. The documentary celebrating The New Yorker’s 100 years recently dropped on Netflix. Had I known it was in the making, I would have counted the days. Fortunately, I didn’t, so the joy of stumbling upon it in the listings was pure and indescribable.
I have been reading The New Yorker for the better part of two decades. I treasure its unique, diverse, and deeply informative articles, but my special love is reserved for the cartoons—the single-panel gags scattered throughout each issue. They are often razor-sharp on current politics, yet for me it’s the dark humor that lands hardest. In an age of heightened sensitivity, where insults are detected at warp speed, much that needs saying goes unsaid, and what is said too often feels banal. We don’t laugh enough at our social ills and idiosyncrasies. Laughter, after all, doesn’t have to degrade; sometimes it’s the only way to lighten the psychological weight of events that defy logic and years!
I remember my first encounter vividly. Back in New Jersey, I’d left my car with a mechanic and was trying to kill time in his waiting area. The mechanic, it turned out, was a kindred spirit: his office held stacks of old and new New Yorkers. I picked one up, flipped through, and landed on David Grann’s “The Lost City of Z.” I’d never read the magazine before, but I couldn’t stop. Between the long-form archaeology and history of El Dorado, the cartoon captions offered bursts of relief and delight. My plan had been to drop off the car and head home; instead, I stayed until I’d finished the entire piece. That article didn’t just introduce me to forgotten histories—it opened the door to an experience where, like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’ll get next.
I usually skip “Shouts & Murmurs”—its satire doesn’t quite resonate with me. “Goings On About Town” was essential when I lived in the area. “The Talk of the Town” remains a must-read for its topical variety and crisp briefing on key issues, especially in the American political landscape. I rarely miss “Briefly Noted” in the book reviews, or the longer pieces that weave a deep dive into a subject through two or three related books. Some are dense enough to feel like a weekly PhD thesis. The magazine executes this format masterfully, aiming not just to inform but to equip readers with the perspective to think independently—a noble mission, especially as we enter an era where AI-generated content threatens that very ability. (Though a recent piece musing that AI might soon achieve consciousness was, I thought, rather wide of the mark.)
The documentary lives up to its billing—to an extent. Placing The New Yorker as the subject rather than the observer is a tricky proposition; it’s an ocean of individual reader experiences. Every long-form essay lands differently depending on how one connects with it. For me, the foreign-affairs pieces stand out. The in-depth reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan should be required reading in universities. Beyond on-the-ground journalism, the magazine excels at weaving history into current events—reminding us that today’s shadows are cast by the past. Amitav Ghosh’s piece on Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army and the Bengali communists in Burma astonished me, as these articles so often do. Age brings a certain jadedness, the sense that nothing can surprise anymore, but The New Yorker regularly proves otherwise. It catches you off-guard, rekindling curiosity. One never knows what the next issue holds—perhaps an essay on frogs, or V.S. Naipaul reflecting on his craft (or Paul Theroux reflecting on Naipaul). Such pieces remind us how bewildering, fascinating, and humbling the world remains.
The documentary attempts to distill this essence and largely succeeds, chronicling the run-up to the centenary issue while touching on the magazine’s history, eliteness, occasional snobbery, and endearing eccentricities. It does an admirable job, yet I wished for deeper exploration of the editorial process: how topics and writers are chosen, and the worldview that shapes what appears on the page. Not just celebration (of which there is plenty to celebrate), but a spotlight on the magazine’s soul—including its persistent warnings about the erosion of democratic values. The bias it sometimes displays can be as surprising as it is nauseating. No publication is obliged to be right or mature on every front. You don’t have to like all the chocolates.
I doubt the founders ever imagined their upstart weekly would endure a full century, evolving with the times yet fiercely guarding its witty, curious soul—a cornerstone of beautiful writing, independent thinking, and just the right hint of humor.
Watching the film felt like stumbling upon another unexpected treasure in a mechanic’s stack of back issues. Here’s to The New Yorker: may the next hundred years surprise, challenge, and delight us just as unpredictably.
To another glorious one hundred
