Broadcast News

Broadcast News is a 1987 romantic comedy-drama film written, produced and directed by James L. Brooks. The film concerns a virtuoso television news producer (Holly Hunter), who has daily emotional breakdowns, a brilliant yet prickly reporter (Albert Brooks) and his charismatic but far less seasoned rival (William Hurt). It also stars Robert Prosky, Lois Chiles, Joan Cusack, and Jack Nicholson (billed only in the end credits) as the evening news anchor.

The film revolves around three characters who work in television news. Jane Craig (Hunter) is a talented producer who tries to conceal how important it is for her to be found sexually attractive by a handsome man who epitomizes everything about television news that appalls her. Jane’s best friend and frequent collaborator, Aaron Altman (Brooks), is a gifted writer and reporter ambitious for on-camera exposure, who is secretly in love with Jane, and embittered by her rejection of him. Tom Grunick (Hurt), a local news anchorman who was up until recently a sports anchorman, is likable and telegenic, but denied respect due to his intellectual limitations, of which he is all too aware.

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