SIPA-related Streaming this Holiday Season? We’ve Got You Covered
As the holidays approach, so does the need to unwind with a great, bingeable series or film. If that content has a SIPA connection, even better! Below is a list of SIPA-related streamers hand-picked for you by our editorial team.
The Diplomat (Netflix)
This political thriller series, which debuted in 2023 and has been described as The West Wing meets Scandal, is back this year for a sophomore season that comes with the addition of Allison Janney to its ranks. While no Seeples appear in the hit Netflix drama (that we know of), the show – which follows The Americans star Keri Russell as a US diplomat contending “with her high-profile new job as ambassador to the UK and her turbulent marriage to a political star” – does have SIPA ties. In October 2023, creator and showrunner Deborah Cahn was among the panelists on “Women Shaping Diplomacy,” a highlight of the Institute of Global Politics’ Inaugural Summit. And, earlier this year SIPA dean Keren Yarhi-Milo visited the set of the show to talk show with the cast.
Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War (Netflix)
This Netflix docuseries follows up on the first Turning Point series, which explored 9/11 and its aftermath. This riveting 2024 installment takes on the Cold War and its impact in extensive context, much of it provided by SIPA’s own Timothy Naftali. Naftali, senior research scholar and member of IGP’s Faculty Advisory Board, is a well-recognized presidential historian and pioneer in the study of modern international and espionage history. His expert commentary, especially on the intersection between presidential politics and the threat of nuclear war, is a highlight of a series that propels viewers through decades of history, from the Russian Revolution to the war in Ukraine.
The Year of the Dog (multiple platforms)
Rob Grabow MPA ’11 wrote, codirected, produced, and is a lead actor in the 2022 feature film The Year of the Dog, “a heartwarming, independent feature about two strays: an alcoholic man struggling to maintain sobriety and a rescue dog with an unusual athletic gift.” Grabow has described the film as a “reminder that we all have a lot of stuff going on in our life; people are experiencing pain in many different ways, and I hope this film is a reminder that we can relate to each other from that place.” The film also features a song from fellow alumnus David Lavin MIA ’11, “Wish I Were Blind.”
Agents of Chaos (HBO)
Agents of Chaos, a two-part 2020 documentary from director Alex Gibney that examines Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election, features interviews with two SIPA professors: Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, professor of international and public affairs and chair of IGP’s Faculty Advisory Board, and Camille François MIA ’13, associate professor of practice of international and public affairs and IGP Affiliated Faculty member. In a September 2023 conversation with Gibney moderated by Jonathan Capeheart of the Washington Post, François said of Russian election interference, “What’s interesting is how all of this worked together as a system for many years to target the divisive and polarizing topics in the American conversation and to create chaos in division using social media.”
A Thousand Cuts (PBS Frontline)
Maria Ressa – Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist; cofounder, CEO, and president of Rappler; and professor of professional practice – “places the tools of the free press on the line in defense of truth and democracy” in this 2021 PBS documentary by Ramona S. Diaz. The film documents how Ressa “became a prime target of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on the press.” In the film, Ressa says, “What we’re seeing is a death by a thousand cuts of our democracy. When you have enough of these cuts, you are so weakened that you will die.” But she refuses to leave it at that: “We will not duck; we will not hide. We will hold the line,” she vows.
Succession (HBO)
The hit HBO drama ended its acclaimed run last year with a prescient message about the relationship between democracy and the media, a theme that goes back to the show’s first season. In season one’s “Prague” episode, Shiv Roy (played by Sarah Snook, currently starring on Broadway in a solo adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray visits a fictional “Columbia SIPA” with US presidential candidate Gil Eavis (played by actor and playwright Eric Bogosian).