looks back on a life of consequential, morally murky decisions with startling candour — the reflective, haunted counterpoint to Stone's total lack of regret.

But It's slow, serious, and asks you to sit with real historical guilt rather than enjoy the show.

The Fog of War poster

Icarus2017

Starts as a doping exposé and turns into a genuine political thriller about state-sponsored lying, with the same dizzying sense that the con is bigger than you think.

But The sport-science setup takes a while to pay off, and some found the pivot to Russia a little disorienting.

Icarus poster

Casino Jack and the United States of Money2010no page yet

Jack Abramoff's lobbying empire gets the full forensic treatment here, a detailed guide to exactly the kind of Washington backroom dealing Stone made his career inside.

But It's denser and more procedural than Stone's film, better suited to viewers who enjoy following the money.

Nixon1995

Oliver Stone's operatic biopic gives you the man whose portrait Roger Stone has tattooed on his back, and helps explain exactly what he thinks he's carrying forward.

But Three hours long and unmistakably Oliver Stone — heavy-handed, theatrical, not interested in restraint.

Nixon poster

Knock Down the House2019

Follows Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other insurgent candidates as the earnest opposite number to everything Stone's dark arts are designed to defeat.

But It's a much gentler, more hopeful film, and some will find its sincerity a jarring change of pace.

Knock Down the House poster

Millhouse1971no page yet

This is the blueprint Get Me Roger Stone is quietly working from — the same collage-and-contempt style, aimed at the president whose 1968 campaign made Stone's career.

Emile de Antonio's savage archival collage tears into Nixon decades before political hit-docs were a genre, mixing found footage and mockery with real venom.

But The references are dated and it demands some Nixon-era context; younger viewers may need to look things up as they go.

The Death of Stalin2017

Swap the true-crime documentary for outright comedy and you get the same insight Stone embodies: that political power is often just theatre, performed by men who've stopped pretending otherwise.

A pitch-black farce about the scramble for power after Stalin dies, packed with cowardly operators who'll say anything to survive the next five minutes.

But If political comedy about mass death makes you uneasy rather than laugh, this one asks a lot of you.

The Death of Stalin poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by

The Century of the Self, The War Room, Daredevil: Born Again, Weiner, Meet John Doe, Street Fight, The Kingmaker, HyperNormalisation