This article originally appeared in our weekly newsletter. Subscribe by signing up for a free loyalty account here.

Fifty years ago, the fictional Network news anchor Howard Beale announced that he was “mad as hell and not and going to take it anymore.” In the final quarter of the 20th century, the sensationalization of Beale’s legitimate anger spoke to the perils of transforming news into entertainment. With Primetime, Robert Pattinson’s performance as Chris Hansen continues that tradition.

As the host of Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator, Hansen confronted alleged sexual predators on hidden camera shortly before agents swarmed in. The spectacle of these moments operated under the guise of social justice, but the program clearly put its ratings ahead of any genuine moral compass. The first narrative feature by acclaimed documentarian Lance Oppenheim (HBO’s Ren Faire) follows Hansen’s experiences in the crazed media climate of 2006, as the rising popularity of his program scores him an evening slot and he develops a maniacal drive to raise the stakes of his operation. 

Pattinson’s cool demeanor regularly hints at the monster lurking just beneath the surface. It’s one of his most enthralling, distinctive performances. Like David Osit’s stellar 2025 documentary Predators, Primetime explores the nature of the entrapment at the center of the show and scrutinizes its motivations from several angles at once. In case you missed the developments of the past decade, reality TV has played a central role in America’s evolving sense of itself, and Primetime provides a vivid window into how we got there.

There’s a ludicrous dimension to the desperation at the center of the movie that takes into pitch-black comedy terrain. Skyler Gisondo delivers an ironic turn as a twentysomething aspiring actor cast as the decoy to attract sexual predators to each setup, and his eager attitude slowly grows sour. It’s an icky gig, but he’s attracted to the bright lights and showbiz promises that Hansen thrusts in front of him. 

Everyone in Primetime wants exposure at all costs. “I hate your show,” Zucker’s executive tells Hansen, “but America loves it.” And so the media mogul puts additional ratings pressure on Hansen by pushing the show into an evening slot, going up against ABC’s hit drama Lost, which sets the stage for a final confrontation with tragic consequences. Primetime doesn’t excuse the predatorial behavior of the men caught on camera, but it questions the terms of engagement from the inside out.

Another familiar face surfaces for its tense final act. Alex Winter, best known after all these years as Bill from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and its sequels, plays a Texas attorney with a dark secret that leads Hansen into a more disturbing situation than he envisioned. (Anyone curious about the specifics can read the history online, or let Primetime set it up for you.) Like Oppenheim, Winter is himself a veteran documentary storyteller with a trenchant focus on modern times. 

While he remains a celebrated actor (last year, he reunited with Bill and Ted co-star Keanu Reeves for Broadway’s Waiting for Godot), Winter has charted a separate path as the director of  documentaries such as Deep Web: The Untold Story of Bitcoin and Silk Road, The Panama Papers, and The YouTube Effect, non-fiction inquiries into many conspiratorial forces behind current events. Given that history, his appearance in Primetime carries an extra layer of significance. Curious about his take on the movie and its broader relevance, I called Winter this week and asked for his thoughts. Our conversation follows.

As someone whose own movies have scrutinized the way our media climate has evolved, what do you think Primetime is saying about the world we live in?

My way into it was documentaries. Lance and I knew each other through the doc space. I’m a big fan of his work. Since his doc work has a narrative style, I knew he’d knock this out of the park. There’s humor and dark subjects but also seriousness. It’s a movie about “the discourse,” right? It interrogates that in a really interesting and complicated way. It’s funny, tragic, and dramatic. I was excited to be involved in something that had the courage and intelligence to dive directly into that. 

Your 2022 documentary The YouTube Effect deals with the effect of online video on modern times. Primetime feels like a prequel of sorts.

Completely. YouTube launched the year before the movie takes place, and the iPhone launched the year after. We didn’t get here from nowhere. I know that’s not a radical point. This evolution into the incredibly divisive, hyperreactionary landscape we’re in now has been brewing for a really long time. Look at who ended up as the president. The reality TV space was a real harbinger of what was to come. The Internet was like rocket fuel for that discourse. The YouTube Effect is about exactly that. We were stuck at home during COVID, everyone was online, and got radicalized. Quite frankly, people got stupider, losing their grip on what was or wasn’t real. 

You’ve been public about your own experiences with abuse. How did that play into your decision to be a part of this movie? 

To me, so much of the conversation around abuse presents itself as heroic activism when it’s really just red meat for the masses. It’s bullshit, right? It’s very rare that this stuff has any nuance or helps anyone. 

This movie opens the same week as the news that the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger will go through. How is media consolidation changing the way we process information?

I talked about this a little bit with Jeff Zucker, who I palled with in Venice when we were both there for the Primetime premiere. He’s incredibly personable and, unsurprisingly, very smart. The landscape we knew — and that includes the Jeff Zuckers of the world — does not exist anymore. It’s completely different. The oligarchs have won. We’re not in a great period of rebellion. The merger crippled California’s state attorney general and Musk might join as an investor. Everything is continuing to change. 

Heavy stuff. Primetime is also a dark comedy. How important is humor when broaching these subjects? 

I think it’s healthy and it’s really hard to do. I love seeing it in Errol Morris’ films, for example. When it’s not done well, it’s crushingly terrible. I knew from Lance’s docs that he was witty but also had a moral code. The only time I don’t like it is when it’s just that kind of Gen Z nihilism: “Haha, nothing matters.” I knew that with this movie, he took it seriously. Having personally been around these issues, I think humor can be very helpful. Tim Heidecker came to the premiere of Primetime and I was talking to him about this in terms of what he’s doing with Infowars and The Onion. I think that’s a very effective tool to respond to what’s going on.

When Network came out 50 years ago, it was a satire of the media world at that moment. How will Primetime look in 50 years? 

Network has always been the best comp for this movie. I think it will stand the test of time largely because of its humor. Someone asked me the other day if Rob Pattinson was making fun of Chris Hansen. To me, it’s the opposite. There’s humor in his portrayal but also a hyperreality to it. It’s a performance that speaks to this entire space and not just this specific person. There is intelligence behind the wit that humanizes it. The humor is very destabilizing in an effective way. 

Primetime is now showing at the Southampton Playhouse.