In the rich cinematic tradition of the Hollywood conspiracy theory, there has always been a sort of wink and nod towards the audience regarding the absurdity of the premise, a recognition that despite the film accepting a conspiracy’s reality for the duration of its runtime, the audience should disregard and even laugh off the premise of the film once out of the theater. This view towards conspiracy can be found in all sorts of films; from completely invented conspiracies in John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate to movies depicting fringe beliefs truly held by some as in Oliver Stone’s JFK. Stylistically, these films often share similar melodramatic techniques, with bold cinematography and avant-garde editing giving a semi-ridiculous flair to these films. Conspiracy, for lack of a better term, is almost always treated as camp.
The exception to this rule is the glorious run of conspiracy films that came out of Watergate in the 1970s. As trust in the US government collapsed, the American public received an unprecedented run of films that reflected anxieties around the lack of information: The Day of the Jackal (1973), Serpico (1973), The Parallax View (1974), Chinatown (1974), The Conversation (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), All the President’s Men (1976), and Network (1976) are some of the most prominent examples. While some of these films are outwardly political in nature, others treat the increasing paranoia of the time as a way to invest personal stories on a smaller scale with deeper meaning. Many of these films take inspiration from the film noir genre and feature grizzled male protagonists who fall deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, chasing something beyond them, but that they cannot help but want to expose. As a rule, the filmmaking here treats its subjects seriously, even as New Hollywood stylistic features shake up studio norms. The inventiveness of particular shots or directorial choices is often fun, but never meant to lampshade the severity of the plot. As the American news cycle revolved around Watergate for a few years, conspiracy was no longer a laughingstock, it was reality.
Following Nixon’s resignation in 1974, the paranoia of the 70s gave way to a notable lack of conspiracy on film going into the early 80s. When the genre would return it would be through true-genre pictures like They Live (1988), with premises involving aliens and mind control, not the grounded detective stories of the 70s. This trend would continue, with some notable exceptions, until last year, when the world seemed to be back on conspiracy theories again. A secret white nationalist society controls the US government in One Battle After Another, aliens have infiltrated humanity’s wealthy elite in Bugonia, and Antifa death squads terrorize a small town in Eddington. What is shocking about these films however, is that each film, while containing significant moments of comedy in their portrayal of conspiracy, play their conspiracies straight for the most part.
In these films, who is executing the conspiracy? Billionaires and political elites. Emma Stone’s alien CEO and the shadowy organization behind the data center in Eddington represent the same modern anxiety: the rich have a grand design to retain wealth at the expense of the “common man.” The political elite in One Battle After Another, meanwhile, operate a hidden second government modeled after societies like the elks, based in racist ideology. Even as ridiculous things happen in these films, the audience is trained to treat the threat behind these organizations as horribly real. This is reflective of the absurdity of the world we live in, in which political decisions are communicated via twitter, big tech knows every American’s next thought, and the DHS posts meme edits encouraging ethnic cleansing as a propaganda tool. American society in 2025 is beyond parody; it satirizes itself. While in previous years, conspiracy might have been a laughing matter, when mainstream politics is invaded by fringe beliefs, an audience can accept almost anything.
With the conspiracy films of 2025, we are witnessing the beginning of a generational break in trust with establishment figures in our media. It is not a surprise that in our post-Epstein files world, where the general public now has direct evidence that the elite class actively commits horrible crimes on a consistent basis, that our film environment would reflect the growing rift between those who watch films and the patrician class. I anticipate that we will see more and more conspiracy themed films in the coming years as the American public reckons with itself and where it is going. Will film help us recognize the insanity of the inane world we inhabit or will this budding thematic concern be killed in the bud through government intervention? Only time will serve to tell, but it is clear that what was once kept cloistered from the public has been brought out into the light.