A sharp, unsettling rise-of-an-operator drama that plays like a business-origin story curdled into horror. It’s especially effective if you’re interested in power as performance, mentorship as corruption, and the way a persona gets manufactured in public.
55% ★★★☆☆ (456,539)
The Apprentice
Where to watch: Amazon
Movie · History · Drama · R
2024 · 2h 2m · ★ 55% (456.5K)
An American horror story.
Director: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Martin Donovan
Overview
A young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as a hungry scion of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn, the cutthroat attorney who would help create the Donald Trump we know today. Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé—someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win.
Director
Ali Abbasi
Production
Gidden Media, Head Gear Films, Metrol Technology, Scythia Films, Profile Pictures, Tailored Films
Cast
Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Martin Donovan, Maria Bakalova, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Ben Sullivan, Mark Rendall, Joe Pingue, Ron Lea, Edie Inksetter, Matt Baram, Moni Ogunsuyi, Brad Austin, Stuart Hughes, Jim Monaco, Clare Coulter, Hume Baugh, Tammy Boundy, Jaclyn Vogl
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, unsettling rise-of-an-operator drama that plays like a business-origin story curdled into horror. It’s especially effective if you’re interested in power as performance, mentorship as corruption, and the way a persona gets manufactured in public.
Best for
Viewers fascinated by political and corporate power dynamics
Fans of dark character studies and performance-driven dramas
Audiences who like satire that gradually turns sinister
People interested in 1970s New York and media-savvy ambition
Skip if
You want a balanced or strictly factual biopic
You’re looking for a warm, inspirational underdog story
You dislike morally repellent protagonists
You prefer lighter political comedy over bleak psychological drama
Overview
The Apprentice is less a conventional biopic than a study in contamination. It watches a hungry young striver absorb the methods, language, and cruelty of Roy Cohn, then turn those lessons into a public identity. The movie’s real subject is not just Trump, but the ecosystem that rewards shamelessness and turns aggression into success.
Worth noting
What makes it work is the tonal shift: it begins with the slick confidence of a rise story and gradually hardens into something colder and more disturbing. The performances are the engine, with Sebastian Stan tracking the physical and vocal construction of a persona and Jeremy Strong making Cohn feel like both mentor and parasite.
Bottom line
It’s not interested in neutrality, and that may be the point. The film is provocative, sometimes abrasive, and built to make you feel the seduction of power before showing its rot. If you want a polished, unsettling portrait of how a monster is made, this is worth the watch.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Nick L'Barrow (4★) · 18600 likes
Watching Sebastian Stan slowly morph more and more into trump was a genuinely insane cinema experience
Reece (4★) · 12257 likes
what starts as a rom-com between donald trump and roy cohn gradually morphs into a genuine horror film… also kendall roy is so fucking back
Karsten (3.5★) · 10247 likes
little lord fuckleroy
júlia (4★) · 10106 likes
that surgery scene was giving darth vader getting in his suit in the ending of revenge of the sith
Blake Douglas · 7000 likes
Thinking of Baron watching this on a laptop in his dorm room
2015 · Comedy, Drama · 2h 11m · R · ★ 76% (1.6M) · Where to watch: Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential
If you like systems-level cynicism and the spectacle of people gaming the rules.
Themes
power and corruption, mentor-protégé manipulation, ambition and self-invention, political cynicism, toxic masculinity, media image and performance, moral decay, 1970s New York
Topics
political drama, biographical drama, satire, psychological thriller, 1970s, New York City, power politics, moral corruption, character study, dark tone