Common Sense Media Review
By Jennifer Green
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Language, mature themes in engaging docu on iconic magazine.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 14+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
The New Yorker at 100
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
THE NEW YORKER AT 100 shows the behind-the-scenes of how issues of this iconic magazine come together. Staffers are interviewed and followed as they do their workâmoving around town, reporting from abroad, reviewing movies, interviewing celebrities, calling sources, fact checking and editing, taking photographs, drawing illustrations, designing covers, selecting from thousands of submissions, and more. The documentary goes back in time to highlight some of the most impactful stories, covers, and contributors from its 100 years of life. Celebrities talk about what the magazine means to them.
Is It Any Good?
Like the magazine itself, this documentary will speak mainly to a core and loyal audience of sophisticated readers, and it provides insights and historical narratives they will appreciate. The New Yorker at 100 moves at a brisk pace and flips engagingly through decades. With chief editor Remnick as guide, the film puts faces to names on some of the highest profile reporters as well as the unknown fact-checkers, designers, and office manager-slash-archivist who maintain this institution's reputation for meticulous, thoughtful, culture-capturing work and keep its storied history alive. It shows how the magic is made. It's not clear why Julianne Moore was selected as narrator, and the star interviewees weren't entirely necessary, but that connection to celebrity is undoubtedly also part of the magazine's mystique.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the repeated mention in The New Yorker at 100 of the magazine being considered both representative of a level of extreme sophistication and also "hoity toity." Do you read The New Yorker? What does it represent to you?
Of the reporters interviewed, whose work would you be interested to know more about? What did you learn about the work of the people who make The New Yorker?
Were you surprised to learn that the story on Hiroshima ran as the only story in an issue, so impactful that Albert Einstein ordered 100 copies to share with scientists? What other stories or historical moments were memorable to you in this film?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : December 5, 2025
- Cast : Julianne Moore , David Remnick , Molly Ringwald , Sarah Jessica Parker
- Director : Marshall Curry
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s)
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Documentary
- Topics : Activism , Arts , Friendship , History
- Character Strengths : Perseverance
- Run time : 96 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- MPAA explanation : some language
- Last updated : December 8, 2025
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