E. Jean Carroll Honored With Truth Seekers Award, Calls Donald Trump Verdict: ‘Happiest Day of My Life’

E. Jean Carroll accepted the Truth Seekers Award and talked about what spurred her to go public with her rape allegation against Donald Trump.

Truth Seekers Summit Gathers Alex Gibney, Charlamagne Tha God, Nancy Grace, ‘Unsolved Mysteries” John Walsh and More to Discuss the Relentless Pursuit of Truth

Go inside the Variety & Rolling Stone’s Truth Seekers Summit, watch the full panels from Nancy Grace, comedians, Alex Gibney and more.

MSNBC Anchor Katy Tur Calls Out Trump Press Hypocrisy and the Discomfort of Covering Him on Policy: ‘It’s Legitimizing a Candidate That Doesn’t Feel Legitimate’

Political reporters gathered at Variety and Rolling Stone’s Truth Seekers Summit to analyze the current coverage of the presidential hopefuls.

Susan Zirinsky Has Found New Freedom in See It Now Studios

Susan Zirinsky, the veteran CBS News producer and executive, has found new freedom at See It Now Studios, a production outlet that works for streaming

Too Hot to Handle: Streamers Favor Celebrities and Crime Sprees to Complicated and Controversial Political Docs

At their best, political documentaries make sense of complex issues.

10 Great Political Documentaries

At their best, documentaries illuminate the world around us and can even result in policy changes, unjustly-imprisoned people being freed, and help spark political movements.

‘It’s a Big American StoryLight in Darkness: Variety and Rolling Stone’s Truth Seekers Summit Tackles Disinformation With E. Jean Carroll, CNN’s Abby Phillip and Alex Gibney’: Inside the Rise and Fall of Stax Records

Variety and Rolling Stone will explore some of the ways the media industry is navigating the disinformation age during the fourth annual Truth Seekers Summit.

‘It’s a Big American Story’: Inside the Rise and Fall of Stax Records

Jamila Wignot, director of HBO’s Stax: Soulsville U.S.A., discusses the label’s complex history, the “sacrifices” of making a music documentary, and the “viciousness” of how it ended

Inside Sammy Davis Jr.’s Secret Satanic Past

How a TV pilot called ‘Poor Devil’ begat a friendship between the performer and Anton Szandor LaVey, founder and high priest of the Church of Satan 

Inside the Rise and Fall of Project Veritas

James O’Keefe helped transform U.S. conservatism into a war machine — then it all imploded

Clarissa Ward On The Incredible Challenge of Reporting On Gaza

“It’s always hard. But this has actually been almost impossible.”

Doc Filmmakers Debate Growing Use of AI in Non-Fiction Projects: ‘We Are Supposed to Be the Truth’

Filmmakers including Dawn Porter and Andrew Rossi talk with Variety about the ethical concerns surrounding the use of artificial filmmaking in non-fiction work

How Liz Garbus and Dan Cogan’s Story Syndicate Finds the ‘Wagyu Beef’ of True Crime

While corporate consolidation has led to smaller documentary production budgets and fewer indie doc sales, the demand for true-crime docus has skyrocketed over the last few years.

Docs About Louis C.K., Paul Simon and a Whole Foods Dishwasher Who Moonlights as a Mountain Climber Are Among Those Going to Toronto This Year

A documentary about women who accused Louis C.K. of sexual harassment and the consequences those accusations had on their careers is one of 22 documentaries from 12 countries heading to the 2023 Toronto Intl. Film Festival.

Ken Burns Unearthed an Old Print of His First Film, ‘Working in Rural New England,’ and Is Streaming It on UNUM Via PBS

On the brink of turning 70, Ken Burns will release his very first film, “Working in Rural New England,” which he made as an undergraduate at Hampshire College. The 28-minute docu will be released July 25 on UNUM, Burn’s American history digital platform on PBS.

The Decathlete-Turned-Grifter Who Conned L.A.

David Bunevacz flaunted his luxurious lifestyle, pulling in friends and acquaintances. How was he able to operate for more than a decade?

Ryan Coogler and Peter Nicks on Making a Doc About Steph Curry: ‘We’ve All Been, at Some Point in Our Lives, Overlooked and Underrated’

Ryan Coogler and Peter Nicks met in 2012 when Coogler was making “Fruitville Station” and needed help securing access to a location. Nicks, who was finishing his first feature documentary, “The Waiting Room, came to the rescue. Nine years later, Cooglar hired Nicks to run the nonfiction arm of his production company Proximity Media, which has a five-year overall exclusive television deal with The Walt Disney Co.

Generals, Peaceniks, and Palestinian Fighters Agree: Bibi Must Be Stopped

Inside both the Israeli and Palestinian revolts, where everyone from former Prime Ministers and hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the streets to Gen Z occupied Palestinians reject the country Benjamin Netanyahu remade in his image

Leslie Iwerks on ‘Superpowered’ and Lessons From DC Comics: ‘You Just Have to Keep Trying as an Artist’

After watching the Disney+ docuseries “The Imagineering Story” in 2019, Warner Bros. executives approached Leslie Iwerks about documenting their studio’s history.

“They said, ‘We’d like you to tell honest stories about us,” recalls the Oscar-nominated director, granddaughter of Mickey Mouse designer Ub Iwerks.

Danny Elfman Settled a Sexual-Harassment Allegation for $830,000

Composer Nomi Abadi sued the Emmy-winning musician for breach of contract over misconduct allegations he calls “vicious and wholly false“

Sam Pollard Considers ‘The League’ More than a Baseball Doc: ‘All of My Films Are About America and Race’

Sam Pollard’s “The League” Is Not Your Typical Baseball Doc.

Grady Kurpasi Went to Ukraine to Fight. Then He Disappeared

A 50-year-old Marine with his years of service behind him gave up everything when Russia invaded Ukraine. It would be a year before his family learned what really happened to him.

The Trillion-Dollar Grift: Inside the Greatest Scam of All Time

The pandemic relief was the biggest bailout in history, and it opened the door to wide-scale fraud the likes of which no one had ever seen — more than three years later, we still don’t know how much damage was done.

‘Crime, Food, Music, Sports’: Documentary Producers Get ‘Very Strategic’ as Content Budgets Tighten

The days of elastic budgets are over. The documentary arena is feeling the great contraction in the volume of content ordered by the largest networks and streamers as the entertainment industry reckons with its spending binge of the past decade.

Pilgrims Are Flocking to This Psychedelic Temple

Alex Grey, the artist behind Tool’s album covers, and his wife, Allyson, have built the world’s trippiest museum

Documentary Community Still Wary as AVOD and FAST Channels Proliferate

Is AVOD the solution for struggling indie doc filmmakers?

With highly coveted distribution deals for indie docs evaporating as the entertainment industry retrenches, nonfiction filmmakers are turning to less lucrative alternatives such as ad-supported VOD and revenue-sharing arrangements to get their work seen.