Broadcast News

James L. Brooks's film about television news, which looks like a romantic comedy and is actually about professional ethics. Jane is a news producer: fast, exacting, and obsessive about getting the story right. Aaron is a reporter, clever and well-informed and terrible on camera. Tom is the new anchor: handsome, calm, the kind audiences like, and he understands nothing about news. That is the triangle, but the actual subject is what Tom represents: news turning from information into presentation. Jane both falls for him and sees what he is doing to the work. The turn comes from a single detail in an interview scene; what Tom did is not technically a lie, and for Jane it is not forgivable. Holly Hunter plays Jane, Albert Brooks plays Aaron and William Hurt plays Tom. It took seven Oscar nominations. One of the best American films of the 1980s for anyone who likes workplace drama and sharp dialogue. For a viewer wanting a romantic resolution, the ending is deliberately unsatisfying.