THE INSIDER

In a recent interview for Vulture, Bilge Ebiri asked director Michael Mann which of his films he wished more people would see and appreciate. Mann’s response: “For me, it’d be The Insider.” 

Join critic Adam Nayman in fulfilling Mann’s wish: appreciating the underrated but evergreen 1999 drama about the chokehold American corporate corruption has over public interest. Starring a full-throttle Al Pacino (as veteran 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman) and Russell Crowe (as Jeffrey Wigand, the tobacco executive turned whistleblower), the film is also a favorite of Galerie curator Ezra Edelman. “I know why I feel so impassioned when I watch this movie,” says Edelman. “Because it’s about telling the truth—the importance of telling the truth, the price of telling the truth, and the basic fucked-up capitalistic forces that prevent the truth from being told. That is always a relevant story.”