FILM DONALD TRUMP TRIED TO BLOCK FROM RELEASE NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIX

A film about Donald Trump that the US President tried to block from being released is now streaming on Netflix.

Released in cinemas last year, The Apprentice documents Trump’s rise to becoming a successful real estate businessman in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s.

Sebastian Stan portrayed Trump, with Jeremy Strong as his attorney Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova as his first wife, Ivana.

Directed by Ali Abbasi, the film was originally announced in 2018 but didn’t move forward until 2023.

When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year, reviews called it ‘compelling’, ‘sobering’, and a ‘knockout’. It also received an eight-minute standing ovation.

However, it contained plenty of controversial scenes that show Trump getting liposuction and a ‘disturbing’ depiction of non-consensual sex with his wife.

Due to this, the film faced an uphill battle to secure an American distributor, with Trump’s legal team also trying to block it from hitting screens.

It was eventually released in October 2024, which came just a few weeks before the November 5 election.

Trump claimed that the timing was done to ‘try and hurt’ his campaign. He also called the film a ‘defamatory, politically disgusting hatchet job’.

Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said it was ‘garbage’ and claimed it ‘sensationalises lies that have been long debunked’.

He added: ‘This “film” is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire.’

Despite Trump and his team doing their best to downplay the film, it was nominated for two Oscars, two Golden Globes and three Baftas.

The Apprentice being added to Netflix is a move that could enrage the US President. Trump’s attorneys initially sent a cease-and-desist letter to the filmmakers in the hopes of blocking its release in the US.

At the time, the producers said: ‘The film is a fair and balanced portrait of the former president.

‘We want everyone to see it and then decide.’

When asked about playing Trump, Sebastian Stan explained it was a ‘well-crafted character built from rage and years of suppression’. The New York Times also asked the actor about Trump’s scathing response to the film.

Stan responded: ‘If the movie is really just sort of so irrelevant, then why warrant that reaction from him to begin with?

‘It might be because the truth hurts, and there is something truthful to the movie, one of them probably being that, you know, he doesn’t like anyone else taking credit for the way he is.’

2025-11-11T17:22:29Z