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Poster for Live from Baghdad

Live from Baghdad

Breaking News - Making History

2002 · 1h 48m · TV-MA Drama, TV Movie, War
Directed by Mick Jackson

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Overview

A group of CNN reporters wrestle with journalistic ethics and the life-and-death perils of reporting during the Gulf War.A Directors Guild Award-winning movie for director Mick Jackson, starring Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham Carter. In 1990, CNN was a 24-hour news network in search of a 24-hour story. They were about to find it in Baghdad. Veteran CNN producer Robert Wiener and his longtime producing partner Ingrid Formanek find themselves in Iraq on the eve of war. Up against the big three networks, Weiner and his team are rebels with a cause, willing to take risks to get the biggest stories and - unlike their rivals - take them live at a moment's notice. As Baghdad becomes an inevitable US target, one by one the networks pull out of the city until only the crew from CNN remains. With a full-scale war soon to be launched all around them, and CNN ready to broadcast whatever happens 24 hours a day, Wiener and Formanek are about to risk their lives for the story of a lifetime.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
78%
Tomatometer
Fresh

The teleplay from Wiener, Richard Chapman, John Patrick Shanley and Timothy J. Sexton is mostly taut and exciting, except when it pauses for a minimally romantic time out between Wiener and Formanek.

Barry Johnson, Hollywood Reporter
Fresh

As a movie, Live From Baghdad constitutes another first-class production from HBO.

Tom Shales, Washington Post
Fresh

One of the best movies I've seen about electronic journalism.

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper

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