The Apprentice (2024) on Netflix
In 1970s New York, a young Donald Trump wants to make his name. Cutthroat attorney Roy Cohn takes him on as a protégé and teaches him to win at any cost.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.1/1075,658 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
New York City, 1973. A young Donald Trump meets Roy Cohn at a social club and tells him that federal prosecutors are investigating his father Fred over racial discrimination in housing. Cohn offers to help and uses compromising photographs to pressure the lead prosecutor into settling the case for little money. Trump begins to see Cohn as a better mentor than his father and absorbs Cohn's rules: always go on the attack, admit no wrongdoing, and claim victory even when defeated. Trump then focuses on a run-down hotel near Grand Central Terminal, hoping to turn it into a Hyatt. Using recorded blackmail material on city officials, Cohn helps him secure a large tax break for the project.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Apprentice (2024)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Billionaire Dan Snyder, a Trump donor and formerly owner of the Washington Commanders, put money into The Apprentice expecting a positive portrayal of Trump, but after seeing a cut in February 2024 he was furious and lawyers for his Kinematics company sought to stop the release.
- In May 2024 Trump's attorneys sent the filmmakers a cease-and-desist letter seeking to block "all marketing, distribution, and publication" of the film; the producers replied that it was "a fair and balanced portrait of the former president" and that they wanted everyone to see it.
SPOILER
The film's scene of Trump raping his first wife, Ivana, was based on divorce records; in a sworn deposition during their divorce, Ivana accused Donald of rape and of pulling out her hair by the handful when his plastic surgery to alter his hairline failed.- Sebastian Stan consumed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Coca-Colas to gain weight to play Donald Trump, then bulked up to reprise his Marvel role as Bucky Barnes when The Apprentice was suspended, only to reverse course when that production was also halted by the 2023 writers' and actors' strikes.
- Cinematographer Kasper Tuxen shot 1970s New York in contemporary Toronto with a long lens for a shallow depth of field rather than period sets and props, gave the 1970s the grain of 16mm news cameras, and chose the Arri Alexa 35 digital camera after testing vintage formats.
