Lorne

The documentary is about Lorne Michaels: the producer who created Saturday Night Live in 1975 and stayed at its head for fifty years. It is built on archive, rehearsal footage and conversations with people who passed through the show, among them Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, John Mulaney, Andy Samberg, Conan O'Brien and Chris Rock. Morgan Neville directs. It runs a hundred and one minutes. The difficulty at its centre is Michaels himself. Neville said as much openly: the moment he brought the cameras out, Michaels disappeared. The man who ran the show for fifty years is not someone who likes being in front of a camera, and the documentary wrestles with that resistance. The result was received in two minds. The common critical observation is this: the film explains well how Saturday Night Live works, but Michaels himself is still a gap by the end of it. The best sections concern the weekly production order, showing the pressure under which the stretch from Tuesday night writing to the Saturday broadcast runs. It was released in 2026. Who it is for: viewers of Saturday Night Live and anyone curious about how American television comedy works. Who it is not for: it is not critical, hard questions are not asked, and it is a respectful documentary that keeps no distance from its subject.