Cover-Up (2025) on Netflix

R20251h 57mDocumentary History

Seymour Hersh, the journalist who reported the My Lai massacre, agrees to talk about his career. He gives access to an archive that includes his work on Abu Ghraib.

Netflix4.3/5
IMDb7.4/104,134 votes
Rotten Tomatoes98%

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Plot summary

The journalist Seymour Hersh, who covered the My Lai massacre and the abuse at Abu Ghraib, is at first unwilling to take part in a documentary about his working life. He then opens his archive to it. The account follows the exposure of U.S. war crimes in Vietnam and the secret bombing of Cambodia, the Watergate scandal, and the CIA's domestic spying program. Recordings from the White House, in which Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger discuss Hersh, are part of it.

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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Cover-Up (2025)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

Laura Poitras first proposed a documentary following Seymour Hersh in real time as he met sources in 2004, but Hersh refused, saying it would put his sources at risk and that he did not want to talk about himself. The two stayed in touch.
The documentary covers controversies in Seymour Hersh's career, including his 1997 book The Dark Side of Camelot, from which he cut a chapter built on letters that were later revealed to be forgeries.
Mark Obenhaus and Seymour Hersh's planned film about Hersh's My Lai massacre reporting struggled to find financing before Laura Poitras joined; the pair then collaborated, and Hersh gave them and archival producers access to his archive of more than 7,000 assets.