Film

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine

Alex Gibney's skeptical portrait of Steve Jobs strips away the turtleneck mythology to ask why we mourned a man most of us never met. Built from archival footage, interviews with ex-lovers, ex-employees and biographers, it's less hagiography than inquest — sympathetic to the wounds, unsparing about the cruelty. For anyone who's ever wondered what the cult of Apple actually cost the people closest to Jobs.

TMDb rating6.6

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The Social Network2010

Another origin myth about a brilliant, difficult man who reshaped how we live, told with the same fascination for genius curdling into isolation and betrayal.

But Zuckerberg isn't Jobs, and the film's cool, clinical tone is a different beast from Gibney's mournful inquiry.

The Social Network poster

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief2015

Same director, same obsession with charisma curdling into control — here turned on a religion instead of a corporation, with the devotion just as total and just as unsettling.

But Heavier, darker material; this isn't really about technology or ambition, it's about coercion.

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief poster

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room2005

Gibney's earlier film on corporate hubris shares the same forensic patience, unpicking how brilliant men convinced everyone — including themselves — that the rules didn't apply.

But Denser with financial mechanics; less personal, more procedural than the Jobs film.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Tucker: The Man and His Dream1988

Both films trace the same national fable — the maverick inventor as martyr — but Coppola believes it wholeheartedly, which makes watching them side by side reveal exactly what Gibney refuses to.

Coppola's lush, old-fashioned biopic of car innovator Preston Tucker is the same American myth decades earlier — the lone visionary crushed and canonized by the industry he tried to remake.

But Sentimental where Gibney is skeptical; it's a hymn to its subject, not an interrogation.

Tucker: The Man and His Dream poster
More like this (7)

Jobs2013no page yet

Ashton Kutcher's earnest, more conventional biopic makes a useful contrast — flatter, more forgiving, everything Gibney's film refuses to be.

But Widely considered thin and safe; interesting mainly as a lesser companion piece, not a great film on its own.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley2019

Elizabeth Holmes as a darker echo of the visionary-founder archetype — same turtlenecks, same reality distortion field, with none of the actual genius underneath.

But Bleaker and angrier; there's no ambiguity here, just watching a con unfold in real time.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley poster

General Magic2019

A wistful documentary about the team that invented the smartphone years before Jobs did and failed spectacularly — the same Silicon Valley dream, minus the happy ending.

But Low-key and sad rather than dramatic; it's a story of near-misses, not triumph.

General Magic poster

American Factory2019

Turns the camera on the workers underneath corporate vision rather than the visionary himself — a quieter, humbler counterpoint to Jobs' myth of individual genius.

But No charismatic lead, no scandal — it's patient, observational, and asks more of your attention.

American Factory poster

AlphaGo2017

A gentler documentary about technology outpacing human understanding, with the same undertone of awe and unease that runs through Gibney's film.

But Narrower focus on one event; less interested in personality, more in what machines are starting to do to us.

AlphaGo poster

Chef's Table2015

Same structural portrait — an uncompromising visionary whose gift for narrative and craft becomes inseparable from cruelty to collaborators — just relocated from circuit boards to kitchens.

This documentary series turns its slow, reverent camera on obsessive culinary geniuses whose brilliance reorders everything around them, including the people who love them.

But Gorgeous and meditative rather than critical — it rarely asks the harder questions Gibney does about what that obsession costs.

Chef's Table poster

WeCrashed2022

It's the same cult-of-personality arc — turtleneck energy, reality distortion, disciples who mistake certainty for vision — played an octave higher, for camp instead of elegy.

A gleefully trashy dramatization of WeWork's Adam Neumann, playing the same messianic-founder act as pure absurdist comedy rather than tragedy.

But Broad and satirical where Jobs' story asks for nuance — this one wants you laughing, not mourning.

WeCrashed poster

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