Film
Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer
A rollicking, unflinching documentary about the National Enquirer's rise from obscure supermarket rag to shadow-power broker in American celebrity and politics. It's a story of tabloid genius, journalistic lawlessness, and the appetites we don't admit we have. For anyone curious about how gossip became infrastructure.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy documentaries that dig into the machinery behind a famous institution, with sharp interviews from former insiders who clearly still have opinions about it.
Skip it if you want a tight, neutral history; this one runs on rapid-fire energy and a clear point of view, and its brisk tone may feel more like a provocation than an even-handed account.
What it asks of you: Under ninety-837 minutes...
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The Toys That Made Us2017
Each episode mines the history and cultural impact of a toy brand with the same energetic curiosity the Enquirer brought to celebrity scandal. Entertaining deep dives into how products shape us.
But The format is a bit repetitive across episodes, and some subjects feel thin for the runtime.
The Dirt2019
Chaotic, trashy, unapologetically fun story of Mötley Crüe that thrives on scandal and excess the same way the Enquirer did. Both celebrate the messy appetite underneath respectability.
But It's aggressively adolescent in its humour and glorifies behaviour most documentaries would condemn.
Citizen Kane1941
The blueprint for every story about media power corrupting itself. Welles understands the machinery of scandal-making and influence better than almost any filmmaker. Essential viewing for media literacy.
But It's a 1941 film in black and white with a deliberately oblique structure. Not a thriller, not linear, requires patience.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Network1976
Both document the moment when media realized that exploiting human appetites for scandal was more profitable than serving truth. Both are furious about it, but one celebrates while the other warns.
Paddy Chayefsky's savage prophecy about television news chasing ratings through scandal and sensationalism. It predicted the Enquirer's ascent with eerie accuracy. Furiously prescient and still angry.
But The rhetorical force can feel preachy if you resist the sermon. It's a film that argues, not whispers.
More like this (8)
The Conversation1974
Coppola's paranoid masterpiece about surveillance, information, and what we discover when we dig too deep. It shares the Enquirer doc's fascination with the ethics of exposure.
But Slow-burn and deliberately unsexy. The payoff is psychological, not visceral. Some find it ponderous.
Page One: Inside the New York Times2011
Mirror image of the Enquirer story—how serious journalism navigates its own crisis and relevance. David versus Goliath, but both eating from the same information trough.
But It's a love letter to print journalism that can feel defensive. Some of its arguments about media virtue are now quaint.
The Fear of 132015
A wrongly convicted man tells the true story of his own investigation into his case, building to an extraordinary reveal. Hypnotic and brilliantly constructed, with the obsessive energy of tabloid pursuit.
But Its one-man format is stylised and claustrophobic. Some viewers find the narrative conceit distracting rather than gripping.
Fyre2019
A festival scam that collapsed spectacularly, documented with the Enquirer's same appetite for watching people lie themselves into catastrophe. Funny, enraging, perfectly paced.
But It's more schadenfreude than insight. The subject isn't deep, just entertaining, and some viewers find that hollow.
The Two Popes2019
Two actors playing popes in conversation—but it's really about institutional power, image-making, and what gets hidden. Uses restraint where tabloids use screaming. Interesting counterpoint.
But Deliberately quiet and theological. If you want tabloid energy, this deliberately withholds it. Some find it boring.
The Informant!2009
A corporate whistleblower who keeps talking, a story that spirals into increasingly absurd terrain. Tone matches the surreal logic of tabloid thinking—what's true? What matters?
But It's stylistically mannered and the protagonist is genuinely unlikeable. The satire can feel muddled if you're not on its wavelength.
I, Daniel Blake2016
The Enquirer doc examines what captures our collective attention and why. This film asks what we stop seeing when we're transfixed by scandal. They're two sides of the same media ethics coin.
Ken Loach's film about invisible poverty and bureaucratic cruelty has nothing to do with tabloids on the surface. But it's about a world the Enquirer never looked at—and what we ignore when we're distracted by celebrity gossip.
But It's bleak, slow, and offers no catharsis. Loach's style is deliberately unglamorous. It's about suffering, not entertainment.
Tabloid2011
Where Scandalous tells the Enquirer's institutional rise, Tabloid is about how individual tabloid journalists become seduced by their own stories. Both explore the moment when the lie becomes more compelling than the fact.
Errol Morris documentary about a tabloid journalist involved in a kidnapping, told with baroque visual style and mounting unreliability. It's about tabloid thinking from the inside: how narrative overwhelms fact.
But It's baroque and arch, prioritising style and ambiguity over clarity. By the end, the truth is deliberately slippery—some viewers hate that.
People
Cast
Carl BernsteinHimself- Tony BrennaHimself
Maggie HabermanHerself- Gene PopeHimself
- Judith ReganHerself
Directing
- Mark LandsmanDirector
Production
- Nicco ArdinCo-Producer
- Rachel TraubExecutive Producer
- Aengus JamesProducer
- Greg WarshawProduction Manager