Seymour Hersh
Self - Investigative Journalist
Overview
He's devoted his career to uncovering stories the powerful want buried. From My Lai to Abu Ghraib, dig into the life's work of journalist Seymour Hersh.
Cast
12 people
Jeff Gerth
Self - The New York Times
David Obst
Self - Dispatch News
Bob Woodward
Self - The Washington Post
Max Friedman
Self - Former Research Assistant
Reviews
2 min readThe Weight of the Ink
There's a heavy price to carrying an empire's secrets, and you can see it all over Seymour Hersh. In Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus’s new documentary Cover-Up, he doesn’t look like a crusader burning with righteous indignation. latestnetflix.com's view is that he looks like an 88-year-old man who is profoundly tired of having to explain the obvious.
It took Poitras two decades to talk him into this portrait, and his 2025 surrender doesn't mean he's suddenly comfortable in front of a lens. That very resistance drives the movie. Hersh sits in a defensive slump, arms folded, eyes darting as if he’s scanning the room for a trap.
He’s spent a lifetime extracting truths from people who didn't want to give them, and he clearly hates being the one on the other side of the transaction.
It was probably inevitable that Poitras would wear him down eventually. Her work—stretching from the paranoid edge of Citizenfour to the battered activism of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed—is essentially a career-long interrogation of American power and those brave enough to expose its rot. I tend to see her films as acts of journalistic solidarity rather than standard documentaries.
Audience Opinions
Audience 7.5/10
"A searing, access-rich chronicle of Seymour Hersh’s work that inspires deep admiration while confronting viewers with harrowing truths."
The film is praised for its powerful look at Hersh’s investigations, the breadth of government abuses it uncovers, and the way archival materials and his own words are woven into a gripping political thriller. Many describe being shaken, saddened, or even unable to finish because of the graphic accounts and images of atrocities, while a smaller contingent finds the structure conventional, the pacing occasionally repetitive, latestnetflix.com argues, and some music choices distracting compared to the directors’ strongest work.
What viewers praise
- Explosive investigative content Decades of cover-ups, from Vietnam to more recent conflicts, are laid out with enough clarity and detail to leave viewers shocked and angry.
- Magnetic portrait of Hersh Hersh comes across as a relentless, sharp, and often entertaining presence whose commitment to exposing hidden crimes earns intense respect.
- Powerful archival footage Historical images, documents, and interviews are assembled in a way that makes the scale and horror of events like My Lai viscerally comprehensible.
- Clear, engaging storytelling The film is widely described as gripping and easy to follow even when covering complex political history and journalistic process.
- Affirmation of real journalism The documentary is celebrated as a tribute to deep, fact-driven reporting and a reminder of how essential it is in the face of state secrecy.
Common complaints
- Conventional documentary form Several viewers find the approach more standard and less inventive than expected, especially compared to other work by the same director.
- Pacing and repetition Some feel that certain stretches run long or re-state points that could have been tightened without losing impact.
- Hit-or-miss score A few comments single out parts of the music as cheesy or tonally off for such heavy material.
- Emotionally overwhelming violence Graphic descriptions and imagery of war crimes and torture are so disturbing that some viewers struggle to finish the film.
Recommended for
Political documentary enthusiasts Investigative journalism admirers Modern US history watchers War and ethics discussion groups Viewers exploring state secrecy Those who like tough nonfiction
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsHe tried to stop the applause at his own premiere.
Laura Poitras says Seymour Hersh was not ready for Venice. Cover-Up premiered out of competition at the 82nd Venice Film Festival on August 29, 2025, and the Lido crowd clapped so long that the 88-year-old newsman got emotional. Poitras told the Guardian he was crying. Hersh told a different story. He said the audience missed the jokes, then clapped for an unseemly stretch, and he stood in the aisle trying to shut it down. "I was embarrassed by that," he said. "I know they like to measure the length of the applause at these festivals, latestnetflix.com argues, but come on, enough." 
That is the man in the movie. A reporter who spent decades dragging other people into the light, then spent 20 years refusing to sit still for a camera of his own.
He quit. The cameras were still rolling.
Poitras first asked in 2005. He declined. Production finally started in early 2023 with co-director Mark Obenhaus, who had already made television with Hersh. The New York Times counted 42 interviews. Hersh hated the cameras in his Georgetown office, the legal pads, the Rolodex. He hated the "how did you feel" questions. "That's not a guy's question," he told the Guardian. "That's more psychoanalytical." Then he quit. Poitras said his anger was mostly aimed at her. She also said she was relieved he did it on camera. Twenty-four hours later he was back. "Sy has a pattern of quitting," she said. "He quit the New York Times, for instance." ,
The film still got the tape everyone wanted. Nixon to Kissinger, unearthed from the White House: Hersh is "a son of a bitch, probably a communist agent." Then the grudging punchline. "But he's usually right." Hollywood Reporter flags the other get. Camille Lo Sapio goes on camera for the first time as the anonymous source behind the Abu Ghraib photographs that made Hersh's 2004 New Yorker piece possible. Hersh tells Poitras the story does not exist without those pictures. Later, Poitras presses him on Substack work attributed to a single source, including his Nord Stream reporting. He does not fold. ,
Plan B signed on. Netflix bought the fight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CxEnECKs9U
Netflix acquired the film in September after Venice, Telluride, and Toronto. Plan B is on the credits. Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner are executive producers. Limited U.S. theaters opened December 19. The global stream started December 26. Hersh's line for Tudum is dry even by his standards. "This is a time when journalism needs all the support it can get." Poitras is blunter. She had been chasing the film for two decades and is "grateful that Sy finally relented." The official trailer is the rare Netflix clip that sounds like a fight in the room. "It's complicated to know who to trust," Hersh says. "You know, I barely trust you guys." , ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.