Opening the Vault: “The New Yorker” at 100 Reveals its secrets

For nearly a century, The New Yorker has been like that cool, enigmatic kid in the corner—impeccably dressed and soft-spoken but always wielding the sharpest pen in the room. With The New Yorker at 100, the magazine opens its doors and allows an outsider to explore its legendary halls. That outsider is Academy Award–winning director Marshall Curry, who gains unprecedented access to a newsroom that has influenced generations of readers and challenged powerful institutions.

What Curry captures is not a glossy love letter or a nostalgia-soaked tribute. Instead, it offers a pulse check—an unfiltered look at how this century-old institution grapples with the pressures, pitfalls, and promises of modern media. We witness editors debating commas as if they are high-stakes verdicts, writers pursuing clarity with monastic focus, and cartoonists—those quiet assassins—crafting an entire emotional universe with a single, coarse line.

Adding to the film’s elegance is Julianne Moore, who serves as the narrator. Her voice flows through the documentary like a well-placed editorial flourish—warm, wry, and just knowing enough to let us glimpse the margins that few get to see.

At a time when journalism feels both essential and under siege, The New Yorker at 100 arrives at the perfect moment. It reminds us what discipline, curiosity, and a steadfast belief in storytelling look like when practiced at the highest level. Curry does not mythologize the institution; he humanizes it, revealing the gears that turn and the minds that make those gears spin.

A century in, The New Yorker continues to shape the conversation. This film finally shows us how that magic is made.

“The New Yorker at 100” Premieres globally on Netflix December 5, 2025